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"blue" Tag


I’m new here


Friday, May 24, 2019

.

*****

I don’t really know the way, but I want to. I have this habit to wander off randomly when I’m unknown with a place. Just to see where I’ll end up if I let go of control. “Let fate decide” says the romantic in me.

After a while I see patterns and I believe that I know where I am. Finding attractive by-streets in every corner. But that’s an illusion. By the next turn this pattern is shattered by reality.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I don’t want to stay. Just keep going, till this frame turns into bedlam. Borders can’t contain me anymore. Looking back I can’t trace back my origins. I’m not lost. I’m new here.

I am chaos.

.

Judge a book by its cover


Saturday, November 25, 2017

Book Cover     Illustration 2

Sound file: ‘Front Cover’

[audio:https://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Front-Cover-Audio.mp3|titles=Front Cover Audio]
The blue colour of the spine was the first thing that attracted me to the book ‘Walls That Teach’. I reached up to grab the book and upon closer inspection I discovered a beautiful cover with an interesting layout of text and attractive illustrations. The layout of text on the back of the cover for example runs horizontally, forcing you to turn the book to the side to read the text – something that reoccurs occasionally within the book. Despite the title of the book and the topic – architecture of youth centres – being an unknown topic to me, the design of the cover intrigued me enough to give the book a chance and look within it.

Typo 'w'

I opened the book and ran my fingers through the pages to feel the paper. The book felt light and the paper felt thin. The colours of the paper were the next thing that I noticed – they vary between green, white, and black paper. The main texts appear on the green and black paper. The illustrations and images appear on the white paper. The white pages are laid out horizontally requiring the reader to turn the book to its side in order to look at it.

Sound file: ‘Chronological’

[audio:https://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Chronological-order-paper-choice-and-consequences.mp3|titles=Chronological]

Young Pioneer Palace 3

The way the font (Gil Sans, Gill Sans Infant) is used and the strokes of the letters, the layout of the paragraphs, the letter spacing, word spacing and line spacing give a feeling of space on the pages without giving the impression that the page feels empty. The letters, words and lines are spaced quite far apart. The Paragraphs are centred on the middle of the pages, leaving a space of about an inch on either side. The strokes of the letters are also light (there are specks of white on the text that is black). All of these factors contribute to the appearance of the pages not looking cluttered.

Sound file: ‘Playful Typography’

[audio:https://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Playful-Typography.mp3|titles=Playful Typography]

Illustration 4

The illustrations throughout the book are very imaginative. The first illustration is on the front cover. it is an architectural drawing of a youth centre with illustrations of people demonstrating how the space would be used – people are dancing in a disco, some people are playing table tennis, some people are sitting around and some people are working.

Sound file: ‘Illustrations’

[audio:https://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Illustrations.mp3|titles=Illustrations]
However, these illustrations change inside the book. The people depicted in the illustration on the front cover are no longer contained within the walls of the ‘youth centre’, but are left to roam freely over the pages. Sometimes at the bottom of the page you will find a couple walking hand in hand. On another page there are people playing table tennis. On another page beside a paragraph about the planning of a youth centre there are a group of people meeting around a table discussing something.

Illustration 5

The contrast between these illustrations and the more practical architectural drawings within the book is really amusing. For someone like myself who doesn’t know much about the topic of architecture, small details such as the people wandering through the pages really capture my attention and encourage me to read. The different photographs of the youth centres under construction, how they were used and exterior shots of the buildings punctuated throughout the book also adds another dimension. The combination of how the text is put together, the illustrations, drawings and photographs really brings the book to life for me.

Sound file: ‘Images’

[audio:https://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Images.mp3|titles=Images]

Book Images 2 Book Images 3

My first impression of the book was that it appeared to be playfully made. This struck me as being funny because the topic of the book is about youth centre architecture, but the topic of the book suggested that it could be heavy to read. Upon opening the book and reading it, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the playfulness of the cover continued throughout. All the different elements brought together really encouraged me to read. I think that the intention of the design element of the book is to inspire the audience to interact with the book and create discussion. All in all a very well designed book.

 

Walls that Teach, designer: David Bennewith & Sandra Kassenaar, Rietveld Library Cat. no: 718.5 pie 1.8 met 1

NU- A N C – ES OF NO.


Sunday, January 29, 2017

giphy 2

 

The book design has a strange appeal;

boring Facebook blue and random pages in between. Unsettling uppercase letters of split up words all over one page, very prose looking straight aligned text on the other. A woman holding a picture of another woman lying naked under a zebra. Low resolution smiley face.

 

Nuances_of_no_5Nuances_of_no_4

 

Hanne Lippard graduated Rietveld as a graphic designer, but then carried her words from printed matter to sound files and live performance. ‘Nuances of No’ is her book, a collection of written work released in 2013. In making the book, she designs her own content, which allows her to create a similar voice to her sound work.

Visual information like spaces provoke silences in the readers head voice.

By the placement of the words on the page in relation to each other, or switching or removing letters and making slip of the tongues, she also plays with language, takes attention to sounds and stretches their meanings.

(variations)
[audio:https://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/variations.mp3|titles=variations]

As your eye is guided through the page, text sounds like poetry.

(every word)
[audio:https://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/every-woord.mp3|titles=every word]

The design of the word becomes the form of her voice.

In her spoken works she has a monotone, articulate, clean and soft tone which is robotic yet sounds as if it could be coming from somewhere inside your head.
This similar feeling is present in the book as well, this time through the colour of Facebook; trustworthy, artificial and sort of anonymous. Some pages in between have pixelated smiley faces and click button images taking the reader into a virtual world context, which adds to the atmosphere she creates.

(underscore)
[audio:https://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/underscore.mp3|titles=underscore]

The design of Hanna Lippard [x] serves to vocalize her written thought in ‘nuances of no’; making the words surround the reader in the mind.

(echo)
[audio:https://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/echo-she-wants.mp3|titles=echo]

One or two voices.

(goodbye)
[audio:https://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/end-goodbyee.mp3|titles=goodbye]

 

*soundfiles are readings from the book in my voice. only (echo) is my words in my voice.

 

 

Nuances of no. /Rietveld library catalogue no : lippa 1

Oh so queer


Sunday, November 29, 2015

 

Queer-Zines-Box-Set queer_zines_manystuf

Choosing a book

At first it took me a while to even figure out how to find books in the library. All these numbers, letters and no (in my opinion) logical order. So after asking everyone around how they found their book i started to get a grip of the system and chose Queer zines 2.

I walked around, touched, sniffed and saw many many books before my eyes were drawn to the bright colors of this publication. Off course the title spoke to me, although i should not admit that, because in this case i was focusing my research on the design and not the content. Also the fact that these books where in this boring brown cardboard, organic looking box didn’t really made sense to me. These bright interesting neon colors in combination with this organic, trendy box.

When I started looking through the books it looked quite familiar to me. So I dug deep in my memories and remembered all these great queer magazines that i once saw at a exhibition in ‘Witte de With’ Rotterdam. It was old-school, bright, daring and they had a really nice Punky/queer (obviously) design. I remember really liking them. Off course this convinced me to work with this new more modern version of queer zines. Just because i became curious if it could give me that same almost rebellious feeling.

02 AA Bronson & Philip Aarons@

Who made the books

After the last unsold queer zines books were blown away by the American super storm Sandy in 2012, the staff of queer zines found an opportunity to create a better and improved version of the book. The first edition of the book was put together very simple and fast, done by Garrick Gott. They also hired him the second time and in both cases they gave this graphic designer total freedom in whatever he felt was the good decision for the book.

GarrickGott_at-home-with-Koh_250 R-2503151-1287574918.jpeg

Garrick Gott’s studio is based in New York city. The studio focuses on the design and production of fine printed matter. A large portion of the work is illustrated books and catalogs for arts and cultural clients. These can be individual artists, designers, non-profits. But also galleries, museums, institutions and publishers. At this moment Garrick Gott is working on also including film titles and posters in his practice.

Apart from this and the people he worked with I could not find much about Garrick. I did find some interesting details about his marriage and relationships. Garrick Gott is married to Terence Koh, an canadian (born in bejing) artist. Garrick gott is very much involved in the gayscene and this is also why he worked with Queerzines.

If i look at Garrick Gott’s graphic design I see trendy, clean graphic design. I see a lot of bright colors, interesting fonts, and a lot of white. He plays with color, and different kinds of paper (using see through plastic in stead of regular paper he creates new compositions.) I’m trying to put my finger on what it is in his work that does not really speak to me. And I think it has to do something with the fact that if i look at his website, it looks like almost every graphic design website I had to research on my last school, which was graphic design on practical level, and those are just about being commercial. On the other hand I really like what he did to Queer zines, so that brings me to the next point.

antenne.books.queer-zines-second-edition_2 ipp

The design

Let’s take a objective look at the book(s) itself. At first i see a brown cardboard box with a naked man silk screened on top of it. The man is printed in white so it is a bit hard to get a clear picture of him.

You can already see the spines of the bright neon colored books inside the box. We see bright pinks and bright blue colors. If we take the books outside of the box we have two of the same size books in front of us. One in pink and blue and one in orange and blue. Both books are covered on both sides with big images of naked or almost naked men.
If we look through the book you will notice that the whole content is printed in the same dark blue color. Which in my opinion works really well because it brings all these different queer zines together like they are one (and I think that’s the point of this bundle). The fonts change from a typewriter font to a thicker helvetica like font. Sometimes Garrick Gott plays with the fonts of the zines that are on the pages itself.
The images are places in and outside of the columns that Garrick Gott works with. There are pictures, scans, covers and whole articles placed in the book. Some are just really interesting to look at (it’s nice to see the different time and culture in the book) and some need some explanation (which is given). And there are also a lot of interesting interviews shown.
All placed in an interesting way that will keep your attention and will take you further into this rebellious scene.

antenne.books.queer-zines-2_0

antenne.books.queer-zines-second-edition_1

The content

The content of these books are all the queer zines bound together into these bright color books. I like the way Garrick Gott organized the magazines in such a way that they tell you a story about this queer scene. The book takes you back in time and while reading it i think we all imagine ourselves living in this open minded, rebellious, anarchist way of living.
Now that I read the book, having seen the zines in real, I still like the real ones better. But this is because I have seen them in colour and now these are becoming reproduced pictures of persons, creating an image of a certain time and scene. I think you need color to stretch the real picture. Instead of a blue print picture.

I enjoyed studying this book. It is totally in my area of interest and even though I thought Garrick Gott’s graphic design is a bit trendy. I really admire what he did to this book. The more I looked at it the more I discovered.

Rietveld library catalog no : 708.4 bron 1

 

The Spatial Brain


Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Entering my three tags in the search engine of the library didn’t lead to any results. At least, I hoped of course to find a book that was at the intersection of all three keywords leading to a publication that delt with designers of Asian witchcraft and mapping their whereabouts.

Fortunately I did find books with every specific tag; one on contemporary Asian architects; one on the map as art; and one on devils, demons, death and damnation. The latter of course sounded very inviting and it is indeed filled with the most fascinating gothic graphics of infernal punishment, public witch executions, demons riding to the Sabbath and Lucifer reigning over the souls of sinners.

On a lighter note, Asian architecture with the Zen-like attitude on dealing with space and the use of water -for tranquility and balance instead of drowning alleged witches- has a certain appeal as well.

But my eye can’t stop getting pulled to the last book of my pile, called “The Map As Art”. Cheating a little bit? Yes. This book is not from the Design department. But it sounds like it’s interestingly bordering on the edge of science, art and design. Cartography assembles scientific data in a technical way and models our reality as to effectively communicate spatial information. But then maps take on a life of their own. They may be worn out, damaged, have decades-old coffee or wine stains on them reminding of holidays or trips effectively pushed to the corners of the memory to make room for new ones. They may be folded so many times that crucial information is deleted, or have scribbles and writings on them that may be even more cryptic than the maps themselves can appear to be on first sight. These alterations seem to be lifted to a higher level in this book, making maps almost into fantastical designers of political landscapes, neighbourhoods and private spaces.

Rietveld Library cat.nr: 708.5 har 1

Book of Spells


Monday, April 22, 2013

The book I chose is of a faded sort of blue, and has the title “Bamboo” on its hardcover back. This back is graphically shaped as a piece of actual bamboo using shading and divisions. Like how you would see real-live bamboo in real-live nature.
The contrast with the blue, which of course in actuality it isn’t, drew my eyes to the book’s back I guess. Also probably since I was feeling very restless that specific afternoon and was more with my head in the sky than in the neatly organized library smelling of old paper and glue. On top of that it appeared old, and somewhat mysterious. And reminded me of when I was a kid and would always hope to find a forgotten book in the corner of the library that would have a map of a hidden treasure tucked away in it. I remember drawing those maps myself and hiding them in old books in my parents’ bookcase. Then I’d make myself forget, so I could stumble upon a forgotten map and could go on a treasure hunt. In my parents’ backgarden mostly. Or sometimes in the attic, where more secret passages could be created.

The typography of the letters “Bamboo” and in fact the word itself also reminded me of a book featured in a film I once watched when I was young. Probably around the same age as I was when trying to forget my hidden maps. It was about an apprentice-witch who lived in a big house in the English countryside and had to take in three children from London at the onset of WOII. The children found out about her secret practices and blackmailed her into giving them a magic gift. This gift was a traveling spell, to be used by turning a bewitched bed knob back on the bed in a specific way and speaking out loud the destination you would want it to take you. Eventually the witch and the kids used it to get to an island not to be found on any known maps; the isle of Naboombu. There, they would get the remaining words needed for the ultimate spell of the witch’s correspondent course in witchcraft, that of “Substitutiary Locomotion”.

Rietveld Library cat.nr: 772.5 aus 1

Blurb


Wednesday, January 18, 2012

 

this post is part of he subjective library project "Unopened Book"
the book can be found at the Rietveld library : catalog no : -vis-5

Kandinsky’s Color Theory


Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Since I have chosen books in which the yellow color has been part of the content in different contexts, I took a book by Wassily Kandinsky for the last posting. The book describes a Color Theory according to Wassily Kandinsky, “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”. Here is his theory of the color yellow and the color that he thinks is the most opposite of yellow (blue).

Yellow means “warm,” “cheeky and exciting,” “disturbing for people,” “typical earthly color,” “compared with the mood of a person it could have the effect of representing madness in color […] an attack of rage, blind madness, maniacal rage.

Blue means “deep, inner, supernatural, peaceful “Sinking towards black, it has the overtone of a mourning that is not human.” “typical heavenly color”

Number: Kan 5

Blue pinocchio and his fairy go to Istanbul


Tuesday, December 8, 2009

I was looking in the art department of the library and found a book about folk art of Istanbul, in the time of the rising of the Ottoman Empire. When I looked through the pages I found that it was about getting a glimpse of the lives people (read, the sultan and rich people) lived in those days by showing the art, and the artifacts the people used. You can very well see the style of the period in the statues and the paintings and also in the cups, they drank out of, the rugs they walked on,the plates they ate from and the many other furniture and things they used. In short, for me this book shows the way the world looked in that period. In the same way that for us Pinocchio is a well known item now. He would look very strange and out of place in the world of Constantinople, especially if he was blue. To me this is a good link with design and art for both reflect the mentality of the times we live in.

703.6 -cat-1

Eyecandy


Saturday, November 21, 2009

The book I chose is all about it’s size and content. It’s is a big white book, very light and very thin. On the cover there is a broche of a beautiful lady in gold. Her legs are squatted, her torso upright and she holds her arms wide open. Her arms are part of very lush and colourful butterfly wings. She has two curly antenna’s on her head and her hair flows around her face and arms. She appears to be flying. When I saw her I knéw that my pinnocchio has found his Blue Fairy. It’s a book about Nouveau Jewelry. Because of the sheer size of this book, the pictures of the jewellery inside are very big and very impressive. Every page is full of color and has a vibrancy that really captures the attention and imagination. It’s like a box of candy’s this book. EYEcandy!

777.4 ber 1

ScreAming bOOk


Wednesday, November 11, 2009

I noticed that all the books I took off the shelf, to look at, had strong expressive images on the spine of the covers. My eye caught a blue Pinocchio that was on a black and white background, also the white title was complementing the spine of this book. The black and white background had been drawn with a pencil and the Pinocchio was well painted with either paint or fabricated on the computer. It combined the “sketch” fase together with the “endproduct”. I though it gave me a good idea about the content of this book, just by looking at its spine. When I took the book off the shelve to look at it, the cover was fabulously bright with colors. I chose this book because it was screaming so loud that it practically jumped off the shelve into my hands, so I felt I HAD to take it.

Rietveld Academy Library No. 799.4

reserved space


Tuesday, November 3, 2009

“subjective library” images and flickr tag-cloud

Read the reflections of A and C group’s journey into the Rietveld Library’s Design and Art section. This journey to investigate, made our fascinations, preconceptions and hidden desires manifest. How does a subjective book choice create a personal mirror and leaves traces of tags, connecting Design to Art, exposing autonomy in both.

Read about the subjective, open and intiutive first book choice from the Design section of our library. Wonder about the tags connected to those accounts. Follow the continuing story as a second book is selected based on those tags created. Witness the third posting in which those sets of tags lead us from Design to Art. A move that forces us to reflect upon the connection between them both.

Follow the continuing accounts of the three succeeding investigating postings by clicking on the yellow link. Experience the total list of tags created during this “Subjective Library” Project.

LIST OF TAGS:

3289 days, A4, cover, funky colors, television, unatractive, film photography : fauna, flora, interesting, lines, strange, fluffy, simple, horrible, brainwork, complicated, proud, “to know” : disorder, game, grid, systematization, “One Minute Sculpture” : library, swindler, breaking news, library loser, extraordinary, talented : space, absence-presence, framework, surrounding, returning : abnormal, rediscover, choice, plain, others : 1000, 754., direction, signs, city, direction, traffic, political, posters : blue Pinocchio, screaming, spine of book, blue, Pinocchio, blue fairy, eyecandy, contemporary, folk, mentality : not getting there, unknown, judging by covers, content, connection, strangers, subject : supermarket, theft, housewife, tiny, midlife crisis, multilingual : logic, question, reason, consciousness, interest, remarks, impossible, mathematical, perspective : attraction, strange, swissfolk, art, death, life, love, Maurizio Cattelan : cover, old book, unique, obsession, miniature : Anita, eyes, portrait, dominant, name, color, film : Wiener Werkstätte, characteristic, hand work, mass fabrication, original, process, realization, detail, photography, the nude : cheap fashion, funny, random, tattoo, tribe, weird, mysterious, tribe : attraction, new texture, action, quick, warning, a priori, new, amusement, choices, eye-catching, eyes, random : escape reality, library, overflow of impulses, fruitless reality, jostling time, absorbing force, déjà-vu : arrange, industrial, library, architecture, museum, self-made, Andreas Gursky, index : city, nomadic, reality, funky, colors, interiors : contrast, fat, texture, typography, culture, nudity : conceptional, distance, no image, steps, thinking space, braille : cat, compulsive, font, chaos, subjective, illustration, objective, random, Tadao Ando : airplane, airport, choice, structure, worldmap, 756, 80’s, human, machines, unique, flying : dot, jewelry, shapes & forms, yellow, children, fun, paint, playful, all colors, blue, green, theory : extraordinary, life, normal, objects, absurd : 80’s, desire, fashion, party, techno, desire, fabrics, orgasmatic : alchemy, identical, methaphysics, mysticism, mythology, Arabic, identical, inaccurate, ladies, naked, orient, sculptures, stereotypes : Canada, Indian symbols, kitsch, raven, Indian art, Mexico, Jeff Koons, porn : attraction, gold, meeting an old lover, recognition, cheap, irresistibility, not psychology, wrong, beauty, compare, contrast, couple, same, similarity, together, two books, ugliness : connection, embroidery, hundred years, death, funerals, general terms, invisible, object, spirit, visible : color, feeling, personal story, feminism, graphic : first sight, mystery, old-fashioned, bloody, mad, rituals, revelatory, Yin : oblivion, automatic lives, bottom shelve, eat, mantra, story-making, colorful, dogs, double-take, eat sleep, vases, vegetables : attracted, nothing, black, disturbing.

still curious read the books involved at the Gerrit Rietveld Library, (catalogue numbers are included).

“Blue” is the new black


Thursday, September 10, 2009

If there is one of the things I like in the country where I came from is the contrast between the white and the deep blue from the houses. It was in an instant that i made that connection to the well known Delft blue.

In the XV century the paintings in ceramics was brought to both, Portugal and Netherlands, by the Italians. From Islamic and Chinese origins, this ceramic technic started to be developed as a cultural tradition. Following different ways in that production, Portugal developed the technic of the big blue tile panel paintings with representations of historical and religious moments. Netherlands, in a slightly different way, got worldly famous with the Delft blue landscapes paintings in pottery such as plates and the well known tulip jars.

In Portugal, more then just folklore, this tile panel paintings are now revived in interior decoration from new modern buildings. Also used as an inspiration for fashion clothing and accessories, it pierced right through centuries from the old to the new age.


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