Graphic Act

Graphic Act

this task is our half semester work, we make research about graphic design, know the history of graphic design, what is graphic design, detail analysis definition of illustration, the function of illustration/drawing in graphic design and examine the way drawing/illustration has change from primitive to contemporary. we follow the time line, we get one new understanding of illustration.

Design is the designer personal or group has a purpose is different from the art of a kind of artistic creation based on business environment. Design is a kind of job or career, it is a kind of plastic activities with aesthetic feeling, use and memorial function.

Design is based on business and the public, for their services, to create business value and artistic value, is different from the scope of individual or part of a group of art appreciation.

Graphic design in addition to give a person a kind of beautiful enjoyment on the vision, more importantly, to the masses of consumers to convey a message, a kind of idea, so in graphic design, visual aesthetics, not only pay attention to the surface and the transmission of information should be considered, now the plane design is mainly has the following a few basic elements:

Is A,

 creative, graphic design, the first thing to do, no good ideas, there is no good work and ideas to consider the audience, media and cultural background in three conditions.

B,

 the composition, the composition is to solve the spatial relationships between and among graphics, color and text, do new, reasonable and unified.

C,

 color: good graphic design work on the use of color in a painting attention to reconcile, contrast, balance, rhythm and cadence.

Whether current newspaper advertising, mail advertising, or more often we see advertisement, etc., are all these elements through clever arrangement, configuration, combination.

Design is the combination of technology and art, is a product of commercial society, in a commercial society need art design and creation of ideal balance, need to be objective and restraint, the need to borrow the author of the mouth to speak for the client. Design and art is different, because the design is to comply with the aesthetic and practical, odd ideas, people-oriented, design is a kind of need rather than just decoration, decoration. Hasn't been completed, the concept of design need to excellence, constantly perfect, need to challenge themselves, to their declaration of war. Design of the key is found that only by constantly deep feeling and experience to do, impress other people is a challenge for the designer. Designed to let a person touched, enough detail can be moved on its own people, the impressive graphics originality, color grade can impress people, material quality can impress people, a variety of elements of the design of the organic combination of art. Also, the designer should understand more rigorous attitude itself more vibration can cause people's hearts.

task: history of Graphic design

         While Graphic Design as a discipline has a relatively recent history, with the term "graphic design" first coined by William Addison Dwiggins in 1922,graphic design-like activities span the history of humankind: from the caves of Lascaux, to Rome's Trajan's Column to the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, to the dazzling neons of Ginza. In both this lengthy history and in the relatively recent explosion of visual communication in the 20th and 21st centuries, there is sometimes a blurring distinction and over-lapping of advertising art, graphic design and fine art. After all, they share many of the same elements, theories, principles, practices and languages, and sometimes the same benefactor or client. In advertising art the ultimate objective is the sale of goods and services. In graphic design, "the essence is to give order to information, form to ideas, expression and feeling to artifacts that document human experience."

• what is Graphic design

Graphic design is a creative process between a client and a designer, traditionally completed in conjunction with producers of form (printers, sign makers, programmers etc.). Graphic design is created to convey a specific message (or messages) to a targeted audience. The field is also often referred to as Visual Communication or Communication Design. Graphic designers use various methods to create and combine words, symbols, and images to create a visual representation of ideas and messages. A graphic designer may use a combination of typography, visual arts and page layout techniques to produce a final result. Graphic design often refers to both the process (designing) by which the communication is created and the products (designs) which are generated.

Common uses of graphic design include identity (logos and branding), publications (magazines, newspapers and books), print advertisements, posters, billboards, website graphics and elements, signs and product packaging. For example, a product package might include a logo or other artwork, organized text and pure design elements such as images, shapes and color which unify the piece. Composition is one of the most important features of graphic design, especially when using pre-existing materials or diverse elements.

• detail analysis definition of illustration

An illustration is a visualization or a depiction made by an artist, such as a drawing, sketch, painting, photograph, or other kind of image of things seen, remembered or imagined, using a graphical representation. The word comes from the latin word illustra'tio, illu'stro meaning enlighten, irradiate. The Nowadays printing is the process for reproducing illustrations, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. Illustrations can be artistic images illustrating for example a text, poem, fashion, magazines, stamps or a book and very often illustrations were made for for childrens books. The aim of an illustration is to elucidate or decorate a story, poem or piece of textual information by providing a visual representation of something described in the text. Illustrations can also represent scientific images of flora, medicine or different processes, a biological or chemical processes or technical illustrations to give information on how to use something. Illustrations can be executed in different techniques, like watercolor, gouache, ink, oil, charcoal chalk or woodcut. Paintings are usually original works made on canvas or wood, while illustrations are printed. Illustrations are often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing.

• history of illustration

medieval codexes illustrations were called illuminations. Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and independently developed a movable type system in Europe, along with innovations in casting the type based on a matrix and hand mould. He also added illustrations to his printed books, usually woodcuts. During the 15th century, books illustrated with woodcut illustrations became available. The main processes used for reproduction of illustrations during the 16th and 17th centuries were engraving and etching. At the end of the 18th century, lithography allowed even better illustrations to be reproduced. The most notable illustrator of this epoch was William Blake who rendered his illustrations in the medium of relief etching.

Illustration by Santiago Martinez Delgado.

Walter Ratterman, oil on Canvas, ca1927, Woman at a piano in elegant interior. Illustration for Good Housekeeping magazine.

Early to mid 19th Century
Notable figures of the early century were John Leech, George Cruikshank, Dickens' illustrator Hablot Knight Browne, and, in France, Honoré Daumier. The same illustrators contributed to satirical and straight-fiction magazines, but in both cases the demand was for character-drawing that encapsulated or caricatured social types and classes.
The British humorous magazine Punch, which was founded in 1841 riding on the earlier success of Cruikshank's Comic Almanac (1827–1840), employed an uninterrupted run of high-quality comic illustrators, including Sir John Tenniel, the Dalziel Brothers, and Georges du Maurier, into the 20th century. It chronicles the gradual shift in popular illustration from reliance on caricature to sophisticated topical observations. These artists all trained as conventional fine-artists, but achieved their reputations primarily as illustrators. Punch and similar magazines such as the Parisian Le Voleur realised that good illustrations sold as many copies as written content.
Golden age of illustration
The American "golden age of illustration" lasted from the 1880s until shortly after World War I (although the active career of several later "golden age" illustrators went on for another few decades). As in Europe a few decades earlier, newspapers, mass market magazines, and illustrated books had become the dominant media of public consumption. Improvements in printing technology freed illustrators to experiment with color and new rendering techniques. A small group of illustrators in this time became rich and famous. The imagery they created was a portrait of American aspirations of the time.

• illustration art

Today, there is a growing interest in collecting and admiring original artwork that was used as illustrations in books, magazines, posters, blogs, etc. Various museum exhibitions, magazines and art galleries have devoted space to the illustrators of the past.

In the visual art world, illustrators have sometimes been considered less important in comparison with fine artists and graphic designers, the term "illustrative" sometimes being used as a negative critique. But, possibly in part due to the growth of video game and graphic novel industries, as well as a recent swing in value towards illustration in magazines and other publications over photography, illustration is becoming a valued, popular, and profitable art form that can acquire a wider market than the other two, such as in Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and the United States. Original illustration art from the best-known magazine illustrators is known to bring prices into the hundreds of thousands of US Dollars at auction. Norman Rockwell's work transcends even these high standards, with his painting "Breaking Home Ties" selling in a 2006 Sotheby's auction for USD15.4 million.[Norman Rockwell's Rising Value Prices Out His Museum Zac Bissonnette, AOL Daily Finance, 2-22-10] The best-known pinup artists such as Gil Elvgren and Alberto Vargas also bring tremendous prices at auction, with a number of Elvgren's works having sold for over USD100,000 in Heritage Auctions.[Heritage Auctions search page]

Sports-related illustration fromPunch Magazine circa 1910.

William Blake, Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing (1786)

A natural history of birds: Illustrated with two hundred and five copper plates, curiously engraven from the life. And exactly colour'd by the author Eleazar Albin

Little elves, playing with theChildren of the Forest (1910) by Swedish author and illustrator Elsa Beskow.

• Technical illustration

Main article: Technical illustration
Technical illustration is the use of illustration to visually communicate information of a technical nature. Technical illustrations can be component technical drawings or diagrams. Technical illustration in general aim "to generate expressive images that effectively convey certain information via the visual channel to the human observer".[Ivan Viola and Meister E. Gröller (2005). "Smart Visibility in Visualization". In:Computational Aesthetics in Graphics, Visualization and Imaging. L. Neumann et al. (Ed.)] Nowadays, many illustration programs are used to create technical illustrations due the need for detailed imaging and repeated updating. Besides the commonplace 2-D Adobe Illustrator, there are many 3-D computer graphics software that are often utilized to create illustration for textbooks, especially scientific ones.
Technical illustrations generally describe and explain the subjects to a nontechnical audience. Therefore the visual image should be accurate in terms of dimensions and proportions, and should provide "an overall impression of what an object is or does, to enhance the viewer's interest and understanding".[Industriegrafik.com website, Last modified: June 15, 2002. Accessed february 15, 2009]

• Illustration techniques

Digolo and Mazrui subcategorize illustration into the techniques, which are being applied, such as: drawing, painting, printing, and pasting.[Digolo & O. Mazrui (2005): Art & Design Forms 1 and 2, Page 51.] These techniques affect the art in various ways, being chosen for the different impact the chosen medium produces. The choice can be based on the requirements of the illustration, constraints of the artist, cost, or other factors.
Various illustration techniques have been available to the artist over the centuries. The invention of paper pushed its boundaries even further. Traditional illustration focuses on reproducible ways of creating illustration and can be classified into different types:
Engraving
Etching
Intaglio
Linocut
Pen-and-Ink Illustration
Sumi-E
Woodcut
Pen-and-ink illustration has been around in various forms. The Chinese Sumi-E can be attributed to this technique, incorporating the use of paints and dyes. Navigational maps have been produced using this technique in the 14-15th century.[Matthew Adam McLean (2007). The Cosmographia of Sebastian Münster, describing the world in the Reformation, Page 164.] The technique has not fallen out of disuse and is still popular with artists and illustrators, due to its simplicity of use, drying time, and visual impact. Modern artists use a brush, pen or quill to achieve the desired effects, samples see references.[Matthew Adam McLean (2007). The Cosmographia of Sebastian Münster, describing the world in the Reformation, Page 164.]


under the long research about graphic design and illustration, i learn a lot about it, so i get lots of famous companies logos, they all development from primitive to contemporary, become much more easy and clear.

here are logos of Microsoft company change from 1975 until today.

1975 – 1979

1980 – 1981

1982 – 1986

1987 – 2012

2012 –

Logo


Andrew Watson is a graphic artist, like the design of text, he has some funny made this icon, to tell us how Microsoft's new brand logo design: use apple Myriad Pro and make some adjustments. Microsoft actually use the font is Segoe, because the font more lovely and more interesting.

Microsoft adopted the so-called "Pac-Man Logo", designed by Scott Baker, in 1987. Baker stated "The new logo, in Helvetica italic typeface, has a slash between the o and s  to emphasize the "soft" part of the name and convey motion and speed."[Computer Reseller News Magazine. March 1987.] Dave Norris ran an internal joke campaign to save the old logo, which was green, in all uppercase, and featured a fanciful letter O, nicknamed the blibbet, but it was discarded.[Osterman, Larry (July 14, 2005)."Remember the blibbet". Larry Osterman's WebLog. Microsoft. Retrieved August 18, 2008] Microsoft's logo with the "Your potential. Our passion." tagline below the main corporate name, is based on a slogan Microsoft used in 2008. In 2002, the company started using the logo in the United States and eventually started a TV campaign with the slogan, changed from the previous tagline of "Where do you want to go today?".["The Rise and Rise of the Redmond Empire". Wired. December 1998. Retrieved August 18, 2008.] During the private MGX (Microsoft Global Exchange) conference in 2010, Microsoft unveiled the company's next tagline, "Be What's Next.".[Topolsky, Joshua (July 22, 2010). "New Microsoft brand logos, company tagline revealed at MGX event? (update: no new logos, tagline is a go)". Engadget. AOL. Retrieved August 2, 2012]

On August 23, 2012, Microsoft unveiled a new corporate logo at the opening of its 23rd Microsoft store in Boston indicating the company's shift of focus from the classic style to the tile-centric modern interface which it uses/will use on the Windows Phone platform, Xbox 360, Windows 8 and the upcoming Office Suites.[Meisner, Jeffrey (August 23, 2012)."Microsoft Unveils a New Look". The Official Microsoft Blog. Retrieved August 23, 2012] The new logo also includes four squares with the colors of the then-current Windows logo.[Eric, Steven H. (August 23, 2012). "NEW MICROSOFT LOGO REVEALED". Flapship.com. Retrieved August 23, 2012.] This logo is, however, not completely new - it was featured in Windows 95 commercials from the mid-1990s.

• 1987 - Microsoft "Pac-Man" logo, designed by Scott Baker and used from 1987 to 2012 with the 1994–2002 slogan "Where do you want to go today?".["The Rise and Rise of the Redmond Empire". Wired. December 1998. Retrieved August 18, 2008.]
• 2006–2011 - Microsoft logo as of 2006–2011, with the slogan "Your potential. Our passion."[Schmelzer, Randi (January 9, 2006)."McCann Thinks Local for Global Microsoft".Adweek. Retrieved August 18, 2008]
• 2011–2012 - Logo by Microsoft with the slogan "Be what's next."[Topolsky, Joshua (July 22, 2010). "New Microsoft brand logos, company tagline revealed at MGX event? (update: no new logos, tagline is a go)". Engadget. AOL. Retrieved August 2, 2012]
• 2012–present - Introduced on August 23, 2012, to symbolize the "world of digital motion" and Microsoft's "diverse portfolio of products".["Microsoft Unveils a New Look".Microsoft. August 2012. Retrieved August 23, 2012.]