Week 5: Visual Writing

Weekly learning objectives

By the end of this week you should be able to:

Discover and analyse the relationship between written content and form, and identify the importance of structure, pacing and tone of voice when developing a piece of editorial content.
Research the output of authors and publishers who cater for a professional design audience, students and followers of visual culture.
Analyse how the relationship between typeface selection, layout, colour, materials, navigation and format can aid communication.
Deliver a short written article that explores the relationship between content and form.

Lecture introduction

In the last brief we looked at how typography and information design can be utilised to effectively communicate a sense of place, story or message. This lecture, the first of four, will explore visual writing.

Explore the genre of written communication and design, and specifically graphic designers who write;
Examine the interrelationship between critical writing and design;
Showcase case studies of authors and publishers who cater for a professional design audience, students and followers of visual culture;
Showcase examples of how designers use digital, print and production techniques to tell a story;
Study practitioners who explore a collaborative approach to their work.

Written Communication: Making, researching using words, publishing and new discourse

What drives an artist or graphic designer to write about visual culture?

The role of the author and in the traditional sense, the writer, is often considered beyond the realm of the graphic designer.

Art manifestos, books and periodicals about modern art and encouraging lively debate between art, design & politics.

Revolution, rebellion.
Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, Suprematism.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

Le Figaro – Futurist manifesto

Vorticism – Wyndam Lewis (?), 1914

Machine + urban environment

Lewis’ BLAST Magazine: ‘The new vortex plunges into the heart of the present to reproduce a new living extraction’.

Dramatic type blast or bless the subjects.

Theo van Doesburg

De Styl – 90 issues from 1917-1932, never sold more than 300 copies

Reduction of form and colour.

Systematic design – Modernism

Jan Tschichold – Die Neue Typographie

Condemns the use of multiple typefaces

Swiss Style.

Emil Ruder, Zurich
Communicate ideas through writing

Paul Rand
‘A logo only becomes meaningful after it’s used’

‘At first it had no stripes and I just didn’t like it, there was something wrong with it’

Adrian Shaughnessy – Sampler Series.

Unit Editions with Tony Brook from Spin

Oldham (more below)

‘Design is such a middle class profession’

‘Increasingly frustrated, tired…’

‘Everybody thinks they’re nice, everybody thinks they work hard…’

Octovo Redux, 8 issues 1986-1992.

Simon Johnson, Mark Holt and Hamish Muir.

Demonstrated their experiments in typography.

Stuart Tolley – Collector’s Edition

Celebration of the tangible nature of print.

Budget limits brought about the idea of getting featured artists to draw on the cover to represent their case study within it.

Sir Paul McCartney
Stanley Donnwood
Peter Gabriel
Designers Republic
Alex Soft
Jessica Hisch
Wayne Coin

10 in total.

Week 5: Resources

Read | Watch | Listen

TOC 2011: Anna Gerber & Britt Iverson, “Visual Editions: Part Revolution, Part Reinvention…”

Outside: typical paperback book but the inside is a little different.

Gives you a shorter story, but a better depth and experience than an ordinary book would do.

The Idea: Took ‘The Street of Crocodiles’ = the original book, then ‘carved out’ a new story from it. Pushes the boundaries of what a book could be.

New Zealand Book Council

Animates the story rising out/being cut from the pages.

‘Gets the tactility and feel of the paper through on-screen’

3rd book (repro of this original), a book in a box published in the early 60s – the reader creates the stories from a box of pages.

What’s Important: a quality, sense of detail and narrative.

Shirley McEye (?) – (Girl in green). Designer/illustrator/writer – trying to put together books which merge all her skills.

‘Children’s Stories Gone Wrong’

Nicer Tuesdays: Craig Oldham on Books

‘Sorry…’

(Leslie Bolton – Baton/Horse) Photo By John Harris
Paul Morton – Victory to the Miners

‘A lot of this [graphic design] industry doesn’t have something to say. And a lot of stuff that they do doesn’t mean fucking anything to them, and that’s a real waste of the talent’

‘Did I represent my dad right, did I represent my mum right…?’

Adrian Shaughnessy – The graphic designer as writer, editor and publisher

Lived through three big changes: late 80’s, the computer; 10 years later, the internet; the third great change, automation…

The design process is being automated, created with AI, remotely.

Use the graphic design brain and sensibility to do other things. You interact with different worlds and disciplines.

Take some and use it for ourselves.

Resonance FM

Magma London
Studio Culture

Distribution? Only place to buy their books = the Internet, kept their independence.

The audience is a design audience so they think about the way the books are packaged, so it’s a pleasurable experience as soon as you receive the package.

The process:

‘Anything good takes a long time’

Icons should always be able to be verbalised

A printed page is still a free landscape

Ref:

1. TOC (2011) Anna Gerber and Britt Iverson, Visual Editions: Part Revolution, Part Reinvention, Part Making it Up Along the Way, [online video]. Available at TOC 2011: Anna Gerber & Britt Iverson, “Visual Editions: Part Revolution, Part Reinvention…” (Links to an external site.) [Accessed 31 January 2019].

2. It’s Nice That (2015) Nicer Tuesdays: Craig Oldham on Books, [online video]. Available at Nicer Tuesdays: Craig Oldham on Books (Links to an external site.) [Accessed 31 January 2019].

3. Element Talks (2017) Adrian Shaughnessy – The graphic designer as writer, editor and publisher, [online video]. Available at Adrian Shaughnessy – The graphic designer as writer, editor and publisher (Links to an external site.). [Accessed 31 January 2019].

Week 5: Workshop Challenge

The Challenge

This week we want you to generate written and visual content that explores the relationship between content and form.

Please consider your choices about form, layout, typeface selection, colour approach, materials and medium, in order to effectively tell your story. Ensure all components of your writing are embedded into the overall narrative, from tone of voice through to structure and pacing.

Write the first two paragraphs (approx. 400 words) of an article exploring one of the following themes:
1. A news story
2. A children’s story
3. A launch document for a new brand
4. A love letter
5. A business plan
6. A diary
7. A manifesto
8. A speech
Present the story by itself (In-Design file, for example).
Develop a simple design sketch of your final design proposal that explores the relationship between your written content and design form.

Written & visual to explore relationship between visual and form: How can you use GD and production to aid the effective communication of a story.

Show evidence of considering the choices about form, layout, typeface selection, colour, materials & medium in oder to effectively tell your story.

Pay attention to tone of voice, structure and pacing.

A ‘pretend’ article telling of one of the themes in the list.

Recognise the tone of voice for each subject would be very different.

Ie. Children’ book would be more frivolous and upbeat, whereas a launch doc for a new brand will be marketing driven, sales-y personality.

Choose and item, create a written story which explores it. Present the story by itself as a page or layout.
Also sketch of a final design proposal that explores the relationship between the written piece and the design form. When writing the piece, consider what it’s going to look like and how the design can aid the content.

Samples: Irma Boom

SHB Think Book

Instagram press machine?

Don’t be too literal and too obvious.

Ghostly International

Unique code to access full version online.

So what am I doing?

I’ve chosen to look into the theme of a Manifesto, I think it’s a tone of voice I need to get the hang of for future projects of my own; I’m not so good at gee-ing things up, I tend to point out where things went wrong or that they’re, on the whole, just crap.

I need to stop doing that because if I’m not convinced, how can I convince others?

What makes a manifesto?

A pamphlet
A leaflet
A banner
A message

Does it have to look home-made to be anti-establishment?

I think a [genuine] protest sign of cardboard and poster paint, sellotaped to a scrap of 2″x1″, shows the raw emotion of the ‘no choice I just have to do something!’ to voice an opinion or show a stance against, or even for, a politic or a movement.

Looking back at the range of examples from the miners’ strike, described passionately by Craig Oldham (above), we can see their banners evolve from the basic statements on scraps of cardboard to near-regimental flags, showing the sheer pride for their cause in the effort made to produce those banners which they marched behind – could these messages be brought together to be seen as the strikers’ manifesto?

And now it’s all over? Seen as ‘Folk Art’ from the lower classes of provincial northern towns. ‘Ooo that’s nice, did you do that all by yourself?’

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/how-striking-miners-north-east-8769533

I referred to ‘genuine’ protest signs earlier, why was that?

Is it becoming fashionable to protest? Punk’s anti-fashion statement became fashionable. Is the right to protest becoming fashionable, the march itself is the thing to be seen doing and not the standing for what the rest are marching for? Banners becoming akin to the produce of an artisan brewery or bakers, trimmed beards, full sleeve tattoos and living in Brighton (no offence Stuart).

‘I support my police’
https://news.trust.org/item/20161026124938-4p8yh

‘2016 Ready-To-Wear Collection’
https://www.vogue.co.uk/shows/spring-summer-2016-ready-to-wear/ashish/collection

‘I escaped the Nazi’s’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-40930948/charlottesville-death-marianne-rubin-89-joins-protests

‘Quite Cross’
Maybe? It’s just that we’re seeing more and more of these clever signs now…

I couldn’t believe it when doing my research I came across ‘Create Custom Campaign Posters for Free with Adobe Spark‘, more so that it was being offered free of charge…

Ok, nice to have a bit of help but does that not take the edge off a little? Like making it to the summit of Snowdon, by using the train. Is Adobe trying to help or have they seen a way to get its name in front of a new generation?

I don’t know, maybe they’re genuine but maybe they’re just be trying to get on a #hashtag. The modern version of the ‘Hello Mum’ banner in the background of a news bulletin.

Maybe you’ve just got to mean it…

My 400 words:

Alexa, how can I change the world…

We’re on the verge of extinction, we’re being fracked over, we’re led by donkeys.

Do what you can. Make it with what you’ve got. Protest whichever way you want to but whichever way you choose make sure you mean it. People with nothing but their beliefs have made a stand using whatever they could lay their hands on: cardboard and poster paint, Sellotape and markers, a bedsheet and the leftover emulsion from the tin in the shed.

Protest is everywhere; peaceful or otherwise it’s on the streets, on the news, online, on t-shirts. But is everybody genuine? Is everyone ‘for the cause’ or are some for themselves? Are many of todays banners just language to show who’s the most articulate, the most humorous, most intelligent, rather than a raw statement of a point of view? Look online and see the same meme on a stick in the UK, the US and Europe. You can use a template to ‘Design your own campaign poster now’; select a size and a and hey-presto, you DIY-download your very own protest banner.

What would it take to get you to a rally? Do you even need to be there or does a #protest tweet say enough about you?

Protests need impact. Led by Donkeys, a cool name and a cool concept. Four self-funded mates annoyed by Brexit. Shitting themselves as they pasted up their first billboard in the middle of the night: ‘we’re going to be arrested, our glue doesn’t stick, nobody will read it anyway’ as they sat at home waiting for Twitter to see what they’d done. And they carried on and the momentum took them way further than they imagined. Encouraged by social media to carry on, they felt they had to make more and more impact as their campaigns grew from an xx-sheet in xx (detail to follow), to projecting to the globe on the white cliffs of Dover. Extinction Rebellion; possibly the most fashionable looking and designer movement today, with printed rags pinned to stencilled clothes with button badges – it looks like the punk scene late 70’s/early 80’s. Is it becoming fashionable to protest? Punk’s anti-fashion statement became fashionable. Is joining the march itself the thing to be seen to be doing and not standing for what the march is standing for.

Does it matter? If it brings the numbers to a rally it brings the impact.

The story by itself…

(I hope this is what that meant.)

Work up an item made from the components of protest signs, etc.: corrugated cardboard covers with pages from stencilled cloth and embroidered words to typeset tweets, reference the different ways the protest messages have been made or broadcast.