LONDON PROJECT DRAFT

ESSAY PLAN

The different between art and design lie not so much in how they look as in what they do.”(Brady, 1998) How far do you agree with this statement?

Approach:  consider the essential difference and similarity between art and design in contemporary art. 

Introduction:  In the contemporary art, art and design are less likely to be distinguished.  Many artists and designers tend to cooperation together.  Art work has been wildly applied as elements, using in design work, however, concept of design has been applied to artistic creation as well.  Nevertheless, no matter how they cooperation, they are different—the important motive (why and what they do).

Thesis statement:  I agree with this statement.  Now day, people may hardly to tell the difference between art and design from aesthetic, but the prime motivation of art and design has not been changed.

Paragraph1:  Main Idea—the prime motive of art

              Evidence—at the earliest art express worship of nature (Hegel), gradually tend to express artist own willing and idea.  Even though art in mechanical reproduction age, the artwork be mass produce, the subjectivity of the artist (original work) still are not been changed. ( eg. DADA-cllages)

              Sources—The Art of Art History –A Critical Anthology (Preziosi.D)

Paragraph2:  Main Idea—the main motive of design

              Evidence—the main purpose of design is to promote designer’s products, for commercial.  So, it is necessary to consider the cultural roots of any project.  As a successful designer must understand the marketplace and needs of clients.

              Sources—The Essential Principles of Graphic Design (Millman.D)

                              Modern British Posters: Art, Design & Communication ( Rennie.P)

                              History of Modern Design ( Raizman.D)

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/09/the-difference-between-art-and-design/

Paragraph3:  Main Idea—art and design the similarity, cross-over cooperation.

              Evidence—with the mass produce has been applied in art, especially in the contemporary art, the artwork has used in the design ( eg. Print the artwork in T-shit or mug ) ; artist borrow the material object from design( eg. Someone else may have invented the wheel, but Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) invented the ready-made. )

              Sources—The Work of Art In The Age of Its Technological Reproducibility (Benjamin.W)

                              Duchamp ( Janis.M )

                              The Art of Art History –A Critical Anthology (Preziosi.D)

                              http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/09/the-difference-between-art-and-design/

Conclusion:  contemporary art and design can not be considered as two separate fields in this age, because they play different role in the whole industry separately.  Differences in motivation also promote the unique value of art and design, which help these two fields cooperate deeply.

THE RESOURCE WHICH I WILL USE IN ESSAY

Design must be the meticulously crafted balance of cultural anthropology, behavioral psychology, commerce, and creativity. It is necessary to consider the cultural roots of any project. What the designers do in our culture-whether it is an obsession with celebrity, the weather, sports, fashion, or money-has a major impact on the way designers view the world and they place in it. If designers don't fundamentally understand the brain do, then they will not be able to solicit their imagination. As successful designer must understand the marketplace and how messaging impacts and influences perception.(The Essential Principles of Graphic Design, Millman.D,2008)

Resource about art & design

The Difference between Art and Design

The subject of what separates art and design is convoluted and has been debated for a long time.

Artists and designers both create visual compositions using a shared knowledge base, but their reasons for doing so are entirely different.

Some designers consider themselves artists, but few artists consider themselves designers.

So what exactly is the difference between art and design? In this post, we’ll examine and compare some of the core principles of each craft.

This is a subject that people have strong opinions about, and I’m looking forward to reading the various points of view in the comments.

This post isn’t a definitive guide, but rather the starting point for a conversation, so let’s be open-minded!

1. Good Art Inspires. Good Design Motivates.

Perhaps the most fundamental difference between art and design that we can all agree on is their purposes.

Typically, the process of creating a work of art starts with nothing, a blank canvas. A work of art stems from a view or opinion or feeling that the artist holds within him or herself.

They create the art to share that feeling with others, to allow the viewers to relate to it, learn from it or be inspired by it.

The most renowned (and successful) works of art today are those that establish the strongest emotional bond between the artist and their audience.

By contrast, when a designer sets out to create a new piece, they almost always have a fixed starting point, whether a message, an image, an idea or an action.

The designer’s job isn’t to invent something new, but to communicate something that already exists, for a purpose.

That purpose is almost always to motivate the audience to do something: buy a product, use a service, visit a location, learn certain information. The most successful designs are those that most effectively communicate their message and motivate their consumers to carry out a task.

2. Good Art Is Interpreted. Good Design Is Understood.

Another difference between art and design is how the messages of each are interpreted by their respective audiences.

Although an artist sets out to convey a viewpoint or emotion, that is not to say that the viewpoint or emotion has a single meaning.

Art connects with people in different ways, because it’s interpreted differently.

Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa has been interpreted and discussed for many years. Just why is she smiling? Scientists say it’s an illusion created by your peripheral vision. Romantics say she is in love. Skeptics say there is no reason. None of them are wrong.

Design is the very opposite. Many will say that if a design can be “interpreted” at all, it has failed in its purpose.

The fundamental purpose of design is to communicate a message and motivate the viewer to do something.

If your design communicates a message other than the one you intended, and your viewer goes and does something based on that other message, then it has not met its requirement. With a good piece of design, the designer’s exact message is understood by the viewer

3. Good Art Is a Taste. Good Design Is an Opinion.

Art is judged by opinion, and opinion is governed by taste.

To a forward-thinking modern art enthusiast, Tracey Emin’s piece “My Bed”, which was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999, may be the height of artistic expression.

To a follower of more traditional art, it may be an insult to the medium. This goes back to our point about interpretation, but taste is more about people’s particular likes and dislikes rather than the message they take away from a piece.

Design has an element of taste, but the difference between good and bad design is largely a matter of opinion.

A good piece of design can still be successful without being to your taste. If it accomplishes its objective of being understood and motivates people to do something, then whether it’s good or not is a matter of opinion.

We could go on discussing this particular point, but hopefully the underlying principle is clear.

1. Good Art Is a Talent. Good Design Is a Skill.

What about the creator’s abilities?

More often than not, an artist has natural ability. Of course, from a young age, the artist grows up drawing, painting, sculpting and developing their abilities.

But the true value of an artist is in the talent (or natural ability) they are born with. There is some overlap here: good artists certainly have skill, but artistic skill without talent is, arguably, worthless.

Design, though, is really a skill that is taught and learned. You do not have to be a great artist to be a great designer; you just have to be able to achieve the objectives of design.

Some of the most respected designers in the world are best known for their minimalist styles. They don’t use much color or texture, but they pay great attention to size, positioning, and spacing, all of which can be learned without innate talent.

1. Good Art Sends a Different Message to Everyone. Good Design Sends the Same Message to Everyone.

This really falls under the second point about interpretation and understanding. But if you take only one thing away from this article, take this point.

Many designers consider themselves artists because they create something visually attractive, something they would be proud for people to hang on a wall and admire.

But a visual composition intended to accomplish a specific task or communicate a particular message, no matter how beautiful, is not art. It is a form of communication, simply a window to the message it contains.

Few artists call themselves designers because they seem to better understand the difference. Artists do not create their work to sell a product or promote a service. They create it solely as a means of self-expression, so that it can be viewed and appreciated by others. The message, if we can even call it that, is not a fact but a feeling.

What Do You Think?

Depending on how you look at it, the difference between art and design can be clear-cut or hazy. The two certainly overlap, but art is more personal, evoking strong reactions in those who connect with the subject.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Craig Elimeliah, who covered this subject in a fantastic article for AIGA, which I discovered during my research for this post.

“I do not claim to be an expert on defining what art is and what it is not, but I do know that if we look at the differences between art and design we will see a very clear line drawn between the two.

An engineer, if given the exact co-ordinates to place different colored pixels in specific places, could render a beautiful website or ad simply by following instructions; most design projects have a detailed set of instructions and most design is based on current trends and influences.

An artist, on the other hand, could never be given any specific instructions in creating a new chaotic and unique masterpiece because his emotions and soul is dictating the movement of his hands and the impulses for the usage of the medium.

No art director is going to yell at an artist for producing something completely unique because that is what makes an artist an artist and not a designer.”

Summary-Good Design

Accompanied by quick development of the digital medium market, large number of digital products that fail to meet consumers or satisfy the needs of business.  Is there a criteria framework or some way of evaluating good could effective design and the problem could be solved?  As a matter of fact, from 1949to 1955, good design program successful but just only focused on narrow selection of good designs thereby neglected majority of products representing technological change.  Some products was designed by form and function, but in isolation from its use. The designer didn’t consider context of use by daily life.

Now, good design is user own experience or performance such as useful, usable, desirable, which is really important in design.  As a good design not just show from the visual appearance of products, but also engage the user including the humanizing technology, human experience and so on. The author, Buchanan, who trusts a product has content(what is its use?) and purpose(why useful for me?).  He advices the designers need to build consumers’ trust, such as product must be usable, understand needs from the clients, limitations of users.

The design should usability with creating desirability, desirability plays an important and often decisive role in product selection, selecting one product to compete another. It also should relative with marketing experts and add cultural expressions.

In short, Usefulness, usability and desirability play a central role in good design for websites and all digital products.

REVIEW ABOUT THE SURREAL HOUSE

The Surreal House, which is for exhibition, is focused on the influence of Spirit of Surrealism on Architecture. For surrealists, the individual dwelling is not just “a machine for living” (Le Corbusier), but is “a stage for living”. In this show, all exhibits express the importance of dreamland and aspiration in the subconscious world. It is different with the Modern Architecture which tends to be rational and neat house.

This exhibition combines the first-generation surrealists and their main surrealism art works (panting, photography, film, sculpture and some surreal housing examples). The artists including Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Sarah Lucas, Buster Keaton, Man Ray, John Hejduk have been active in different areas of artist.

At the start of exhibition, two pieces of Duchamp’s artworks were showing. PRIERE DE TOUCH was used as a surrealism book cover, but here, it symbolizes door and window to the Surreal House. After entering the house, visitors will pass through a series of rooms which display different subjects and functions, such as the home of Freud, Femme Maison (female house) which is the masterpiece of Louise Bourgeois. These rooms are connected by corridors, some rooms bright while others dark. Some space is compressed, some extended, demonstrating mysterious atmosphere.

After visiting the first floor exhibition hall, the audience will be introduced to the second floor. This space has eight parts, forming a surreal work and it focuses on the dialogue of contemporary art and architecture. It started with SLEEP, created by Salvador Dali, 1937. It is a really well-known painting, a big head supported by ‘reality’ crutches, a dreamland home hidden in the mind. If crutches are removed, the head will fall, then the dream will be awakened.

The exhibition also projected some movies, which are wildly and successfully expressive using the film images of the housing. Keaton，who is an American film maker, is good at using the comedy to caricature the real society. His work THE SCARECROW was a good sample to display a small room combining all the functions. Finally, the exhibition ended with Andrei Tarkovsky’s last film-Sacrifice, the memorable scenes about Alexander burning up his villa which means everything will be ended, bringing the audience from surreal back to reality.

The show’s overall effect is that it successfully created the sense of mystery which looks like a dream in the unconsciousness. Through the exhibition, visitors could further more know about the surrealism and understand what is surrealism.

WOW！GAY PARADE

What a exciting parade!
I have known about the Gay parade in London, but this is the first time to watch it. So many gay societies expressed and showed about themselves, with various types of float, displayed gay culture or protest against the unequal law to the homosexual.
They dressed special clothing, such as man posed as a girl, wearing rainbow-color accessories, even some guy naked.
The Parade started from Baker Street to Trafalgar Square, lasted more than two hours. After the parade, it would have a performance for celebration!

Thank goodness, my home network has finally stabilized!!!
These day, I'v deeply felt writing is my weakness. I think I should practice as much as possible.
Tomorrow, my roommate will come back to Shanghai, enjoining her vacation. then I will stay alone with MIUMIU(a cat), I'v never breed pets before, it may a new experience in my life~