Random Link

That you might want to see it's kind of connected
(the previous sentence was all sung when i said it. No particular melody or timbre, please bring your own)

Image Bank 7- David Shrigley

The good stuff...

Some not so relevant stuff....still fun though

"David Shrigley's satirical, cartoon-like drawings are deliberately dysfunctional, dealing with the everyday doubts and fears of the human condition." BecksFutures award, 2000

David Shrigley's drawings are funny ha-ha and funny peculiar. They follow a long history of surreal cartooning from artists like Edward Lear and James Thurber to Spike Milligan, Roz Chast and Gary Larson. But his deliberately crude style often evokes more humble surroundings, back at school amongst the visual puns and wild scribblings on the inside covers of exercise books, or on the partitions between the booths in the dole office. They exist in a fantastic universe inspired by everyday boredom.

Shrigley studied at Glasgow School of Art and after college, began drawing a weekly cartoon for a Glasgow newspaper. With a simple toolkit of pen, pencil and paper he manages to be silly, charming and poignant in equal measure. This is the stuff of minor domestic tragedies and impossible heroes. His sparce images and accompanying texts offer match-box morality, warning us of the perils and paradoxes of being human, like advice from someone beyond help. "...For every moment of pleasure, for every morsel you have eaten, there is a bill in a brown envelope which must be xxxxx paid. If you cannot pay the price you should order something cheap like soup (£1.20 inc. bread)" Shrigley

"This artist takes on everything: memory and forgetting, love and hate, murder and preservation, god and godlessness." Will Self, 1998

Shrigley's work is even reminiscent of classics like Kafka's Metamorphosis or Samuel Beckett's Endgame, where the fantastical elements are less significant than the mundane and the focus is on the universal absurdity of everyday rituals and relationships.He has sympathy for anyone struggling with the complexities and contraditions of modern life where comedy and tragedy are just different takes on the same event.

Shrigley's awkward hand-drawn figures and messy scribbles, full of crossings-out are refreshing in an age where digital retouching and word-processing enable us to hide our imperfections and erase all mistakes. It is precisely the visible faults which make his work so appealing. Neatness is beside the point. Scale and perspective are irrelevant. His work is for everyone whose drawings always went wrong or whose sums never added up.

He highlights the nonsensical aspects of the human condition, particularly when he unmasks our attempts at making order out of chaos, with endless lists and rules:

"Missing from your life thus far: money, reason, qualifications" Shrigley
His work conveys the arbitrary nature of ordinary events which seem to make us the victim of fate. Rather than make art which helps us transend the reality of daily life, his work tries to shake us from the suspended state which helps us forget that reality. As he has said himself "...I'm more interested in the ridiculous than in the sublime."

Source: Digital Art Resource for Education (DARE)

It is exactly the interplay between word and image which makes David Shrigley's art so fantastic. e.g Two shakers, usually for Salt and Pepper, labelled Heroin and Cocaine, or a man like figure with another in a headlock, labelled Prostitute and Client.

Image Bank 6 - Thierry Henri de Toulouse Lau Trec

Interesting that as a Hommage to Lau Trec, the artist here hasn't at all tried to copy Lau Trec's style, but still rendered by hand his letters. It's almost like s/he's saying (puts on Alan Partridge voice) "Look Henri, we're still rendering by hand"

Image Bank (five was it...?) - Steaders

The effortless mastery which with Ralph Steadman appears to render his letterforms is breathtaking...some people are too good for you to like them.

Whilst you're down this end of the woods....
"I have just recalled the two NIETZSCHE sayings which are part and parcel of all we are trying to say in our various ways.

1. We possess ART lest we perish from the TRUTH.
2. It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are permanently justified."

Ralph Steadman extract from his website. Not particularly relevant, but I thought it was worthy of mentioning. (or is that extracting...?)

Image Bank 4- Milton Glaser

Image Bank 3- Paul Rand

I like this one. He has the same first name as me:

Paul Rand August 15, 1914 - November 26, 1996

Paul Rand is a "Seminal figure in American graphic design who explored the formal vocabulary of European avant-garde movements including cubism, constructivism and de stijl and developed a unique, distinctly American graphic language. His work is characterized by wit, simplicity and a Bauhaus approach to problem solving.

Educated in New York at the Pratt Institute 1929-32, Parsons School of Design 1932-33, and the Art Students League 1933-34, with George Grosz."

Source: Livingston, Alan and Isabella, 2003 (Third Edition), Graphic Design and Designers, London, Thames & Hudson (p182)

"Rand was strongly drawn to principles of design found in the European Modern Movement in the early 1930s. He brought these principles to the magazines he was art director for (Esquire and Apparel Arts) and book jacket design. His designs broke from a symmetrical arrangement of isolated elements of image and type, bringing them together into a dynamic continuum, by mixing a simplistic yet expressive combination of color field, symbol, and type.

He designed a series of covers for the bimonthly cultural magazine Direction. This work was distinguished by his use of Photomontage, full-bleed, and historical reference.

In the 1950s, he began undertake corporate identity work. He designed a group of logos for important American institutions. He used the principles of simplicity, ease of recognition, and absolute appropriateness to their subject matter. Many of these logos are still in use today including logos for Westinghouse, UPS, ABC, Next Computer, Yale University, Cummins Engine, and his most famous IBM."

Source: The Design Encyclopedia (Web)

Image bank 2- Sara Fanelli

The tiny characterised letterforms instantly set the tone for Fanelli's work, fitting in beautifully with her illustrations.

Harvard Citation ala JMU

name/s of author/s, editor/s, compiler/s (surname, and initials or given name), or the institution responsible
year of publication
title of publication and subtitle if any (all titles must be underlined or italicised)
series title and individual volume if any
edition, if other than first
publisher
place of publication
page number(s) if applicable

"A Mano" Handwritten...what a useful little book

A few quotes from said book....

"Going directly from hand to paper (or wood, stone, textile) is the most effective way of achieving unfettered communication" (p6)

"Typesetting is official; handlettering is informal. Typesetting is mechanical; handlettering is expressive" (p7)

(handlettering in design can be done by) "fine typographers who use this form as a respite from the rigours of more conventional design, others are novices, who do not possess the skill level to do anything more finished" (p9)

"Scrawl is recognised as an acceptable typographic form when a leading design organisation, in this case D&AD (see Marion Deuchars post), uses it in its annual report. These scrawls are both demonstrative & subdued to contrast with the slick design work" (p13)

"in the current design milieu, most handwork is not as much about polemics as it is about a formalist response to digital perfection. With so many templates on the market designed to insure a pedestrian standard of competant design, the need to break free from the grid has driven some to seek sublime imperfection. As an alternative to mediocrity, flawed artistry is better than conformist predictability."

A few people to check out....

William Addison Dwiggins
Paul Rand
Alex Steinweiss
Alvin Lustig
Ralph Steadman (I love him)
Henri de Toulouse Lautrec
Jules Chiret & Alphonse Mucha

A few words I didn't know...(I know, the sad state of British Education. I'm one of the good ones, too.)

Polemic- A controversial discussion/ verbal or written attack (politics)

Serendipity- Unexpected discoveries by accident (also serendipitous, and serendipitously)

Notes

Early on this book the history of handwritten letterforms in design is briefly described, splitting its use into three main manifestations:
1. The presence of the artist's hand, intergrating art, design and message into seamless composition- quoting the "great advertising posters of the late-nineteenth century"
2. The deliberate rejection of official type to convey emotion and expression in often dispassionate media; generally political manifestos.
3. Economy, citing examples of 70s psychadelic posters and posters of protest.

It moves on to describe how modern use of hand rendered letters inject individuality and identity. (see quote above)

Dets

Heller, Stephen & Illic, Mirko, 2006, Handwritten, expressive lettering in the digital age Thames & Hudson, London

Image Bank 1- Marion Deuchars

I love Marion Deuchars. She was obviously first in the queue when God was handing out hand drawn scrawl abilities.






D&AD Annual Report



Fourth Estate



Penguin Book Classics: George Orwell Series - look at the pencil marks!!!



Ooooooo they're nice numbers. Planeta Annual Reportaje



You're An Animal Viskovitz



Teheran Story



Barbican Art Centre Poster

Jean Paul Satre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980), normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. He was a leading figure in Twentieth-Century French Philosophy.

Jean Paul Satre-quite an interesting read for the uninitiated, like me


Satre' Autobiography is called "Les Mots", or "The Words"

Deuchars chose to use the Spanish version- "Los Palabras"...why? Is Losada a Spanish Publishing company? Am I being stupid? Anyway...this is by the by....