Language of vision (Design writing research)
Identify general principles that inform the practice of design
"The body of theory established within the modernist pedagogical tradition in intrinsically hostile to an historical approach to graphic design. In our profession, as in architecture and the fine arts, the move toward greater historical awareness is linked to a review of modernism."
Graphic design as a profession appeared out the modern art movement in the early 20th century, has evolved over the last 50 years
theoretical base from avant-guard movements - constructivisum, de stijl and bauhaus.
core abstract principles written about are based on abstract painting and gestalt psychology
Modern design theory - Gyorgy Kepes's Language of vision (1944), Rudolph Arnheim's Art and visual Perception (1954), and Donis Dondis's A Primer of visual literacy (1973)
Focus on perception over interpretation
"Modern design pedagogy, an approach to form making validated by theories of perception, suggests a universal faculty of vision common to all humans of all times, capable of overriding cultural and historical barriers."
"A study of design orientatented around interpretation, on the other hand, would suggest that the reception of a particular image shifts from one time or place to the next, drawing meanings from conventions of format, style, and symbolism, and from its association with other images and with words."
Modern design theory - perception
Historical + cultural - interpretation
Kepes, Dondis, Arnheim - employed gestalt psycology
"For all three of these writers, as for numerous others working in this tradition, design is, at bottom, an abstract, formal activity; text is secondary, added only after the masterly form."
"A theory of design that isolates visual perception from linguistic interpretation encourages indifference to cultural meaning."
Discussing the importance placed on image over text - the image is the design, text a secondary thing. if you take only text or only image you lose sensitivity to 'cultural meaning'
Rudolph Arnheim's Art and visual Perception (1954) - if an image requires textual information in order to be understood, it is not "a valid representation, because it does not refer to the true "visual concept".
visual perception is how we experience the world - language nearly organises it
Design writing research seems to disagree - our understanding of perceived objects is built up by the culture in which we live
Design theory orientated with cultural interpretation would concern it's self with the convention and history around design.
Gyorgy Kepes's Language of vision (1944) - design is a language made up of vocabulary (elements) - dots, lines, shapes, textures, colours - and grammar (contrasts) - instability/balance, asymmetry/symmetry, soft/hard, heavy/light
"Just as the letters of the alphabet can be put together in innumerable ways to form words to convey meanings, so the optical measures and qualities can be brought together… and each particular relationship generates a different sensation of space."
Donis Dondis's A Primer of visual literacy (1973) - seeing abstract forms (i.e. disengaged from a context of social use) is a sophisticated skill - requiring rational analytical thought. Russian village experiment - literate people saw the abstract, illiterate people related shaped to objects.
Herb Lubalin - graphic designer famous for using word as image and image as word - no distinction between language and vision (the term visual language creates a distinction)
theory vs intuitive common sense
theory - tool for generating ideas + tool for analysis
Hanno eases (director of the visual communications program at nova scotia college) uses writing terms to describe design - "pun" / "metaphor" students can then produce visual/verbal "arguments" and figures of speech
Work is intensified when visual and verbal expression are linked (use theory to do this…?)
Lasse Passage feat. Johanne Birkeland - Say Say Say (Music video) dir. Lars Åndheim & Christoffer Lossius (2011) from Lars Åndheim on Vimeo.