I knew that when I first got this brief I wanted to create a publication aimed at children, this being because most of what we had learnt was quintessentially taught to us in a manner that only people our age or upwards would understand, I therefore wanted to take the subject matter we had learnt, break it down and simplify it in a way that children would understand.
AESTHETICS
With this being said I started to look at types of children's reading books, specifically the way in which they had been written. The types of books I found are:
1. Picture Books: These stories concentrate more on the illustrations than on the text. The text of the story compliments the artwork rather than the pictures adding to the story.
2. Rhythmic Books: These books usually rhyme or have a musical component. Popular examples of these books are “Green Eggs and Ham” and “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Seuss. This genre also includes nursery rhymes and lullabies.
3. Folklore: Tales such as these have been passed down through generations and oral traditions for centuries. Tomie dePaola, an author-illustrator, frequently uses folktales to create stories for children. Myths are often paired with folklore, and these stories specifically attempt to explain different aspects of life. The goal of these stories is to pass down knowledge to younger generations.
4. Fairytales: Princes fighting for princesses dominate this genre. These stories have a magical component and are a more detailed way of explaining the world.
5. Fantasy: Fantasy stories are predominantly magical in nature but also comment greatly through this lens on contemporary life. Often an intense struggle of good versus evil occurs.
6. First Books: Nowadays children are introduced to stories even before they are born. Public libraries run programs where caregivers bring their infants to the library and are taught how to read to them. Books made out of board, cloth and plastic all make up this category, and their stories introduce babies to the basic outline of our world.
7. Concept Books: Concepts ranging from getting dressed to sharing are covered in these stories. The example book made on this site is a concept book about the season of spring.
8. Issue Books: A new trend in children’s books is the introduction of controversial issues facing society today. Examples of topics include divorce, abuse, sexuality and war. Debate surrounds whether or not children should be exposed to these at a young age.
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/s11/parkinson_l/types.html
The type of book which I liked the idea of the most was a rhythmic book, an example of one of these books would be any of the Doctor Seuss collection. This seemed like a fun and playful way to communicate with children projecting something I had learnt from earlier in the year.
I then began to look at reading ages, I knew that I wanted the book to be quite visually heavy but still have enough text to be able to explain the story and so I searched for a reading age, equal to the last image posted above. To do this I visited the website Oxford Owl, this website is useful as I am able to select a level of ready and asses, the language used, words per line and lines per page etc, by viewing a collection of e-books.
I found that the books most similar to the image and text ratio above had a reading age of 6-7 years old, readers at this readin age have the ability to understand different tenses and use of speech with speech marks which Is what I was aiming for in writing my publication.
Books of this reading level consist of around 20 leaves across 10 double page spreads.
However I found that the language used at this level did not encompass the opportunity to use certain language and lexis, and so I searched for a further reading age. I found that the reading age aimed at 8-9 year olds had a larger expanse of language.
This is an example of a book I found in this age catorgary, which gives me the freedom to write more freely. Still writing aiming at children however giving opportunity to still included key phrases from the modernism movement that may be too advanced to understand for 6-7 year olds.
I also noticed that at this stage a lot more historical/ social events are intertwined into children's reading:
Whilst I was looking at Children's books I found a great illustrator whom I feel will influence my final Design.
Kazuno Kohara is a Japan born illustrator and children's author, The illustrations for the three books she has realised are constructed via lino cut using 2/3 colours. Not only do I like the simple process in which they are produced, but also the use of few colours. Although I do like the use of lino cut, this is not one of my strongest skills and as an alternative to try and produce the same kind of effects I thought I could design the pages in illustrator, then print screen them, using few colours also. Below are some examples of her work:
Kazuno Kohara is a Japan born illustrator and children's author, The illustrations for the three books she has realised are constructed via lino cut using 2/3 colours. Not only do I like the simple process in which they are produced, but also the use of few colours. Although I do like the use of lino cut, this is not one of my strongest skills and as an alternative to try and produce the same kind of effects I thought I could design the pages in illustrator, then print screen them, using few colours also. Below are some examples of her work:
The initial Idea I had for binding was to try and make the book look as if, from the inside, it had similarities to perfect binding. However we were told not to attempt perfect binding unless we were sure that we weren't going to come across and blips, and having never perfect binded before, I set out to find an alternative.
The alternative I found was was a type of Corcertina book.
This concertina style book allows the user to flick through the pages as if flicking through those in a perfect binded book. I had seen more complex concertina books, however being a story book, which would normally have a perfect bind and being aimed a children, I wanted to make sure it would be easy to navigate around.
CONTENT
When thinking about the contents/context of the book, I wanted to create a short story that would educate children about the revolutional philosophies that came around particularly in the 1920's-30's such as the implementation of new processes, teachings (Bauhaus) technologies and materials. However I did not want to create a book that spoke directly about this, because I thought that children would be disinterested and not take much away from the book. Instead I am going to create a story book that will teach of these historical, technological, social and political shifts through a plot in which children would find much more interesting and prevent them from loosing concentration.
Project proposal
A Brief history of Modernism (1918-1933)
I intend to explore the relationship between:
-Modernism
- New processes introduced/ Revolutionary philosophies/ radical experiments.
-New technologies
-Modernism
- New processes introduced/ Revolutionary philosophies/ radical experiments.
-New technologies
-Form vs function
I intend to inform/ educate a group of 8-9 year old children about the changes in design brought on by the forces of modernity. The social shifts, technological advancements and the machine aesthetic.
In order to achieve this I will produce a children's rhythmic story book similar to those as the Doctor Suess series.
Set in the wake of modernism in particular the reign of the Bauhaus at a time when designers were trying to rebuild the world. New revolutionary ideas have evolved, the era of mass production, machine age.
There are two characters a man and his wife are designing/ decorating their home.
The wife is still adhered to old movements and style eg. arts and crafts art nouveau, movements that had more focus in aesthetics and ornamentation. Husband teaches wife about the new modern philosophies and brings her into the new movement. She argues that their is a lack of humanism however he teaches her that there is a beauty in the machine.
Set in the wake of modernism in particular the reign of the Bauhaus at a time when designers were trying to rebuild the world. New revolutionary ideas have evolved, the era of mass production, machine age.
There are two characters a man and his wife are designing/ decorating their home.
The wife is still adhered to old movements and style eg. arts and crafts art nouveau, movements that had more focus in aesthetics and ornamentation. Husband teaches wife about the new modern philosophies and brings her into the new movement. She argues that their is a lack of humanism however he teaches her that there is a beauty in the machine.
Feed back from proposal crit.
Research:
-Good primary research taken from essay.
- Strong Primary research of children's books.
-Good primary research taken from essay.
- Strong Primary research of children's books.
- To improve test parts of story out on children of age group.
Concept development and idea generation:
-Good consideration of appropriate language
- Good consideration of other elements such as line lengths and point size.
- Use of poem to keep them interested and memorable is a strong idea.
- Good transformation from facts etc to become a story line appropriate for children.
- Is the content appropriate for children? Make sure language and format used is appropriate to age group.
Initial design decisions:
- Good alternative to a perfect bind
- Use of poem to keep them interested and memorable is a strong idea.
- Good transformation from facts etc to become a story line appropriate for children.
- Is the content appropriate for children? Make sure language and format used is appropriate to age group.
Initial design decisions:
- Good alternative to a perfect bind
- Modernist/ Minimalist illustration
- To improve look at how you could reflect the content or message presented in the aesthetics for example: the blinding of the book.
After the Crit I decided to look at how I could reflect the technological, social and historical theories/production in the aesthetic of the book.
One idea I had was instead of doing a concertina bind was to instead bind the book with metal rings, as I thought this would reflect the new ways of production and new materials which became available.
One idea I had was instead of doing a concertina bind was to instead bind the book with metal rings, as I thought this would reflect the new ways of production and new materials which became available.
The use of metal rings is a visual representation of the tubular steel that was readily available to use, and was moulded and bended in order to create frames for all types of modern furniture.
This would also work better as one of the problems I found when planning to create a concertina book was that I would have to print upon a large role of paper which could prove tricky for screen printing and this set up allows me to print upon individual sheets.
This would also work better as one of the problems I found when planning to create a concertina book was that I would have to print upon a large role of paper which could prove tricky for screen printing and this set up allows me to print upon individual sheets.
I also thought as well to inkeep with the modernist aesthetic that I could choose a typeface appropriate to the subject I was writing about. In my modernism essay I wrote about the 'Universal' typeface by Herbert Bayer. A typeface creation with only lower case letters in order to simplify type (without ornamentation), allow quick comprehension, a cheaper output and acceleration in children's written education.
CONTENT
Having already written an essay about the revolutionary shift that took place during the modernism movement, I wanted to extended my knowledge of changes in furniture design, as examples of these would back up the points I would be making about the shifts of modernism in the story.
- 'Before the modernist design movement in the 19th Century, furniture was designed to be ornate and complicated with little or no regard for functionality. Furniture was mostly intended for design and aesthetic appeal, being constructed out of dark, gilded woods and expensive fabrics with rich, often arabesque designs. The amount of hours that went into creating a piece of furniture determined its value.'
- New materials revolutionised home furniture.
- the style of furniture went from being visually heavy to visually light instead.
- Previous designs stayed true to tradition, the modern focused on being functional and accessible.
- New and original rather than tried and true.
- Practical and free thinking rather than the stuff views of the past.
- Instead of old fashioned gilded wood and sculptures designers turned to new materials.
- Instead of old fashioned gilded wood and sculptures designers turned to new materials.
- Different types of steel, moulded plywood (Used by Eames) and types of plastic evolved in design.
- There was an ideal balance between aesthetics and practicality.
- Function stayed at the fore front of the designers plan, however they still wanted to create strong pieces that were easy to manipulate.
- Many would have been shocked due to the blatant disregard of past traditions.
- These new pieces were a blend of art and technology.
- Function stayed at the fore front of the designers plan, however they still wanted to create strong pieces that were easy to manipulate.
- Many would have been shocked due to the blatant disregard of past traditions.
- These new pieces were a blend of art and technology.
- The machine allowed new materials to be mass producible.
- Previously furniture design was created with little regard for human function.
- Still sturdy upholstery fabrics were introduced.
- Optimism, freedom, look towards the future.
- Still sturdy upholstery fabrics were introduced.
- Optimism, freedom, look towards the future.
FURNITURE
In order to start looking at furniture produced in this time frame; mid 20's to early 1930's I took out a book called the Sourcebook of modern furniture. This book displays a range of furniture, Seating, lamps, beds etc that have been produced throughout a century of modern design.
I decided there was 5 different pieces of furniture I wanted to talk about:
An arm chair.
An arm chair.
A table.
A piece of art.
A piece of art.
A lamp.
A window.
Form Content:
'Each product presented has been analysed for its visual expression (Pure form, proportion and scale) Its space, for its direct relationship of shape configuration to human requirements, and for its physical utility and efficient function.'
Habegger, J and H.Osman J (2005) 'Sourcebook of Modern Furniture' 3rd ed.
Habegger, J and H.Osman J (2005) 'Sourcebook of Modern Furniture' 3rd ed.
The arm chair I found and thought would be most relevant:
Wassily lounge chair 1925 - Marcel Bruer
'Constructed of tubular steel with a sled base. The skeletal framework is formed from a continuos line of tubing, providing solidity and visual lightness, with intersecting support planes of canvas or leather.'
Habegger, J and H.Osman J (2005) 'Sourcebook of Modern Furniture' 3rd ed.
Habegger, J and H.Osman J (2005) 'Sourcebook of Modern Furniture' 3rd ed.
'The original Wassily chair was bolted together, rather than welded as today' - Bolting would have meant a quicker output of chair and a cheaper cost. The welding interrupts the concept of the chair being completely machine made.
'An ingenious use of Eisengarn (iron yarn) for seat, back, and arms prevents the sitter from coming into contact with cold metal.'
Stimpson, M. (1997) 'Modern furniture classics' Whitney library of design, New york.
When manufactured by Thonet, the chair came in two versions, a folding and a non folding version. the folding version helped accentuate space which was a big philosophy in modern design.
This chair was revolutionary in the use of the materials (bent tubular steel and canvas) and methods of manufacturing. It is said that the handlebar of Breuer's 'Adler' bicycle inspired him to use steel tubing to build the chair, and it proved to be an appropriate material because it was available in quantity. The design (and all subsequent steel tubing furniture) was technologically feasible only because the German steel manufacturer Mannesmann had recently perfected a process for making seamless steel tubing. Previously, steel tubing had a welded seam, which would collapse when the tubing was bent.
The Wassily chair, like many other designs of the modernist movement, has been mass-produced since the late 1920s, and continuously in production since the 1950s. quote
Here Is the table I am going to work with:
Barcelona table 1929 - Mies Van der Rohe
This low table eliminates a sense of heaviness and achieves a simplicity of aesthetic and technological organisation.
Habegger, J and H.Osman J (2005) 'Sourcebook of Modern Furniture' 3rd ed.
'Incorporating his signature stylized cross form, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Table (1930) expresses a clarity of form and materials that is immediately recognizable. The regal simplicity of the table's base is finely executed atop rests a .75" glass tabletop. The seamless, single-piece construction of the base ensures precision and durability.' quote
Designed in 1930 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the Barcelona coffee table displays the pure compositional structure that epitomizes modern architecture.
Lamp:
Tube light floor lamp (1927) - Eileen Gray
'Eileen Grays floor lamp is the first floor lamp to use totally exposed incandescent tube as the light source, providing soft, nonglare general illumination.'
Habegger, J and H.Osman J (2005) 'Sourcebook of Modern Furniture' 3rd ed.
-Chrome-plated floor plate with black plastic lamp sockets and foot-switch. quote
'Lighting - lighting was mass-produced from industrial materials such as chrome, glass, opaque and frosted glass. For a modernist look, look for simple globe forms or simple tubes that can be arranged in groups like sculptures.' quote
Artwork:
Tableau 1 (1921) - Mondrian
He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism. This consisted of white ground, upon which was painted a grid of vertical and horizontal black lines and the three primary colors. quote
- aimed to exempt social and historical comment from his paintings and create a visual language in which everyone could understand.
From Video
- One of the first artists to produce abstract non figurative paintings
- Independent from any visual references to the world
- Abstract geometric paintings
- Neoplasticism: Abstract Cubism
- Neoplasticism: Abstract Cubism
- Abandoned representational art.
In order to form the content of the book, I began to make a list of some of the most important and influential things that happened during the reign of Modernism. I first began looking into the revolutionary changes of modern furniture, as it is through furniture that I will be portraying the changes of Modernism in my book.
Much of the information I collected from this section is down to the help of the book:
Sourcebook of Modern Furniture - Jerryl Habegger
I then went to list important elements of a more general modernism.
I highlighted and circled the points that I thought were most important.
I then began to list what made the pieces of furniture I had chosen to work with modernist.
I then with this research began to write the content for the book, at first I began writing what I wanted to say without using any rhyme, and then translating what I had written into a rhythmic story as shown below. However as time went on I began to be able to write the story just in rhyme.
Everyone was looking forward to a better life, where there were no separations between rich and poor.
The same items were available for everyone to buy.
Every day items for everyday people.
to rhyme...
Everyone was looking forward,
to a better life,
no separations of rich or poor,
for everyman and his wife.
The same things were available,
for everyone to buy,
it didnít matter in society,
if you were low or high.
Once i had all the content written, I began to divide it into an appropriate amount of pages, so that there was an appropriate amount of words/information on each page for my age group to understand.
Once I had completed this process I moved onto deciding what to illustrate for each page. I want to keep these illustrations simple and minimalist as after all this is a modernist book.
With an idea of the illustrations I wanted for each page I went into illustrator. As I want to screen print this book, I am creating the illustrations in black and white to print onto a coloured paper. This will most likely be a primary coloured paper, as these were used regularly in modernism.
The first illustration I began to work with was the character of Walter, the husband who was trying to teach his wife about the new philosophies of modernism.
For the style of all the characters in the book, I tried to style them in the times which the book was set, in the mid to late 1930's. I followed the same illustration style for the main female character Violet.
Once I had illustrated my characters it was easy to carry on illustrating the story as the style was simple using mostly outline with small sections of fill in black or white.
Each time I designed a new character I would take either Violet or Walter and use them as a stencil and change certain parts about them in order to create new ones.
I didn't use as much highlights with other characters as I wanted to make sure Violet and Walter were the ones who stood out, and so for the others I only used black.
For the next week or so I went day by day creating illustrations for each of the pages.
I carried on designing all the pages until all 26 were finished. When I got to illustrating the end of the book, I realised that to screen print 26 different pages in two colours would take a lot of time and screens, which I didn't have alongside other projects. And the idea of Modernism is to make things easily mass producible and as efficient as possible and so Instead I decided to take the book through digital print.
Once printed, cut to size and binded using the binding rings I had previously mentioned, I took the product to the presentation and the crit.
When I presented my work in the crit I was given some helpful feedback:
A couple of things that I was asked to change was the amount of blue I had used. Originally I had used blue as a backdrop as this is the colour paper that I would be printing onto, however, now using the digital print room, I no longer needed to limit the amount of colours I would be using, as I wouldn't need to use screens.
I was also told that I should limit the amount of illustrations of characters I use as these pages compared to those without any characters on seem to cluttered and go against the rules of modernism.
I thought that the first piece of advice was very doable, and I would have continued to change my work to fit to this feedback, however I found that I didn't have enough of the same stock left to change the colour scheme and so I wouldn't be able to reprint the whole document. The print appt I had booked for my final print of the book was also only a couple of days away, leaving me not enough time to go ahead with a colour change. I do however like the colours, and the use of a block primary colour such as blue and solely black and white reflects the simplicity that Modernism breathes.
As for the characters I was told by another who gave me advice on my work not to remove them, In the book, when the whole story is read through, It is the characters Walter and Violet that tell the story between them, there is no outside narrator. Due to my audience being a group of 8-9 year old children, I think the book would be too confusing, and actually cause them to understand it less If I took the characters out. Although they may not 100% reflect a modernist form, in modernism the emphasis is on the function of the piece, and I believe it would cause my story to function less easily for my target audience If I removed them.
The last bit of feedback I got was in reference to the end of the story. One of my tutors believed that the characters, Walter and Violet, had not totally committed to modernism.
Original ending:
Instead I totally changed the aesthetic of the house to a more modern nature, and also the clothes that the main characters were wearing.
House illustration inspiration.
New ending.
The new ending shows how Violet and Walter have fully embraced modernism both in the design of the house and in fashion sense.
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