Constraint Vs. Restraint Graphic Design Education and the Computer

Graphic Design and the Computer Constraint vs. Restraint Graphic Design Education And The Computer I have taken liberties with Webster’s denitions for and software but did change printers although 147 the purpose of making more clear the nature of the new one is still a dot matrix. Now that my my comments. Constraint is dened as the act of credentials have been stated, I can proceed with my holding back or repression because of external forces remarks in clear conscience.To loosely paraphrase or conditions. Restraint is dened as control over a well known axiom, They who fail to learn from one’s thoughts, actions or feeling – reserve, to curb, history are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. check or bridle, and this is internal to the individual. This certainly applies to design, and the concept is I am one of those persons who instinctively relates deserving of examination as it pertains to design, to plants and animals but totally freak out with typography, printing and computers. In many mechanical devices when they do not work. respects, the computer has created a similar dilemma This includes cars to refrigerators and everything in as that faced by Victorians – the sudden decrease of between. I am convinced that machines sense my constraints with a corresponding increase in options ineptitude and deliberately test me. With good because of new technology. I think we are seeing reason, I have a deep-seated belief in the inevitable today many of the same conditions that beset our perversity of inanimate objects such as any kind of forebears. In hindsight, we know they failed to disci- machine including computers. pline themselves when presented with a greater range of decision-making. My rst computer sat on the desk for a year before I turned it on. The computer was delivered to me in During the fteenth century there were numerous 1983 and turned on sometime during the Fall of 1984. constraints imposed on printers. Most of them It was an IBM hard disk with Word Star software. were physical and related to available technology. I learned word processing, – period. Twelve years Presses were primitive, paper was handmade, type later I was still using the same machine was made a letter at a time and illustration was restricted to woodcuts. Every aspect of printing was labor intensive and demanded great skill. During the Even with its excesses, letterpress printing was incunabula period, books were precious. Most were governed by a vertical and horizontal bias because of printed with wide outside margins so that edges lock-up. With the invention of lithography at the could be trimmed as they became worn or soiled. end of the eighteenth century and its perfection The combination of technological constraints, during the early years of the nineteenth century, the function and skills resulted in some of the most right angle constraints were eliminated.With beautiful books ever printed. There was a unique lithography, artists could integrate illustration with afnity between handmade paper, type, woodcut and type, create new letterforms, curve or bend lines of printing impression that has seldom been matched type. Conventional typographic materials could be since that time. The books themselves are works of printed letterpress and transferred to lithographic art.With each advance in the technology of printing, stone where it was combined with that of the artist. there were fewer constraints and lesser skills were Other than speed of production, there were few substituted for more difcult ones. Woodcuts were constraints for artists using lithography. Typography is the rst replaced by wood engraving or lithography, and By the 1870s, most standard typefaces were made in visual translation of later by halftone screen; text type was supplemented families of six or more styles of expanded, condensed, verbal communication, with decorative faces, and eventually, the hand-caster bold to lightface and ornamental. With the invention and traditionally, the was replaced by automatic type casters. Printing of electrotyping, the proliferation of designs and function has dictated style. presses moved from platen to drum and steam power availability of type rapidly multiplied. By the 1880s, With computers, replaced hand-operated equipment. Paper production major type houses published specimen catalogs three increased through the use of wood pulp with new to four inches thick illustrating thousands of styles, typography has become machines and processes. variations and sizes. movement, color, texture or shape with Evolution was relatively slow until near the end of From 1828 onward, large letters for posters, communication often the eighteenth century, and it was the nineteenth announcements, marketing and various other uses becoming subservient century in which dramatic changes took place. were cut from wood and mass produced. These Printing and type design were both stimulated by, letters regularly ranged from four to one hundred to decoration. and reflected, the growing industrial revolution. pica but some were much larger. Until this time, text As options increased because of improved type was viewed as texture and ornamental display technology, constraints on design became less of a type as decoration. With the large wooden letters, factor. Technology that expedited printing or reduced shape became another consideration.With the its cost was favored although it decreased quality. invention of paper made from wood ber, With more options, there was a corresponding and reliance on wood engravings as well as nely bastardization of design most commonly delineated ornamental typefaces, paper surfaces were demonstrated through complexity and mixing of calendered and smooth. Paper was produced in an styles. With greater production of marketing ever increasing range of sizes, grades and colors. ephemeral and various public notices, typographic None of them possessed the same qualities as the novelty became the rule rather than the exception. incunabula rag papers. Pedagogy Near the end of the nineteenth century, all design architecture illustrated their philosophy. Others was in a chaotic state. As constraints were eliminated believed that the source for all design was nature. by advancement in machines and processes, few Design was an interpretation and extension of restraints were imposed. Victorian values were a mix nature. It was believed that the principles for design of eclectic sources. The nineteenth century was a grew out of natural laws and that imagery should period of exploration, archaeology and colonization mirror nature. by Europeans. Contact with foreign and ancient cultures resulted in an exotic array of diverse imagery Yet another group believed that design should integrated into the design repertory of the day. incorporate and reflect new technologies, Traditional standards for value such as hand-formed materials and the industrial age. Key elements of embellishment by artisans were still popular. their philosophy were integrity of materials and During the nineteenth century, the same decorative substituting function for embellishment in design. effects could be done by machines. Intricate relief These principles became central to the philosophy of 149 was stamped in a second, and articial gems the Bauhaus. During the latter years of the substituted for real ones. John Ruskin was to say of nineteenth and early years of the twentieth century, Victorian design that ”…it was done without the there was a growing understanding for the need of labor that gave it honor.” restraints to establish order in design. A number of books were published promoting different Near the end of the nineteenth century, design chaos philosophies of design. Most books offered visual was nally acknowledged as such, and reaction began principles best described as recipes for design. to build. The counter action was led by various In one form or another, facets from several individuals and groups loosely identied as the movements were incorporated into the Bauhaus Arts and Crafts Movement. which emerged as the dominant voice for architecture and design in the twentieth century. It The revivalists, with William Morris as their was the Bauhaus that rmly established restraint as principal exponent, believed that printing should essential to the quality of design by making the return to the age of decadence for its means and values. distinction between function and embellishment. The Kelmscott Press was established within this context. Paper and ink were handmade, type and From around 1900 until the 1930s, there were decorative styles were based on those of the middle various art movements such as Dada, DeStijl, ages, and printing was done on a hand-press. Futurism, Bauhaus and others experimenting with type, letterform and design. Some individuals Another group felt that values had declined because represented more than one school at different times, of urban decadence, and that true values resided with or followed the philosophies of more than one peasants and were to be found in simple country life. movement at the same time. To regain morality, it was necessary to return to basic life styles and values. Folk art, home crafts and rustic Constraint vs. Restraint A diverse group of painters, poets, printers and as they could be produced more economically or typographers used type as visual texture, blocks of quickly, quality decreased. As new technologies type as shape or lines of type to show movement, replaced older ones, traditional values and methods letterform as shape, and combined them with color. tended to disappear while new values were created, Type and letterform became design elements serving and they seldom were superior to traditional ones in both as image and communication. Traditional use of many respects. type had always been supplemental in the sense of being separate but added to image. Graphic artists Adoption of new machinery and processes invariably from the design movements of early twentieth led to worker unrest as change usually meant less century and their works are to graphic designers workmen were required.

Load more