Taller Tupac Amaru

At USF's Thatcher Gallery, the collective art group Taller Tupac Amaru, is showcasing a number of their political posters spanning a decade worth of work. The mission of Taller Tupac Amaru is to try and revive the medium of screen printing through the creation of political posters as well as encourage social change. The issues covered span from immigration to Women's rights and are done in various different styles of screen printing. It is the believe of Taller Tupac Amaru, that artists and designers have the ability to use their talents to influence the public opinion and hopefully spur change.
Since we are on the subject of social change, I will delve into some readings that share the ideal of artists and designers having the power to create social change. The first reading of the week is "Mind Bombs: Woodcuts, Satirical prints, flyers, photo-montage, posters, and murals". This reading discussed the various forms of art that have been used in influencing public opinions and various social and political issues throughout time. Taller Tupac Amaru uses screen printing as it's medium of choice in spreading awareness.
The next reading was "The Citizen Designer", this reading focuses on how you engage society. It is believed that the artist and designer can do more than just create images. In fact, it can even be seen as the designer's partial responsibility to try and create change. With the Taller Tupac Amaru, they aim to try and do just that. The social and political issues worked on by the artist collective, are issues that tend to be the more prominent in today's society. By creating works that are not only colorful, but bold in graphic style, the collective has succeeded in spurring movements worldwide.

Timeline

             

Time for another entry, only this time it’s going to be about the class project that is currently being worked on. I am part of a design team for the Timeline project. The Timeline project is a historical timeline of designs or significant events that have made an impact on society. One to two people are assigned a decade in which they gather information on and organize it in a fashion useable by the design team. The design team creates the timeline for the class based on what is given.

            The process? For the design our process was to start looking at other examples of timelines so that we could get a feel for what design or style we wanted to try and work toward. After that, we came up with sketches as to what we felt might work. After trying different styles we come up with what details and information will be on the timeline. Work for the timeline is then divided among the members, in which one designs the symbols, another puts together a color scheme, and another creates the structure for the timeline and takes the information and organizes it.

Thoughts on assigned readings

Well it’s about that time again to get our minds thinking in all things design. This week I will be reflecting on some issues brought up in a few articles I have read over the past week. Designers are an important part of society and have been drivers for social and political change.

             Designers are talked about as important part of society that can help form the world around us, however some value in social change has been lost over the years due to ethics being put the wayside in order to obtain more of a paycheck as well as a sheer disinterest in current events. That’s not to say that all designers do this or that most don’t care, they do, just it’s not something that happens to be at the forefront of the mind. Another thing that seems to somewhat hinder people from designing things aimed more towards change, is the mindset that you have to be “professional” in everything you do. While being professional is certainly an important part of working, being professional also tends to mean to put emotions aside in favor of work. In most cases this is preferable, however, when it comes to things that involve social or political issues, emotions tend to be what drives and defines. Being professional in that situation usually means to keep quiet or go with the status quo. If designers can let their emotions be inspiration to create designs for change, then maybe it would help designers think about their designs more. But the same can be said for designers working for a brand. In the book “Obey the Giant” by Rick Poynor, brings up this issue in the introduction. Being a designer under a brand restricts and even prevents how you can express yourself. Not to say all brand corporations are as such, but a majority of these corporations have an image to up hold and will do what they can to ensure that image. While designers may be important, their role can sometimes be underplayed, as read in “Collectivism in the Decade of Greed”. The designer is described as a sort of “clean up” crew in the sense that companies want to promise something like a clean new world and it falls on the designers to try and present this “messy reality” as a clean ideal.

Design and Art (REDUX)

Design and art seem pretty similar and maybe even seem one and the same. However, there are differences between the two fields.

 Design uses color and form in way that has purpose, that's not to say that art doesn't have purpose, but design is typically used for commercial or functional purposes such as advertising, web design, graphic design, publication design...etc. While these can have their own little bits of artistic flare, they still need to be somewhat refined and be somewhat appealing to a wide audience. Many designs, especially print designs, will use universal symbols that every culture can identify with. For instance the "P" for parking is used everywhere in the world and no matter what language you speak, you still understand what it stands for.

Art, on the other hand, is not necessarily regulated or commercialized and gives it creator a little more freedom. Art has more of a purpose for expression, such as how modern art is often times a take on modern society as well as how abstract art can be an expression of emotion. Unlike design, it doesn't necessarily use universal symbols and can be limited to a selected viewing audience.

Both design and art are, of course, forms of art and though they have some contrasting aspects, they can both be used to create change. Design and it's universal qualities and art and it's expressive qualities can manipulate the emotions of an individual as well as speaking to an entire community. Design has helped in various ways such as, improving voter's ballots and raising awareness for various causes. Art has helped to create change by bringing about the next big style and influencing pop culture (think Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock...etc). Without art and design, there is not a lot that would have changed, nor made society into what it is today.

What should be on your mind (REDUX)

Hello everyone! This will be the first post of this blog. Now the question above isn't meant to force you think about this post specifically, but jump-start your mind into thinking about things of importance. In this case, this post is a mere example about design. I feel as a budding designer, that it would be important to think about the general audience in which you design for as well as trying to make your designs help society.

Design has been crucial for many things in societies around the world, such as ballots for elections and designing medical equipment. However, I'm not a designer of such things. That being so I am, by definition, a graphic designer and while graphic design may focus more on logos and other graphics(and oh so much more!), we still can make a significant mark or change. There are many examples of how graphic designers have brought about benefit for the masses, but as time has gone on, many young or more recent designers go for aesthetic rather than what is actually being advertised. While reading the "First things first :Revisited" essay, by Rick Poynor, I began to think more about how design, especially design in the graphic or advertisement fields seems to have evolved into this idea of being just the next "cool" thing. I suppose anything that starts with good intentions can eventually get corrupt in some way. For instance, the way women's bodies are used to sell products around the world, which if course fits in with the "sex sells" strategy, but is it really necessary? Most would say that it wasn't if they were given the time to really think about it. Good design doesn't have to use things like subliminal messaging or "cheap" tricks to get a message across, sometimes good design works best when the message is clear to see. I feel people would appreciate designs that actually did some good and not just add to the pollution of misinformation.

How do we start creating a beneficial design? Well, let's first think about the topic of which your design should be based around. Now how can we transcribe a clear message about this topic without any flashy or distracting elements? Got something? Good! Now let's get crackin' on creating it. Good design shouldn't just focus on the thought and message, it should also focus on the materials used. How can this be efficient? Does it have to use paper? Would printing it on something, like a t-shirt, have a bigger impact? There are so many things to consider when creating a beneficial design. Often times the amount of effort is underestimated and sometimes even under-appreciated. Even if you don't have a project you aren't working on, it's still good practice to try and think about these things. Anyway, I don't know how effective this was in turning the gears in your mind, but I hope I could at least give some food for thought.