In class: Discuss readings and review summaries/annotations (posted as comments)
Douglas McMurtrie, 1929, "The Philosophy of Modernism in Typography" (book)
Maurice Dufrene, 1931, "A Survey of Modern Tendencies in Decorative Art," Form and Function, edited by Benton and Sharp, Open University Press, 1975. (reader)
Harold Van Doren, 1940, "Streamlining," Form and Function, edited by Benton and Sharp, Open University Press, 1975 (reader)
We started out the class by looking at Charlie Chaplin's film, Modern Times. The film, released in 1936, opens on a highly mechanized modern manufacturing facility in which The Little Tramp toils as a human cog among other cogs in the machine of widget production. The film reflects the ideals of modernity in American culture upon which the readings comment and reflect: Speed, efficiency, the loss of spiritual and artistic values.
We discussed values and how different design ideas reflects the values – what matters to those individual designers and what they believe is the "right" or "wrong" way to design (verb) or the way design (noun) looks. In groups of two or three, members of the class analyzed different posters to ascertain what the values of the designer might be. For example, one of the posters was very colorful, formally playful, ambiguous, and difficult to read. Obviously, the values of this designer opposes a value that design should deliver the message efficiently, in favor of design is more impulsive.
