The Abyss

The Abyss (1989) is a James Cameron film, he also directed Titanic and Avatar among many other famous films.  the technical effects were the most advanced at the time. Industrial Light and Magic created the special effects. The water alien was a ground breaking special effect and was the same program used for the T-1000 in Terminator 2. The movie relied heavily on special effects, and it was heavily edited to shorten the running time because it was feared audiences would not like a movie nearly 3 hours long with lots of special effects. I never liked the movie because I am a bit claustrophobic and the submarines in the movie felt cramped. I do remember the special effects were down right beautiful at the time and the scenes with the aliens were fascinating and made suffering with the closed in feeling worth watching the movie.  By today's standards many of the effects appear dated and rough in comparison to what is being produced today. The Abyss was the first movie to use a version of Adobe Photoshop.  

Hillman Curtis short film about David Byrne and Brian Eno

I choose the short film about David Byrne and Brian Eno, mostly because my mother loved the Talking heads and I was curious as to what was up with them now and why they were being featured in a Hillman Curtis film. I vividly remember the art used on the albums Little Creatures in 1885 and True Stories in 1986 and how fascinated I was with it, I could look at the Little Creatures cover for hours, there was so much going on. I didn't know why, but the cover of True Stories was so incredibly interesting to me. Perhaps my interest in album art in general was because I was extremely active in art at that time and I recognized something in the design that appealed to my inner graphic designer. I was pleased to see the creative process for music was somewhat similar to the creative process for other forms of art. The collaboration was amazing due to the integration of technology in their efforts, sending mp3's back and forth and fixing the notes from a less than perfect recording using computers. I was fascinated.  I was also aware of the types of camera shots, editing techniques and framing of the subject throughout the film. Mr. Curtis did some interesting camera moves and cuts that held my attention, which is not an easy task sometimes. I also think the semi-emotionlessness of David Byrne in conjunction with the barely contained kinetic energy of Brian Eno was fun to watch, you wouldn't pick them as a team if they were standing in a crowd. Yet they perfectly complement one another and have created amazing music.  Mr. Curtis's sense of timing and visual balance made this an informational and fun short to watch.

http://hillmancurtis.com/artist-series/david-byrne-brian-eno/

A. M. Cassandre Outline

A. M. Cassandre Biographical Timeline

Adolph Jean Marie Mouron  a*k*a  A. M. Cassandre

January 24, 1901 - Died June 17, 1968

Personal life

A. 1901 Born in Kharkov, Ukraine to French parents

B. 1915 Family settled in France 

C. 1918 Enrolled at Lucien Simon’s independent studio

-  Enrolled in the Academie Julian

D. 1927 Married 1st wife Madeleine Cauvet

- 1938 Divorced 

E. 1938 Joined French Army for WWII

- 1940 Demobilized

F. 1942 Meets dress designer Nadine Robinson

- 1947 Married 

- 1954 Divorced 

G. 1962 Promoted to rank of Officer in the Legion of Honor

H. 1963 Retired to county home in Belley in Bugey region east of Lyon

- 1965 Comes out of retirement, moves back to Paris

I. 1967 Suicide attempt

J. 1968 Committed suicide

2.   Career in poster art 

A. 1921 1st posters done in caractural style - most are lost today

B. 1922 Signs first works using the pen name Cassandre

C. 1923 Gains fame and becomes a Parisian celebrity with “Le Bucheron”

- 1925 1st place Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs

D. 1924 Contracted with Hachard and Cie to publis his work through 1927

E. 1926 Works for Maurice Moyrand at Danel in Lille printing office

- His most creative period

F. 1927 Begins studies of space and speed

G. 1930 Joins Union des Artistes Mardernes

H. 1931 - 1935 Art director - Alliance Graphique

I. 1935 Contract of exclusivity with Draeger

J. 1936 Retrospective poster exhibition, Museum of Modern Art in New York

- Contracts with Harper’s Bazaar for several covers

- Resides in New York for two winters

K. 1950 Huge exhibit of 25 years of graphic and plastic art

L. 1954 Designed posters and record jackets for Ollivette typewriters

L. 1959 - 1968 Works and projects unsuccessful, not well accepted by public

M. 1965 Designed his last poster for a paper that went out of business before publication

3.   Creates typefaces

A. 1929 Bilfur

B. 1930 Acier - black and gray sans serif

C. 1935 Acier Display Noir - two color sans serif

D. 1937 Pignut

- Exhibited at World’s Fair in Paris

E. 1947 Tourian

G. 1954 Designed typefaces and logo type for Ollivette typewriters

F. 1968 Cassandre

G. 1948 Experimented with copperplate engraving technique for bank note engraving

4. Architecture, stage and costume design

A. 1933 First decoration of Amphitry

B. 1948 Designed open air stage for Aix en Provence International Music Festival 

C. 1938 - 1950 Designing sets, costumes and decorations no posters

D. 1967 Began several canvases, finished only one of the Bugey landscape

Mayan Codeis, Mesoamerica's Illuminated Manuscripts

Mayan Codeis, Mesoamerca's Illuminated Manuscripts

I wanted to share the forgotten books of the America's. When the Spanish invaders conquered the indigenous people of the Americas they destroyed the libraries of the more advanced cultures they found here. Of the thousands of codeis contained in those libraries only a handful survived, thus most people are ignorant of the true advanced cultures that existed prior to the invasion by Europeans.  It is said the Mayans and the Aztec priests had the knowledge and skill to conduct complicated surgeries, even open heart surgery. While I do not know if this is true, I do know the history, knowledge and culture lost when those libraries burned is no less tragic than the burning of the Library of Alexandria.  The art intermingled with the pictographs tell the stories of the Mayan. The groupings of dots, lines and circles together are the written Mayan numerical system. Many of the codeis are accounting records. 

http://www.facsimilefinder.com/facsimile/257/codex-dresdensis

Public Service Announcement: Recycling

http://www.beckybones.com/Play/DownloadCharacterArt/tabid/75/Default.aspx

I found this simple image for recycling and I liked it for that reason, simplicity.  We have all been exposed to the green curved triangle arrows for several years now and are used to seeing them, everyone knows their meaning.  They have become so familiar they can be simple silhouettes and we still understand, thus it seems a designer might find it difficult to make this design fresh and interesting. The bright pink and playful metal, plastic and glass images give a new interest, especially for a younger generation. It seems the triangle is so commonplace these days that it can be ignored, as common as a street sign and just about as interesting.  This brighter and more fun version is something that attracts more attention and is just plan cute.  The site it cam from is called Becky Bones and you can put the various logos on t-shirts and order them right there on the site. 

http://markstoreyart.blogspot.com/2011/01/fantastic-darth-vader-art-made-from.html

Mark Storey - 12+ years as a Graphic Designer in Croydon, United Kingdom, huge Star Wars fan.

I chose this because it was Star Wars, which I like, and the image is completely made with Vader's quotes. This designer had several years worth of blogs with his interpretation of the Star Wars movie posters and character images.  I looked at several text and word art images before residing on this one.  I found one that was a recreation of one of the Wicked posters, done all in text, that I really liked, but I couldn't find any information on who had made it, so I continued to look.  When I came across this I liked the darkness of it and how all the quotes were used to make the image.  I believe the text forming the image gives it something of a pictograph feel, because even if you are not familiar with Darth Vader's dialogue, most everyone recognizes the his image.  He used a sans serif typeface to create the image, bolding some words to add shading or lightness as needed.  

tumblr_md6smz25Tk1qd9m9xo1_500.

Georgia O'Keefe's Horse's Skull with Pink Rose

I was interested in how large an impact such a small amount of color can make. I chose this after watching a PBS program about New Mexico that had a section featuring Georgia O'Keefe.  I was intrigued by her motives, which were explained to be completely different than what most critics theorized, that her paintings were comments on her sexuallity.  I intended to find one of her flower paintings and so my blog over it, but when I came across this I felt compelled to share it.  I like this for several reasons, the subject matter is equine, and I used to have a complete horse skull I kept for many years.  His name was Jowles and it resided in several of my homes over the years.  When I was in the military I lost track of him.  I did many sketches of him but I never thought of adding something like a flower.  I was surprised to see she had done several paintings of various skulls and they were fresh and interesting because of the objects she paired the skulls with.  The pink rose grabs your eye and is complemented by the green leaves against the shades of white and black of the background. I can't put my finger on what, exactly, it is about the image I find so appealing, but I just love it.  I would hang this in my home in a heartbeat, however my husband has a very different take on it and says he doesn't like it because of the skull and representation of death.  I don't see it as a representation of death, rather as finding an object of beauty in an unexpected place.  In the summer I have found the most lovely flowers growing among the bones of my neighbor's cow boneyard.  I plan to learn more about O'Keefe's work and motivation.