Print Culture - Part 2

COP lecture 6: Print Culture part 2

Summary:

Looking into the more modern examples of printing and their place in society. Touching on the idea of of fast fashion/ commodities and how schemes have been put in place for the appreciation of slow made design and approaches, a step back to the hand curated and how this can be appreciated. A vital thing touched on is class basis and how the positives of tech can be a good thing, in relation to providing an artistic space that is available to all not just an elite, or does this lose the quality and skill that lays in our perception of a 'professional'. 

Print Culture & Distribution - Part 1

COP lecture 5: Print Culture & Distribution 

Summary:

The history of how print came to be, and the difference between elitist institutions and thus
class antagonism of the time, and the politicised working class culture. We looked into the democratisation of visual culture, through aspects like print capitalism, and photography opened up opportunities for the working class as it was affordable. The lecture also touches on ways of revolutionising socialist values through printing and community or cooperative production studios. 

Chosen Quote; Study Task - Finding Research Sources

Danesi, M. Popular culture: Introductory perspectives. Lanham, USA: Rowman and Littlefield. 

·       'Modern-day pop culture [...] is a mass culture, spread widely through the mass media and mass communications technologies. Pop culture would not have become so widespread without the partnership that it has always had with the mass media.'

Key terms: popular culture, mass culture, mass media, mass communication, high brow low brow, high culture low culture

Summary:

Popular culture – enjoyed/ a pastime/ social value/ exchange between people

Lowbrow (less exclusive value) vs. highbrow (elitism)

Zeitgeist

Mainstream/ widespread/ mass culture + communication / artistic value

Graphic Designs role in the mass media of popular culture – e.g. television (documentaries, advertisement of bands/ clothing) – promotion, styles (e.g. psychedelic hippies of 60s, punk rock in the 70s) current day sitcoms like South Park and Family Guy show same trends of the ‘unconscious need for the profane that has always existed in human cultures across time’

Relevant books (Google and from LCA library):

-       p129 chapter 7 of ‘Ways of Seeing’ by John Berger

-       ‘Popular Culture: Introductory Perspectives’ by Marcel Danesi

-       ‘The Myth of Popular Culture: From Dante to Dylan’ by Perry Meisel

-       ‘Highbrow/Lowbrow’ by Lawrence W. LEVINE

-       ‘100 Entertainers Who Changed America: An Encyclopaedia of Pop Culture’ edited by Robert C. Sickels Bob Dylan p179-181

Scholarly articles:

http://org.sagepub.com/content/15/5/765.short

http://www.jstor.org/stable/465379?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

http://phg.sagepub.com/content/22/1/54.short

https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=XXJeBwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=popular+culture&ots=HkAwiV6SjH&sig=ArUnLPGzU5LZToxW3GaBDW_elI4#v=onepage&q=popular%20culture&f=false

https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-148368999/cultural-curriculum-studies-multiplicity-and-cinematic-machines
file:///Users/Sam/Downloads/12625-22934-1-PB.pdf
http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/MediaManager/File/popularculture(jan12)web.pdf
http://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/fall_2002/browne.htm
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1350508408093652

Websites:

https://psmag.com/the-long-war-between-highbrow-and-lowbrow-603c098122ac#.9tg82cxf0

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674390775

https://www.brainpickings.org/2011/08/23/the-myth-of-pop-culture-perry-meisel/

https://www.buffalolib.org/vufind/Record/532411/Reviews

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1989/2/6/a-time-when-popular-culture-included/ - summaries Levine’s book on high/low brow

https://limerickwriter.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/mass-media-and-popular-culture/

Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5rKR1onnik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY5voiVzYt0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_3UYncNwz4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXhfzkH_u14

The History of Type - Part 2

COP lecture 4: Production & Distribution 

Summary: 

From the Bauhaus institute up until present day, how type has evolved through premodern to modern to postmodern eras. The lecture touched on aspects of life over the last hundred years that have impacted the way we use and see time, this involves the democratisation of typography through developments such as the internet and world wide web. It concluded by touching on how the responsibility of designers has changed and how our design decisions can impact in the future.