Jodie Smith.
How do new technologies enhance your understanding of graphic design and how do they relate to your own contemporary practice?
With the creation of new technologies art has changed through out the years. One example of this is ‘collage.’ Over time collage has been developed into what is known as Photomontage and digital art.
Collage began with the creation of paper and since then has never stopped being developed. During the tenth century calligraphers would use paper glued onto the surface to create their poems. This is often overlooked as collage was believed to have began with the movements ‘Modernism’ and ‘Cubism.’
Picasso was thought to have started the trend of overlapping different materials and elements such as labels, paint and postal stamps. Picasso and Braque were thought to have been the ‘pioneers of the pasted revolution.’
Pablo Picasso Guitar, sheet music and glass 1912.
During the beginning of the 1900’s type and graphic were being mixed within art. In 1922 artist Mayakovsky used photographs instead of illustrations in commercial work. This is when we see a change and the start of graphics and art combined. Klutisis produced the poster ‘The electrification of the entire country’ in 1920, which experiments with photomontage. Constructive photomontage
‘By photomontage we mean the use of photographic print as a figurative means. The combination of snapshots changes the composition of graphic images.’
Collages now involved content within the design, those designs were complex and philosophical. The new technology of the photograph meant that consumers could now see reality. They now had some relation to the image. This was a new way for designers to draw in their audience ‘an advertisement with a photograph of an object is more powerful than a drawing.’
Insert image.
Once the forties hit culture there was a new lifestyle and new technical possibilities in mass production and consumption of printed materials such as magazines, publications and printed labels.
In 1956 Richard Hamilton a famous pop artist created the work ‘Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’ In this piece of work there are a collection of different photographs. The floor is a photo of the beach taken from quite a distance whilst on the walls you can see many current (at the time) advertisement.
‘Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’
Richard Hamilton 1956.
The artwork ‘Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’ always intrigued me. There is so much there that you are constantly finding new elements of detail. It was the first time I had seen a mixture of images, type and photographs. Using mixed media came up in my own work subconsciously.
For a project I over lapped photographs on a piece of material to create a poster and leaflet. It was not as busy as the piece by Richard Hamilton but traces of collage were present. The look I was trying to convey was a fantasy of the place that was being advertised in the poster. Using the image of the place it’s self in black and white to show its age, and it’s vintage side, to represent the surroundings images of flowers were enlarged and placed around the house, showing how the house is centred in a garden.
Piece of my own work, 2008.
During the 1960’s new technical processes such as photo-silk-screen, photo litho and computer graphics changed the way collages would be created. Fine art began to be moved into generic image techniques. The collage ‘effect’ moved into a wider culture, appearing in magazines and films. A bond formed with fine arts and the modern technology.
“Giant printing machines produce proofs several meters long… the colour photo related endlessly fascinating material, without any boundaries.”
Digital art was the next stage in the development of collage. Commercial work was being created from computer manipulation; in 1982 the cover of the National Geographic was created through that process. This involved a photograph being digitally altered. This could come across as a lie to some as what was thought to be ‘hard visual evidence’ could now in fact be a manipulation.
Digital art often created with the software and programming from Adobe. With these programmes images can be assembled and manipulated. Thomas Knoll created the software ‘Photoshop’ in 1987, which would a few years later be bought by Adobe. During 1990 Photoshop 1.0 was released, this would change how design was produced. This is the start of designers being reliant on software an no longer being as productive and creative with their own hands. Images can be transformed and changed, even changing the elements of materials. During the 1990’s artists began to understand and master new technologies on the computer software. Artists took advantage of these new developments and layering images could be applied. Artists no longer had to spend hours in the dark room to develop their photos; it could all be done digitally. With the dark room if light accidentally got exposed on the film beforehand, that would be the film ruined. Digitally all you have to do is upload the photo, from there it can be cropped, have an edit over the top, easily change it to black and white. If you wanted to crop an image after processing the film in the dark room you would have to crop it by hand or align paper over the photo paper whilst exposing it, not always giving you what you want.
Photomontage emerged with the movement Dada, often designed to resemble the resolution and the chaos around it. From 1922 photomontage was becoming part of graphics. The famous Bauhaus used this new media in some of their works, the combination of typography and photomontage alongside the traditional arts.
Photomontage can be described in many different ways due to the mixture of its contents. It doesn’t just involve a photo, its cut outs, angles, overlaid negatives. Reproduction was made through photography and then printing.
As photomontage grew the artists no longer settled on using others images. Initial the artists used photos cut out from magazines or other advertisements, but now some took the photographs into their own hands. The artist Moholy-Nagy was one of the artists that took up photography for his photomontage.
The twenties was about producing new visions and not regurgitating those before. Photomontage allowed artists to do this, from 1924 Moholy used this technique in posters and leaflets. From 1929 – 33 he made eight different covers for the magazine ‘die neue linie.’
This is true also for digital images, with the quality and definition of imagery increasing and starting to match those ‘real’ images, both being used in photomontages. ‘Artificial images’ and ‘digital images’ are becoming more alike.
For some designers digital art is just any method to use and not the only one. Creating the images by hand but then using the computer to digitally changes the sizes.
The use of collage could now be described as mixed media due to combining ‘creative’ designs with technology. In this example of my work you can see how I created patterns and shapes using graph paper and then scanning in it for the background. After that you then see a photo, which I have manipulated on Adobe software.
Insert bit of own work.
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