GIF

It's pronounced ghjif

Dada Graphic Design Movement

Dada

The Dada movement began in Zurich, Switzerland in 1916 during the first World War. Because of the war a lot European artists fled to Switzerland since it was neutral, and in response these artists formed the Dada movement. The concept of Dada was mainly to condemn the war and show how terrible it was, but from what I’ve read, the movement also questioned what art was. Collage was a big medium in the movement, but there were also more inventive ways that the Dada artists made art with. Marcel Duchamp’s famous Dada piece was a urinal that he titled “fountain.” So, much of what was created during this time involved a lot of experimentation and pushing what art was. It seems to me that this was very much the beginning of modern art and contributed a lot to what graphic design has become. The collages and graphics made by the Dada artists were not just visually interesting, but also had a message about the war and about how people are and think. That is very similar to the definition of graphic design we made in class, and is also something not as prevalent in the art movements before it. The Dada movement was one of the first artistic movements meant to revolt against society as a whole instead of revolting against what art looked like or meant. And I think it also showed how much freedom someone has when creating art as many of the pieces from that time were extremely unorthodox and were made with tons of different mediums.

The Dada movement also led to other art movements such as surrealism, constructivism, and pretty much any abstract movement after it. And after its popularity faded in Zurich, New York actually became a hotspot for Dadaism and a lot of the literature and art from that time period in New York were heavily influenced by the Dada movement.

An Example of Graphic Design

Mike Joyce is a graphic designer I really admire because a lot of his work focuses on really good color choice and simple shapes to make up appealing posters that really captured the music scene that he was involved with. Some of his posters are around New York City in some record shops and sometimes on some buildings, even though they aren't new. 

Inspiration

There's a lot of musicians that inspire me, but most of them influence the melodies I write and how my music sounds, however The Cramps were the first band to influence how I approached music. The Cramps are pretty awful musicians in terms of technical skill, as the guitarist basically plays the same thing song and the lead singer is screaming more than he is singing, but they still had variety in their music some of the most energy I've ever heard in a recorded song or live performance. This is because, although they couldn't play as well as most musicians, they put extreme care in to making their songs. In an alternate recording of their song "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" the lead singer, Lux Interior, screams at the recording engineer for stopping their recording and trying to change the song. Though it seems like Lux just has some anger issues, it showed me that they really cared about their music and weren't they weren't going to take shit from anyone. 

The other amazing trait of The Cramps, as I mentioned before, was their energy. They truly enjoyed playing music, and it was obviously something they did for themselves since they really didn't make much money, and it showed on stage. In the video at the top of the post Lux is just doing whatever he wants and enjoying it, and in return the crowed is going crazy too. That concept is so exciting and fun to me, which is just enjoying yourself while doing whatever you want to do. That is how The Cramps have inspired me, and it's also something that can be applied to more than music. They happened to be a band, but it's about doing whatever makes you happy, because that's how you're going to get the most enjoyment out of life, no matter how much money you make or fame you have. 

Letter project

My first step in the process of creating my letter was the brainstorm. I chose the letter "y" just because I like it's shape, but when I made a thought-web, there weren't many nouns that started with y. So instead I thought about how the letter sounded and eventually realized that "why" spells out "y" and is also a word. And not only is it a word, but one of the most important questions ever, or something. So I came up with a design of a y with a "wh" inside the curl of it. 

 I liked the shape of the "y," but I decided that it was too confusing to include more than one letter in a project that was about making one, so with my next draft I attempted to make the "wh" more subtle by putting it inside the y. I like the idea of having the letters inside the y, but I didn't like their shape or the colors I had used.

 I finally moved on to my final draft, and it became the most challenging part of the process. I prefer my artwork to be simple and well executed, but that was really hard to achieve with magic marker and sharpie. I worked very carefully in trying to keep the exact same y shape I had in my draft while also making it larger. That took a lot of math and ruler lines to do so, but I ended up replicating the shape pretty well.

However I really don't like the w. I made the h really neat and I think it looks great, but that makes the w look really sloppy in comparison. Although looking back, I feel that I may have had more room to experiment with colors if I used my first draft idea, and so if I could redo the project I would just use that idea. That way could use different colors for the w and h instead of just black. I really like experimenting with different color combinations in my artwork, and that is something didn't really get to do with my final idea. But overall I think I did a really good job of the shape of the y, and I am also proud of my concept. 

It's My Life

Hi, I'm Antony DiGiacomo and this is my blog that I had to make against my will, but the idea is growing on me. There will be different graphic design works I will be posting and reflecting on over the year, and maybe there will be more after I graduate, or I'll just move this all to tumblr.

Now I will talk about me

I am a musician and there is a link to my band's page on bandcamp if you ever care enough. We're pretty much a rock band and we periodically play shows, and I'm working on personel songs that I may share soon, if I ever complete them. I'd also like to share my inspirations, as I have many musicians I admire. Pavement has been my favorite band for over three years now and has heavily influenced my songwriting, but I also love Richard Hell, The Pixies and Bob Pfeifer.

Other than being a musician I really just like to play videogames, watch movies, and play football.

My top 5 videogames would probably be:
 Deadly Premonition, Killer 7, Dead Rising, Fez, and Ultimate Spider-Man

My 5 favorite movies are:
 Drive, Dredd, Star Wars Episode V, The Matrix, and Frank

And finally my favorite football team is the Steelers.

That's a good amount of information about me, but I don't want to tell you everything so that I have new studd to talk about when I have homework for this class.

Nice talking with you all, and don't be jerks.