Thoughts.

Over the winter break I took an art history course that focused on the history of modern design through the exploration of product and graphic design from the 1920s to the present. I started to think about one of the last papers we wrote in there during my special topics class yesterday. This paper focused on the role that digital design has in graphic design, and through comparisons of mid-century modern graphic design show the drastic changes or even similarities in this new technologically advanced age. Digital design has obviously affected almost every field in art, not just graphic design. In this class I was able to examine the changes in tools graphic designers used to create their work and how these tools changed the aesthetic these designers used in their work.
This semester I’m taking a computer 3D modeling class and hope to be using this technology in the work of my other studios as well. I think it’s amazing to hear people talk about how to print a 3D design from a computer screen out in a variety of materials. I am a crafts major and I know that everyone in all of my studios stress that we are people who like to use our hands to make things. I’m excited because I see the computer as simply another tool that craftspeople can use to create more. When digital design allowed graphic designers to create new typefaces just by putting an old typeface into a new computer and allowing the program to automatically enhance it, they were allowed even more to incorporate into their work.
I hope that I can carry over my own aesthetic, or at least find my own aesthetic, in my computer studio and in all my studio classes this semester. I’m really interested in looking back into the history of certain aspects of art and body adornment. I feel like I get inspired by the work of past artistic movements and would love to incorporate my impression of these references in my own work.
There’s just so much to learn, so much to do, and so much inspiration everywhere. I’m excited.