Today we were sent to go to London to go and visit the Museum of Brands and the V&A Postmodernism Exhibition. I was very exited because I hadn't been to London in quite some time and love to look at exhibitions (because I'm that cool). Another task we had to complete was make 2 different alphabets. One using letters from actual typefaces, and another with purely letter forms. I found it really hard to find the letterforms so I didn't manage to finish that one, and I didn't finish the typeface letter one either but I cheated a bit so now it is complete.
First we visited the Museum of Brands, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but as soon as I was inside I was so happy! The whole museum was full of old collected bottles, packaging, chocolate wrappers... All the stuff that I collect! I only keep them if they hold a memory or some sentimental value, but I wish my house was like that whole museum! Unfortunately we weren't aloud to take picture, so all we could do was draw 5 fonts we liked out of the whole museum (we could draw more, but I also wanted to see the rest of the museum).
(Drawings of typefaces from the Museum, my favourite is "Keen's", I apologise the pictures! Some I did over 2 pages because I had no space left and some are just rough sketches. I also really like "Maypole Soap" the decorative "M" and "S" I find really pretty and the text is just generally playful with it's shading and composition.)
After the museum we went to the V&A where we visited the Postmodernist exhibition. I enjoyed the exhibition so much! From reading the blurbs and from my own observation, here is my own small definition of what I think is Postmodernism:
To explain Postmodernism one has to explain Modernism. Modernism based it's style on clarity and simplicity, looking especially at modernist furniture designs by Marcel Breuer, Eileen Grey, Gerrit Rietveld and the Bauhaus. Their designs well materialistic qualities as well as being functional so the those suffering financially from the war could still afford to have luxury in their home. Faster methods of transport was also becoming apparent with technological advances in trains, boats and cars. The general population could explore places like Egypt and Africa, the world was moving fast and so was coined the term Modernism. Postmodernism however, set to break all these rules and conventions set down by modernism. It was a mix of the theatrical and theoretical, complexity and contradiction. A new freedom to design anything became apparent. Starting in the 1960's in Italy, the key centre of critical practises which laid the grounds for postmodernism. Ettore Sottsass, an Italian designer from the postmodernist period, was fascinated with ritual and pop culture and designed props for pleasure filled lifestyles, seen in his tea-pot prototypes. From the 1960s-70s there were mainly experimentation with architectural styles, collage and 'Historicism'. Names such as Charles Moore, Aldo Rossi and Gaetano Pesce worked in this field. Furniture also became a mix with old and new, a good example would be Pieter De Bruyne's Chantilly Chest from 1975, and as the years were heading towards the 80s bricolage emerged again like it did during the Dada period with modern artists taking influence from Hannah Hoch and Raoul Hausmann. The 1980s can be described as New Wave with their use of vivid colours, exaggeration and commercial appeal. "Blade Runner" the famous 80s future based film is an example of the style and commercial appeal of this period. As well as Jean-Paul Goude (partner to Grace Jones, a famous singer from the era) designed a constructivist influenced maternity dress for the singer. On the whole Postmodernism was extremely controversial in comparison to Modernism and broke every rule about clarity and simplicity with bold and exaggerated design and imagery.
Wow, I really didn't want to write that much (but from previously studying history of art, I couldn't help it!). I hope it's informative at least. Above is what I learnt from the exhibition, which shows I quite a bit. We then went our separate ways home and I drew some innocent people on the train (you can probably tell which ones I did first, the rubbish ones, and the ones I did once I got into it, the ever-so-slightly less rubbish ones).
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