Communication Design Department Blog / Glasgow School of Art
I was reading the ‘Glasgow Film Festival’ programme and noticed theyre showing a film called ‘Who Killed Nancy?’, I’m not sure if it’s documentary or by the looks of the artwork- animated?
Anyway, its showing at The Arches on Saturday 21st February alongside a screening of a Sam Taylor Wood short and by the sounds of it they’ll be followed by a live performance by a punk band. Might be a date for the diary.
Following Sam’s post about iTunes U, Justin Heideman from the Walker Centre got in touch about The Walker Channel archive. Another great resource – and was thinking – we could start showing these lectures in the studio at lunchtimes – a) Is anyone interested in that, and b) would anyone like to help be the ‘selecta’?
(N.B. for anyone not ‘down with it’, the ‘selecta’ as in ‘bo’selecta’ would be responsible for ‘choosing’ which lectures we ‘watch’. Can I get a rewind?)
Everyone’s favourite graphic agitator Jonathan Barnbrook features in a Berlin show called embeddedart. To what extent an exhibition like this (in a gallery context) can change peoples views on this topic, is debatable, but then perhaps the point is not to necessarily change anything.
A new(ish) service from Apple sets out to deliver free guest lectures from top schools around the world. There’s a whole range of subjects up there, but a channel that really stands out is the ‘Walker Art Centre: Architecture / Design’, with great lectures from Daniel Eatock, Stuart Bailey and David Reinfurt, Ed Fella and many more.
To access this stuff, open up iTunes and then go to, iTunes Store> iTunesU> Fine Arts> Graphic Design>
Or try this link.
Planning a trip to Berlin? I just received an email from a friend, recommending the Buchstabenmuseum (Type Museum), for some very very big examples of found lettering. You can read his blog post about it here, or see his Flickr pictures here.
VCTV is the home of Visual Communication Television, a channel programmed by Second Year Students on the Visual Communication course, as the name suggests.
“After Dutch holey cheese, there now is a Dutch font with holes as well.”.
Eco typography awaits. This means that filled counters are now an ecological no-no.
Graphic Design on the Radio, aswell as being broadcast on Resonance FM, is now available as (a partial) audio archive of past interviews. Interviewees include Stefan Sagmeister, Kim Hiorthoy, and Rick Poyner, and it’s hosted by Adrian Shaughnessy.
You’d be a fool to miss The Lighthouse Book Give Away. I’m going to head down to try and bag some books for the studio library, but if you’re around, might be worth popping in also.
This will be the new home of the (rather neglected) Degree Show blog.
I will try to keep the site updated with news and any decisions we make at meetings. All relevant posts will be placed under the category, Degree Show.
If anyone else would like to help then click here to find out how to contribute to this site.
The confusingly titled Glasgow 1999 Design Medal 2008 exhibition is currently running at the Lighthouse featuring work from some of last years Vis Com graduates.
A great observation from The Onion… most of these are very funny.
The Little Know-It-All isn’t someone I know. It is however a book I’d thoroughly recommend, as a resource that covers the technical intricacies of visual communication. Sometimes people like talking in terminology and trying to bamboozle with technical terms and jargon – this book busts through that to tell you what dot gain is, and what aspect ratio you’ll need to use if shooting in high definition. True, most of this stuff can be googled anyway, but it’s a nicely designed book and handy to have the info all in one place.
You can read an alternative review of it here.
Tons of visual stuff relating to the new president of the USA, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Most of this sourced via the excellent Design Observer.
Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.
James Houston, a graduate of 2008 is showing his work at Cryptic Nights at the CCA on Feb 5th.
Really interesting play on at Citizens Theatre called Sub Rosa, there’s a lot of hype around it so get tickets quick!
good morning, its officially the most depressing day of the year- january 19th- so thought i’d brighten it up with a bit of typography…this is the work of a lady called Lizzie Ridout (http://www.lizzieridout.com/) who i found through my favourite creative blog Its Nice That (http://www.itsnicethat.com/).
My brother and I have an ongoing competition to find the worst photostreams on Flickr… please join in. Look here.
BEWARE: taking part in this activity is a time black hole
For a while now, whenever I search the name of a town or city in Flickr, after a few photographs (usually pretty good) I come across a distorted photograph, blurred around the edges with a central point of focus. I wonder to myself, is this a model? And with such a high level of detail, the person responsible must be some sort of model making genius. But hang-on, one of the tags is “tilt-shift”, and wait, what’s all these groups the photo belongs to? “Tilt Shift Miniature Fakes” (6,917 members) and “Photoshop Tilt-shift” (245 members). Why are there so many people trying to make real life situations look so… miniature?
“VW Small Cylinder” by Monkey Traffic
I am wondering why tilt-shift has become such an phenomena. I wonder if there is anybody truly passionate about the concept of making something real resemble a surreal, miniature version of itself. In an attempt to find out more I go further into these groups and read some of the discussion topics. But all I can find here is discussions about the technique and process, such as, “How do I make people look plastic?” and my favourite “Automatic Tilt Shift Blur with Airplane Jet Engine Exhaust Method?”. Here I learn that the process is quite simple, you can either use specialist camera equipment or you can just use Photoshop. And as you probably suspect, most people use the latter. According to various tutorials, the trick is to blur the top and bottom of the image to create an impression of a short depth of field, whilst boosting the saturation so the image looks like a painted model.
I think in the explanation of the process I have found my answer. Technically, it is not a difficult effect to achieve, and I think this level of ease is what has prompted so many people (there are 17,000 photographs in one group) to simply ‘have a go’. There is no concept behind this technique, as well as there being no serious critique. They are simply made (with no concept) and then exist (with no purpose). And with the nature of images on the internet, they will always remain there, swimming around in Flickr and Google Image Searches, becoming more and more of a cliché every day.
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