In order to strengthen my skills as a map, poster and web
designer for my career as a research assistant and cartographer at the U. S.
Geological Survey, I enrolled in the Graphic and Interactive Design (GID)
courses at Foothill College.
As I have not ever taken courses such as these I was looking for a good
introduction to the subject and found and enrolled in GID 01, The History of
Graphic Design. The large breadth of information presented in this class
taught me several things about graphic design, but from the cave drawings in
France to the invention of the alphabet and printing; to subtle changes in
typeface designs; to innovative artists such as Picasso and Paul Klee who
inspired graphic design for years to come; to the invention of the Personal
Computer and design software; this class left me in a whirlwind of new terms,
concepts, and movements of design weekly. Without ever having an art or art
history, or any online class for that matter, I struggled with absorbing this
new information which was driven solely by my efforts in reading and my
research endeavors for my weekly blog. I think I would have not only learned
more in this class but also retained what I learned longer if I would have
taken it in a classic classroom setting with a live weekly lecture. I tend to
learn by interacting with the instructor and classmates on a regular basis, and
this class was a failed experiment at trying to learn from an online setting.
Don’t get me wrong, I definitely picked up some vital information during this
quarter, but I’m almost positive I would have enjoyed it more and gotten more
out of it in a classroom—lesson learned.
That all being said, I did have learn a lot through the
weekly blog, Graphic Design Has History?, where I attempted to find
inspiration from the reading in Megg’s History of Graphic Design, by
Phillip B. Meggs, and further my learning through my own online research. Some
weeks the reading led me to online articles or personal experiences that I
noted in the blog and related to that weeks reading. The blogs that stand out
for me as my best work are Alphabets and Grammar, then and now where I
inspect the invention of alphabets and writing and compare it to modern written
inventions like emoticons; and Maps versus Diagrams, which is a subject
true to my passion of finding the clearest way to present spatial information
with a artful eye. My blogs Memorable Logos and What a Trippy Poster
Man! Are inspired more from personal
experiences and memories which were sparked by reading in Megg’s. Overall these
blogs and the this quarter of History of Graphic Design has taught me that
humans are constantly reinventing ways to communicate information whether it be
for advertising or manuscripts, always while drawing from the artistic trends
of the times.
