Graphic Design and Architecture are the two arts I've found myself unwinding to the most in recent years. I'd actually like to pick up some informal education in GD for personal, non-professional applications. So if anyone knows some good books or resources, drop some recommendations.

Meanwhile... I've long been interested in representing abstract, theoretical concepts or even historical information visually. I used to work in a map library for a department that taught geographical and informational systems. I found this site tonight and am very impressed with some of the prints. (https://2046printshop.com/) It reminds me of some of the old National Geographic fold out science posters we would cycle out on the department display board.

Sure it is throwback modernism, but damnit I like it. Some of the conceptual prints are rather sharp. Makes me want to act on my recent desires to make free educational media. I'd love to make a video series on Early Modern Philosophy and the Copernican Revolution basically using power point but pretty power point. But there's such a thing as academic posters. Usually those are for the sciences, but I'd love to do some philosophical and historical stuff like somehow convey the pre-war emigration movement of the Vienna Circle or a geographical presentation of the correspondences of 15th C thinkers.

all of the books by E. Tufte are great for conceptual stuff, and they are also beautiful books from a design standpoint.

this is a great deep and wonderful rabbit hole.

https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/

motorbike guy wrote: Tue Aug 24, 2021 8:44 am

all of the books by E. Tufte are great for conceptual stuff, and they are also beautiful books from a design standpoint.

this is a great deep and wonderful rabbit hole.

https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/

I remember trying to read one of his books, but feeling like I needed a course in advanced statistics first. Still beautiful stuff, but heads-up.

The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher is a massive, colourful book that I’ve only so far dipped into, which is probably the best way of approaching it. Everything I’ve seen in it entertains, and you now make me want to pick it up again.

Thanks for the leads. One of my favorite philosophers, Otto Neurath, worked with artist, Gerd Arntz, to create Isotype, an early attempt at an international symbol system. I really wish I had done a double major back in the Geographical & Information Systems department I worked in back in college. I was always floundering to find a second major to go with my philosophy major and wound up not getting on with the psychology and social sciences departments. Ended up with taking a lot of classics, art, lit, & film history and theory with a slapped together English minor. All that was great, but if I had understood how college worked I could have done all that and picked up a major in graphic design or GIS. I regret not exploring such departments while working on my PhD, as a fantastic department was available.

Anyway, here is some Arnst:
http://www.gerdarntz.org/

https://societyofsigns.com/a-visual-world-language

http://weimarart.blogspot.com/2010/09/g ... ution.html

Graphic Design

More Arntz:

Art

https://libcom.org/gallery/gerd-arntz-illustrations

I'm not at all artistic but I enjoy good graphic design. I've not much to add except that if anyone wants to get into wine, Madeline Puckette is a wine nerd with a background in graphic design. She made a great book called Wine Folly in which she uses her GD chops to make wine easily understandable for those intimidated.

Her maps and charts are particularly good.

https://winefolly.com/

I have an early paperback copy of the book (it's since gotten more fancy) I'll post it in the mail for anyone in the USA, Media Mail, of course. It's in good shape.

FCFS.

enframed wrote: Tue Aug 24, 2021 11:49 am Her maps and charts are particularly good.

https://winefolly.com/

I really liked the educational posters.

I've been trying for nearly 40 years to find out who made these films I remember so vividly and I finally cracked it yesterday, when a four-decade-old memory of a searchable fragment of lyric popped into my head.

Australian graphic designer and animator Alex Stitt is the guy I've been searching for all this time. Blew me away when I was young, looks even better to me today. Long out of print and seemingly forgotten, which seems almost criminal neglect. What a world, where somebody can turn in work like this and have it seemingly count for nothing.

Unfortunately his other feature film, Abra Cadabra, is even less available and has never had a DVD release. But thanks to the magic of Youtube, we can at least watch a reasonable copy of his amazing first feature. Check out the eye-popping scene near the beginning when Grendel attacks the mead hall.



Now I have to track down a copy of Stitt: Autobiographics which is an art book of his graphic design work.

Love the stuff. I've been teaching a graphic design course I co-created for the past five years to folks with little to no experience over at Northwestern, and it's been great. Just finished another year, and we're firing up again in early November when classes resume. As always, looking forward to it. Big fan of Edward Tufte. My wife actually took one of his courses maybe five-six years years ago and I was a bit jealous, but we have all of his books in the house. I also really like the stuff over at information is beautiful for visualizations, and thought that book was pretty great.

I have a bunch of resources I've amassed over the years, but I think my faves are the free/cheap typography selections over at dafont.com and 1001fonts.com (I'm a complete nut for typography), and the massive icon library at thenounproject.com. I use Illustrator professionally for clients and personal design and the like, but I've steered my students towards the free templates over at canva.com and the crippled but free gravit.io design program, which are both probably going to put me out of a job eventually, but whatever. I find that it's always good to just keep a running folder for images and designs that move me so that I can always come back for a bit of inspiration if'n I get stuck.

Oh, and thumbs up for the Art of Looking Sideways book recommendation, sparky mark. I found a reasonably priced copy and it's on its way.

Thanks for starting this thread!


Faiz