Web 2.0 was shifted from Web 1.0, which was the first stage of the world wide web. Web 1.0 made use of hyperlinks and frame sets. Shifting from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 was seen as a result of technological advances and uses of mass media, like Youtube, and Dailymotion.  Web 2.0 allows us to interact with each other via social media. Most motion designs can be displayed using electronic media technology, but manual technology can still work though. These types of design are more influential since this is modern times. Not as many people care for the traditional designs even though that is where we started with all of this. The more modern art styles look more fancy and appealing, while some think that certain traditional designs are outdated. I find myself more interested in the modern designs. For one, I didn’t exist back when the older traditional designs were introduced. It only makes sense that I would prefer more modern designs. That said, there’s nothing wrong with the traditional design as they have piqued my interest a little. I do believe that these designs and such internet means can be called new media. We watching and look at anything that catches out eye on the internet.

In the old days, postmodernists were huge fans of psychedelic posters. For one thing, you had to wonder if the people who made the posters were high on LSD. I suppose in general there is nothing really wrong with the psychedelic posters. In fact, a lot of liked the posters even though they were barely even legible. I believe it was the 1960’s that these posters were invented. People liked the designs mainly because they were unique in a sense, and they were. Before the 60’s, there wasn’t a lot things in art that made think you took a sip of crack coffee. Despite all of this, the idea of psychedelic posters don’t actually appeal to or interest me. Some designs hurt to see and make me feel loopy. Postmodernism responded to Swiss style in a way that it changed the way people think about, well life in general. I feel like postmodernism was in fact inevitably going to respond to the Swiss style. Then again, if it didn’t something else was going to respond. So a response was inevitable in my opinion. If you think about it like this, we are constantly evolving and we won’t always be satisfied with the same thing, so yes it was bound to happen.

The Nazis made use of what they had t their disposal during the second world war. They used propaganda to persuade people’s opinions, making their opinions more favorable. Nazis were considered to be one of the most media aware governments back in the old days. I believe that even if the Nazis propaganda plan didn’t work out, they might have tried to use force or some other secret schemes. As we may know, the Nazis did almost anything to rise to power. Nevertheless, they had designers promote their ambitions, policies, and reputation. Not to mention, they also knew how powerful a tool propaganda was. However the designers were expected to not accept the modern styles to benefit the ideal leadership. From what most people think about the Nazis, we can assume that they are very barbaric and vulgar, and people would probably be right. Taking into consideration, they did start a war, but even so we could probably guess that Germany was going to get taken over one way or another. They have many means at their disposal as I’ve said before. As we’ve talked about before, propaganda can be a very powerful yet dangerous thing as people have used propaganda to make people want to go to war.

Bauhaus was an art system that was around for the years 1919 until 1933. It was very popular in Germany. So popular in fact, that schools were opened up in Germany that were dedicated to the Bauhaus style. Bauhaus set the bar pretty high for most artists, even though there were already sky high expectations. But it made the quality of the work more appealing and interesting. Bauhaus influence design by letting artists pass on his or her own vision to build collective experience for skill and experimentation. I do believe that the Bauhaus style can be seen in modern art nowadays. Some people believe that Bauhaus’s approach to art education is significant to their influence. I do believe that because the Bauhaus style is basically free expressionism, it has a major influence over other artists looking to move people with inspiration. I would think the Nazis wanted to close down the Bauhaus schools because they wanted to keep people from opposing them. Since Bauhaus was a very popular artistic movement, many artists feel the need to express themselves. I believe back in the day the Nazis didn’t want people expressing their vision to others. Then again Nazis want to suppress everything in my opinion.

This week we learned about how design was used to make a social revolution. Russia was a country that practiced constructivism, so they just make art for art’s sake. As such, it was forced onto the people of Russia and was a very active force, until it was replaced by the Socialist Realism. Before that constructivism was used in Russia mainly for propaganda, which was very effective for their movement.

Kasimir Malelvich was a Russian painter who began an uprising of Suprematism. He was a great artist who joined with other Suprematist artists, and used geometric abstract art and originated the Avant-garde Suprematist Movement. Given how much influence he had as a designer, I do believe that most designers in general should have a helping hand in changing the world. Seeing as how design has created movements all over the world and not just the Suprematist Movement. From the way I see it, the world has been revolving around design for a very, very long time. Design itself has a huge influence over people and the way that they think. As such in a way that changes the way everything works. So design can be very effective in changing the world, it just depends on how people go about doing it.

This class time we covered the many art styles around the world. It was at this moment that I realized that there are so many -isms in the world. I f I had to pick which art style I like the most, I would probably pick purism simply for its simplicity. From the examples I saw in class last week, I saw that they were mainly every day objects like bottles, vases, glasses and such. As a lot of people know, simplicity is a characteristic I enjoy in art styles. In terms of art history, they’re were a lot of drawings and paintings back then that were very simple and yet people still enjoyed looking at them. As for it being a part of graphic design history, I can’t really say much. I would imagine it would still be the same simple design only it would have less texture, unless you’re really good at utilizing the graphic design systems and programs. As for the other styles, I can’t really say which styles have more significance over other styles, as I believe that it comes down to preference. However, I would say that purism would have more significance only because of my personal bias.

Propaganda is a tactic used by people to try to make them want to do something. Usually propaganda involves some kind of light slander, so when people look at it they will think “I can do that” or offend them so some extent to make them want to prove a point. Depending on what the message relays to the viewer it can be very effective today. You can still see elements of propaganda in TV commercials since everything is on TV or the internet. In my opinion, the Allies propaganda was better in term of their war propaganda, and I do believe they were the ones who started war propaganda. I think culture was involved in both sides of central and allied power’s propaganda, mainly their war propaganda since they wear their uniforms and in America’s case they used Uncle Sam as a reference.  I find the war propaganda very interesting because it was the fact that armies were trying to recruit their civilians for wars and such. They apparently wanted to point out that if you didn’t want to go to war, you were a loser back then, at least that was some of the messages. Case in point, propaganda can be a very powerful tool for manipulating people.

Art Nouveau is a topic I really can’t speak much about. However, what I thought about this week’s art nouveau that differs from last week’s is that this week’s art was more culture based if that makes any sense. For example, Katie showed us two different pictures of the art nouveau category and wanted us to see which country we could relate it to. Taking that into account, it seemed like more of a cultural reference to me. It was pointed to me that each country had a different style to their paintings.

I do believe that a country’s culture does play a role in how their art nouveau develops. France and/or England’s art nouveau pictures I saw were mainly centered around women and the nature surrounding them. As well as Scotland tends to use more geometric looks to the art style. From what I can gather, the artists this week may have the same amount if not more influence than last week’s as well as the art styles established in that time, such as Werkstatte Style. If I had to decide which week’s art nouveau picture were better, I would say last week’s images for the sole fact that they had less disturbing images.

In class this week we had to develop our own language. It was very difficult on our own, but luckily we got to work in groups. I did come up with some ideas, but my classmates mainly did the work and I was just their for the ride. The challenge in this was coming up with our own symbols. Even though it was kind of tough to begin with, we made it even harder on ourselves by using symbols for words instead of letters. There was no real reasoning behind the symbols we chose, we just wrote down what popped into our heads. It’s actually funny how language has come a long way. Before the letters we just used pictures and symbols, which is pretty much what ties into the exercise, and it also shows how much humanity has evolved in the past few centuries or so. It was pretty fun make our own alphabet, but if there was one thing I didn’t like it was probably that we could’ve done symbols for letters instead of taking a more difficult route for each word, but nevertheless it was fun. It was very interesting to learn about how much language has changed over the years.

From what I’ve seen about art nouveau, its about using nature to emphasize your subject. For example, Theophile Steinlen’s work was mainly japanese print, but more simple. As a lot of people know I am a fan of simplicity. His poster for Le Chat Noir immediately caught my attention. It has some japanese characteristics in my opinion. Some of the letters written on the poster have distinct japanese like qualities. Mainly the “Proehainement” if that’s correct. The cat that is depicted in the poster is very simple and it stands out from its design. The cat is basically the focal point of the entire poster seeing as its the only thing you see. I suppose the people in Paris were very interested in the design since the simplicity was visually appealing to them, it was probably also because the Chat Noir poster was for the musical entertainment club. I believe that it shows the nature of the black cat in it. It gives me the idea that it is more of a night club if anything. I think overall the painting is great. Its very simple, not too many colors and easy to look at. Compared to the other artists’ work, I just enjoy this one the most.