FJORD

My 2D design project that I chose was to design the art for a fake video game. While I normally wouldn’t write anything of a school project, with all the effort I put into it, I consider it one of my most detailed works.

My topic was to encompass Norse culture, psychology, and Geology. The basic premise consists of a young man using ancient magic to save his best friend who is generally believed to be dead and beyond saving. The use of dramatic Norwegian landscape, Norse culture, and the question of what is reality and what is fantasy incorporates all three themes.

I also sought to emulate Hayao Miyazaki’s style of drawing. Though I obviously didn’t utilize an anime style, I did my best to use intricate detail. I also was influenced by Square Enix games, and the realism of their human characters.

After much research, I incorporated many elements of Norse culture into the game. I decided to incorporate the Elder Futhark runes into the magic that the main character, Gerd, practices. The ancient nature of the runes and their previous association with magic made it the perfect choice. I also was careful to research the dress and appearance of Old Norse people. I learned that the only males who cut their hair short were slaves, and Gerd’s short hair implies that he is ill-regarded in his community. Other parts of Norse culture I used were the trademark Viking shields, runestones, and mythology. An example of mythology I used was Munin, Gerd’s raven guide. Munin and his counterpart Hugin were two ravens whose names meant “memory” and “thought” respectively. They delivered information to Odin. I used Munin because of his association with memory, another subtle allusion to psychology.

Another thing that deeply influenced me was the Bible. Though it is overlain with Norse imagery, the game is largely allegorical with the principal of the association of words with power, and the power attached to the name of Jesus. Accordingly, the bracelet that amplifies Gerd’s abilities bears a runic inscriptions of the name “Jesus”.  The whole principal magic of Liđvald (“bound ) in the game circles around the verse Matthew 18:18, “Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” In this game, I depict “binding” as an action that draws matter to one point and “loosing” as expelling matter from one point. This and other subtle references makes the game very Christian, despite the Norse overtones.



A wallpaper image, incorporating main character Gerd with Munin from the cover art, a runestone from the back cover, and the logo. Note the Norse sheild and the runic inscriptions both on the stone and in the wisps of magic.



The Runic Alphabet

Elder Futhark

For my 2D design project, the class’ theme was Vikings. This prompted me to research the runic alphabet.

The runic alphabet was used primarily for Germanic languages before they adopted the Latin alphabet. They were used primarily in the very beginning of the common era, likely before 200 BCE. They are often found on runestones.

It is unsure from where the runic alphabet originated. They are assumed to have originated from one of the Old Italic alphabets that preceded them by hundreds of years, however, no one is entirely sure which alphabet was specifically its origin. While the Raetic alphabet shares 18 of the symbols of the Elder Futhark runes, some think that the runic alphabet was derived directly from the Latin alphabet, while others think it may have originated from an Old Etruscan alphabet with a Germanic name, called Harigast.

Originally, runes could be written in any direction, but eventually they came to be written from left to write as many other western alphabets. In addition, words tended to run together, with no spaces, though occasionally one or two dots may serve the same purpose of spaces.

The most ubiquitous set of Runic alphabet is the Elder Futhark runes. They are also considered the oldest set of runes. The term “Futhark” is used because the first six runes are symbols for the Latin equivalent of “f-u-đ (or th) -a-r-k”.  

The Elder Futhark runes are the runes I chose to use for my project, because I wanted an element of antiquity. Runes are associated with mysticism, and I incorporated this magical element, although it is overlain with subtle Christian symbolism. The particulars of my project will be discussed in the next blog.

Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki is a legendary Japanese director and animator, internationally famous for movies such as My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and Spirited Away. Along with Isao Takahata, he cofounded Studio Ghibli. He tends to both write and direct his movies, and relies predominantly on traditional art rather than digital.

Miyazaki is most noted for including stunning detail in his work and the very realistic motions and gestures that he incorporates with his characters. Even in scenes that are shown only for a split second, he spares no effort. Howl’s Moving Castle is a good example of this, as the castle’s exterior is ridiculously intricate. Regarding the human-like motions he utilizes, an example that comes to my mind is in Spirited Away, when the main character, Chihiro, puts on her shoes. She doesn’t just put them on, but she pulls on the backs of them and taps the toe of one of her shoes to make sure it’s on right. Another example is in My Neighbor Totoro, as the two girls Satsuki and Mei inspect the porch of their new home.

Many of Miyazaki’s movies include strong environmentalist themes. Examples include Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, which is about a post-apocalyptic world where the dwindling human population is in enmity not only with each other but with a toxic fungal forest and its insect inhabitants, and Princess Mononoke, a movie about the conflict between humans in Muromachi-period Japan and neighboring forest spirits. There is also a strong feminist element to many of his movies; most of his main protagonists are strong female characters, and even the side characters fail to fit into the damsel-in-distress classification.  As an example, though San in Princess Mononoke is not the
main hero of the movie, she is very tough and
headstrong.

"Fantastique": Ken Bailey's Chat Noir

It was years ago that I first spotted this poster in a magazine, and since then, there has always been a place somewhere at the back of my mind that I would wonder of its origins. In fact, this poster inspired a crayon doodle that led to my own foreign food-and-animal advertisement poster, called “El Zorro Rosado Salchichas”. After some research, I learned that the poster was created by Ken Bailey, an artist born in 1953 in Salt Lake City, Utah who has owned the Bailey Nelson Gallery of Seattle since 1987. The gallery specializes in art styles such as Northwest Coastal, Southwestern, and Native American and features museum-quality examples of these styles. It also showcases regional artists, including Ken Bailey himself.

Ken Bailey is most famous for his vintage-style posters featuring advertisements that include domestic animals, mostly cats and dogs, and some sort of product, mostly food or drink (in one case, there is a poster with a horse advertising lotion). His style is very simplistic, utilizing cartoony and anthropomorphized animals that are endearing and humorous. These fictional advertisements are reminiscent, to me, of the advertisement of the 1920’s and 30’s.



My own Animal-and-Food Poster, from
2007 or 2008



He also has a series of “Stupid Pet Trick”s, such as “Cookie on the Nose”, “Play Dead”, and “Chase Your Tail”. These images are less clean than his advertisements, instead using a more childish and painterly look. The rest of his images still deal with domestic animals and are often humorous portraits or depict canine reveries, all the while keeping a whimsical and simple air.

Examples of Ken Bailey’s work: http://www.kenbailey.com/limited-edition-prints.html

http://www.randmcnally.com/poi.do?poiId=5375

http://www.globalgallery.com/search.php?af=ken+bailey

Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide by Johanna Drucker and Emily McVarish

Graphic Designer: Lai Reyes



The insert of a wedding invitation.



Lai Reyes is a Filipina graphic designer that specializes in Web and Print production. She graduated from De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, a private Catholic college located in Manila, capital of the Phillipiness, with a degree in Multimedia Arts, in 2008.

The majority of her work utilizes patterns, such as polka dots or wall paper-like floral design that for the most part can be described as cute or even girly. This comes as no surprise, as it seems that most of the products are for cute occasions or girly enterprises, more specifically, weddings, baby baptisms, and fashion websites. There are also some childlike qualities in her work, such as cartoony drawings and slightly messy lettering, and in one case, pinwheels.



She also seems to exhibit a pleasant juxtaposition of modern and vintage. Her work utilizes very bold colors, which give her designs a very modern appeal and attests to technological advances allowing for such solid hues, however, many elements hearken back to the rustic, handmade quality of products of the recent past, as well as fashions and designs of heraldry and 19^th century England. These elements include the use of flourishes, actual or stylized frills and seams, the use of brown as opposed to black, both bold serif fonts and delicate cursive text, the use of heraldic elements such as scrolls or in one case a coat of arms, and the use of old wooden textures.





Sean's Eco Baptism

Tot Couture Website



Especially in the case of the design for the Tot Couture website, these aforementioned elements combine to have a sort of Lolita feel to them. However, in the case of the Sean’s Eco Baptism, there is a more casual, natural, contemporary feel.

http://laireyes.net/

Latin Alphabet, Part II: The Development of the Latin Alphabet



The Base of the Collumn of Trajan

The Latin alphabet, like all other systems of writing, can be traced back to the Proto-Sumerian Pictographic alphabets that were present prior to 3000 B.C. This evolved into the famed Egyptian Pictographic alphabet, which in turn led to the creation of Proto-Semitic Syllabary. This led to Proto-Phoenician Syllabary, which led to the Greek alphabet, which led to the Etruscan alphabet, which led to the Ancient Latin alphabet, which led to the Latin alphabet of modern times.

Ancient Latin Alphabet

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

V

X

Y

Z

The Latin alphabet that we know today isn’t far removed from the ancient alphabet used by the Romans, however there were some differences. The people of Rome, who spoke Latin, used only twenty-three letters in their writing; the same alphabet as ours, sans J, U, and W. K, Y, and Z, also, were not used in the normal writing of Latin, but were used to write Greek-based words only. Thus, only twenty letters were used to write actual Latin.

In the Middle Ages, in order to represent sounds in Germanic languages that were not a part of Latin, the letter “W” was added, as well as the letters “J” and “U”. Thus, the letter “V” was more or less replaces by the syllable “U”, with “V” going on to only denote a consonant “v” sound, and the letter “J” was added as a consonant sound as well, at times replacing the letter “I” (as in “Julius”).



It is interesting to note the absence of J, U, and W in this alphabet. In the Latin language, there is no “j” sound, nor is there any “v” sound. They also did not distinguish the “w” sound from the “u” sound, using the letter “V” to denote the “u” sound. Ecclesiastical Latin does not always make these distinctions in pronunciation, as it is heavily influenced by modern Italian. Imagine my surprise when I learned in my Latin I class that the phrase  “Veni, vidi, vici,”, a famous supposed quotation of Julius Caesar in 47 BC upon after defeating Pharnaces II of Pontus at Zela, is not pronounced with “v” sounds, but with “u” or “w” sounds, rendering it in Classical Latin as “Weni, widi, wici.” (Also as a side note, the “c” is commonly pronounced as a “ch” sound in accordance with Ecclesiastical Latin, but is pronounced as a “k” in Classical Latin.) In addition, “Julius” would be better written as “Iulius” if one wanted to better portray in modern terms the Classical pronunciation, (or “IVLIVS”, if one wanted to be really Classical). Knowing all this, it is always fun trying to pronounce the word “Vesuvius”, which in ancient Latin would be written as “VESVVIVS.”





A clip from a comic I'm working on featuring
the manor of Senator Augustus.



Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide by Johanna Drucker and Emily McVarish

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/Trajans_Column/home.html

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/latin.htm

http://www.wikipedia.org/

Latin Alphabet, Part I: The Spread of the Latin Alphabet

The Latin alphabet is noted for being the most ubiquitous system of alphabetic writing, especially in western civilization. This comes as no surprise. The Roman empire (the first users of the Latin alphabet),  at its peak, controlled every Mediterranean coastline and a good portion of Europe, spreading the writing system to the places that would become Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Germany, and England (among others).



The Extent of the Roman Empire, 100 AD





The Latin language led to the creation of the Romance Languages. The most well-known Romance Languages are French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian, but also include more obscure languages such as Catalan, Occitan, Sardinian, and Rhaeto-Romance. These languages evolved from dialects of Vulgar Latin during different periods of Roman occupation. Many of these languages are widespread, with Spanish being spoken by over 358 million people worldwide. As these languages spread, so did the Latin alphabet on which they were based.

Also because of Rome’s imperialism, the Latin alphabet is used for Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, and even some Slavic Languages.

Centuries later, many of the victims of Rome’s , such as Spain, France, and England, would become mighty forces of imperialism themselves and would carry this writing system around the globe, including to what would later be the United States of America, noted for its political and economic influence.

Now, the majority of countries use the Latin alphabet either as their primary system of writing, or in addition to another system. Even in countries that use another system of writing, the Latin alphabet is still often used because of the widespread use of Romance and Germanic languages, and also because of the ease of communication and the incentives of capitalism.

In short, the spread of the Latin alphabet is equally as zealous and infectious as the influence of the empires, countries, and people that utilize it, and the aggressive colonization of the Roman empire has left a legacy that affects even our method of speech around the world.

http://www.britannica.com/

http://www.wikipedia.org/

The World Book Encyclopedia

http://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/100/index.html

Logo Design

Recently, I have been given the task of creating a logo for a new program that my church (the Apostolic Lighthouse Church of Navarre) just launched, called Care 4 Kidz; after drawing the initials of the program about twice, I realized that I didn’t really know what to draw and what program to use. This prompted me to do a little research.

I went to several websites looking at lists of logos to find inspiration. Contemporary logos seem to have become very sharp, bright, and complicated. They definitely spoke of the availability of technology. I’m not very old, and I haven’t paid a lot of attention to logos in the past, but thinking back on iconic logos of companies like McDonalds, Nike , Disney,  Sinclaire, and General Electric, they were not terribly complicated. I think that the availability of vector programs and a taste for vibrant color that sprouted from modern innovations in printing, computers, and internet advertising has influenced the styles of many contemporary logos; in fact, because of these innovations, some logos have even become a bit tacky in their extravagance, in my opinion. In these cases, it seems that there is less focus on clever creativity than vibrancy. Of course, there is a vast amount of logos that are still simple, recognizable, and in some cases very creative; the logos for many popular websites such as Google and Facebook still retain very simple designs, for example, and one logo I saw for a Spartan golf resort were mind-boggling.

In conclusion, while I wasn’t able to find inspiration and learned how despairingly common hands and hearts are used in logos, I found this experience very telling on the recent trends regarding logos.

Comic Progression

In my opinion, it was interesting to see the progression of comic styles throughout the years. To me, it mirrors the social changes and the progression of freedom of speech that have occurred throughout the twentieth century.

The first comics mentioned were primarily patriotic, which is a not-so-subtle effect of the decades of heavy war that began prior to the fifties. As time passed, and certain subjects became more acceptable, comics (and other media) became more liberal in their topics. It is interesting to ponder whether the social changes caused the changes in the comics, whether it was the other way around, or whether there was some third event that influenced them both simultaneously.  The documentary seems to imply that comics broke new ground regarding topics that were deemed acceptable.

I find it strange that they didn’t include political cartoons. If the creators of this documentary regarded some early comics as propaganda and some late comics as social diatribe, then I don’t see why they wouldn’t add a small section for this. If I recall, some political cartoons are sequential. Perhaps they thought it would make the documentary boring or twice as long as it already was, or perhaps political cartoons don’t count as comics, even if they are sequential. Regardless, I think it would have fit the theme of the documentary, which seemed to be the evolution of comics as a form of self-expression and social satire.

All in all, I thought the documentary was probably pretty accurate with reference to the major changes in comics over the 1900’s, but it’s difficult to say.

Graffiti Art

The best description I can think of for the documentaries on graffiti is that they were energetic compilations that capture the emotion and meaning of graffiti art and that they accurately capture the spirits of the artists, from what I can tell.

I found it most interesting to see the graffiti art that surfaces internationally. All tend to have fundamental attributes concerning the technical aspect of graffiti art, and additionally have some of the same thematic elements. Though it is used as a sort of social commentary in some cases, it is still a very basic and raw expression of the artist’s thoughts and feelings. With these unilateral similarities, it is amazing to see how the cultural atmosphere of these places affect the compositions. The difference between the graffiti art in New York and Los Angeles alone is fascinating; while they are very similar, Los Angeles definitely has a sort of Hispanic flair.

Unfortunately, I found some parts of the documentaries were difficult for me to enjoy. While the energy of graffiti art was definitely portrayed, I often found that the speed at which the scenes change and the sheer quantity of images, examples, and artists combined with the background music was a little overwhelming. I regret that I couldn’t take more time to peruse some of these works of art and really feel the full effect of the detail and technical genius.

Regardless, these documentaries have instilled a new respect for graffiti art that I could never have gained living in the little nowhere town of Navarre.