The secret of history of graphic design

The secret of history of graphic design, marginalized, at best, by most American books on the subject, involves a thing called punk rock. Punk was born in the United States in the late 1960s, in the form of bands like the Thirteenth Floor Elevators in Austin and Iggy and the Stooges from Detroit. It further developed in New York with the Velvet Underground and the Ramones. But it ultimately had its strongest flowering and its greatest impact on graphic design in Great Britain, in the mid to late 1970s. I feel that I would be remiss as a graphic design educator if I did not now present, from the ten-part documentary The Punk Years, Programme 7: Ridicule Is Nothing To Be Scared Of.

Shwedagon

Last week I mentioned that the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, Burma, reminded me of the North Carolina State Fair. I think I should explain that comment further. The Shwedagon Pagoda consists of a massive, stunning gold pagoda, and a complex of hundreds of smaller pagodas and temples. When I visited it, the area was thronging with people and monks who were gradually circling the main pagoda on a beautiful day. Everyone seemed to be having a wonderful time. There was plenty to look at; there were painted concrete animals and characters, temple after temple, with spinning fortune-telling devices and other clever ways to give offerings at many of them. OK, the Shwedagon Pagoda was not nearly as crowded as the North Carolina State Fair, and it was much cleaner and more aesthetically more appealing than the North Carolina State Fair, but there was a similar sense of camraderie and excitement and plain old fun in the air.
Have I mentioned the great courtesy and sly humor of the people I spoke English with in Burma? At one point a man, perhaps noticing my eyes, showed me the way to a beatiful deep green wooden temple. It was built, he said, expressly for green-eyed people. There was no Buddha in it, because green-eyed people tend to be foreign and non-Buddhist. The temple was very tall, because green-eyed people tend to be tall. And, he added, tapping his head and smiling, “they tend to have good brains.”

postcards from Burma

I bought these postcards from Burma while travelling there in 1986, because, with my recently acquired degree in graphic design, I was astonished at the print quality. Which is awful, of course, but so bad that the images become unreal and maybe even magical. Amazingly, they capture the spirit of the place—both the terrible poverty and the transporting beauty.

‘Your handwriting is so round’

“I had only a smattering of Burmese, but even that seemd like a small victory over astounding linguistic odds. Burmese has the perverse syntax of Japanese and the tonal complexities of Chinese. Its writing system is based on a devilish series of interconnecting circles. Apparently, it is a great compliment to say to a Burmese person:

This means, ‘Your handwriting is so round.’”

—Andrew Marshall, The Trouser People: A Story of Burma: In the Shadow of the Empire, 2002.

instant graphic design education

Having just learned how to cut ‘n’ paste YouTube videos into my site, I am now proud to present an instant graphic design education to anyone who might be interested. This should take about half an hour. I have carefully arranged the curriculum, but of course you can click wherever and whenever you like.
(P.S. I have just been informed that watching multiple screens simultaneously can get you through the program even sooner. What the heck, I say go for it!)











There, wasn’t that fun? It was fun for me. (I’m learning more about this blog thing every day. COMING SOON: individually linkable entries!)

moonlight

“In the evening after dinner the whole family liked to bask in the flood of moonlight on the balcony of the house. The young night was pollinated with stars, and the full moon looked to me like a huge lollipop as it rose in the east over the purple hills and shed light on our unlit town. The nights of the full moon were magical for us, and filled us with excitement, for we were not brought up with electricity. The moonlight seemed to give a sort of warmth on a cold night and coolness on a hot night. It even seemed to heal sorrows and spiritual wounds.”

—Pascal Knoo Thwe, From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey, 2002.

a ‘purging of the realm according to custom’

“When [Mindon] died without an obvious heir in 1878, one of his queens intrigued to raise to the throne one Thibaw, an insignificant son of the king’s who had spent most of his life in a Buddhist monastery. She and her supporters hoped to rule the country with Thibaw as a puppet. . . .
It had been an immemorial tradition when a new king succeeded for there to be a “purging of the realm according to custom” “i.e. a massacre of the previous ruler’s kinsmen. Since Thibaw was distant from the throne, he had to kill eighty-three members of the royal family. The killings were spread over two days and were carried out by members of the Royal Guard. As was customary, the princesses were strangled while the princes were sewn into red velvet sacks and gently beaten to death with paddles”it being taboo to shed royal blood.”

—Pascal Knoo Thwe, From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey, 2002.

moving stairs

“My anxiety grew as I watched people stepping on and off what looked to me like moving stairs, and realized we would have to do the same. As far as I knew there was only one escalator in the whole of Burma, in Rangoon. It was quite a tourist attraction, and I had once gone to look at it, but discovered that it had not been in working order for years.”

—Pascal Knoo Thwe, From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey, 2002.

The greatest hyphenator ever

Saturday night

“The lights of Philadelphia burn in oncoming night beyond. Everyone is going off to eat, there will be drinking in bars, and parties, and wild hilarities. And the football players, taking showers or combing their hair or being rubbed down by some consoling trainer, are thinking of the soft sweet girl awaiting them for the dance.
This was when Peter saw the joys of his college life—always on the Saturday night when the game was over and night spread it rewarding darkness over all.”

—Jack Kerouac, The Town and the City, 1950.