YOYP Xmas Alphabet

We had Whitespace in a couple of weeks ago to run a guerilla day for their Year of Young People project. Whitespace briefed 60 students (also including a class from Napier University) to each take a letter and create a festive themed alphabet. Chris Brohl and Niamh Curran came in to R310 and  over the course of the day the students put together a set of creative letters.  Everything was top secret, given that the results were goign to be used on real Christmas cards.

The resulting alphabet was used to send out letters to Whitespace's clients, friends and supporters. You can check out the results of the project, and read more about it here.

Pure Joy

HND Graphic Design student Joy Mooney took the Breakthrough Award at the DMA awards recently in London. The DMA Breakthrough Awards runs in partnership with the DMA Awards and GRT.



This year, Direct Line supplied the brief, which was to re-position Direct Line to a younger target audience for new car insurance by building awareness of the brand and increasing understanding of 'black box' insurance. We managed to produce all three finalists with Joy being joined by Natasha Ryan and Blanca Jiminez.

All three travelled down to London with tutor Helena Good to pitch their ideas to the judging panel, ahead of attending the Awards.  Joy took the top prize but Natasha and Blanca shared the joint Silver prize - a huge achievement all round for our student creatives.

DMA Breakthrough Finalists

Huge congratulations to Blanca Jiminez, Natasha Ryan and Joy Mooney who have all been announced as finalists for the DMA Breakthrough Award for their work on the Direct Line brief.

The three final year students will be travelling down to London during the first week in December, along with tutor Helena Good, to pitch their idea to the DMA panel, and then attend the awards night on Dec 4th!

Into Orbit

HND Year 2 recently finished a short poster project set by former graduates Kyle McPartlin and Kiera Winfield, both designers at Edinburgh agency Orbit.

They set a brief to explore the word 'collaboration', and the class were tasked with each designing a single A3 poster using the risograph process. We exhibited the work in the hub and also invited along Johnny Gailey, who runs Out of the Blueprint studio in Leith, and specialise in riso printing and facilitated the production of the work.

Kyle and Kiera are due to announce a winner of the project next week, and that will guarantee one talented student a placement at Orbit.  Some sample risos from the project -

Chapter 94: A History of Judaic Art and Manuscripts

Detail of Darmstadt Haggadah, Scribe, Israel b. Meir of Heidelberg, Germany. Courtesy of Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstad (Cod. or 8, fol. 37v).

Throughout their long history Jews had always understood the importance of visual communications in preserving their cultural identity. According to 1 Kings 6:1

Now it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.

The First Temple was built in the 10th century B.C. in Jerusalem and the Old Testament describes it as a magnificent piece of art in which Solomon spared no expense for its beautification. It is described as overlaid with gold and decorated with cherubim (I Kings 6). He ordered vast quantities of cedar wood from King Hiram of Tyre (I Kings 5:20­25), had huge blocks of the choicest stone quarried, and commanded that the building's foundation be laid with hewn stone. To complete the massive project, he imposed forced labor on all his subjects, drafting people for work shifts that sometimes lasted a month at a time. He assumed such heavy debts in building the Temple that he is forced to pay off King Hiram by handing over twenty towns in the Galilee (I Kings 9:11). 

An incised depiction of the Temple Menorah, found at the site of the Temple in the Old City of Jerusalem. Israel Antiquities Authority

In 597 BCE. King Nebuchadnezzar the Great of Babylon after plundering the gold and silver of the Jerusalem Temple and Royal Palace marched back to Babylon with several thousand Judean prisoners of war. Ten years later he would return to Jerusalem to avenge and to destroy First Temple, because Zedekiah had become king of Judah and he had not been the loyal vassal.

The original structure of the Second Temple, before it was refurbished by the Hasmoneans, and later, more extensively by king Herod, was built at the decree of Cyrus the Great, King of Iran . Indeed, vessels from the First Temple, recovered by the Persians from the Babylonians whom they had conquered, were returned to the Jews to facilitate and encourage the rebuilding of the Temple.The Talmud describes the beauty of the Herod’s Second Temple, declaring, “He who has not seen the Temple in its full construction has never seen a glorious building in his life” (Tractate Succot 51b). After the destruction of the Second Temple by Roman emperor Titus in 70  A.D—an event commemorated on the Arch of Titus in Rome and in Jewish liturgy—images of the Temple’s furnishings, especially the celebrated gold menorah, or seven-branched lamp, became emblematic of Jewish religion.

Judaic Vessels

In the first centuries A.D., Jewish communities were spread in every corner of the Roman empire, from Sardis (Turkey) to Ostia (Italy), from Hamman Lif (Tunisia) to Intercisa (Hungary). The archaeological remnants and literary attestations of more than 150 synagogues throughout the empire make clear that Jews were integral to the urban landscape of late antiquity, well beyond the borders of Roman Palestine.

For instance, with the discovery of the third-century archaeological site of a synagogue in the Roman garrison town of Dura-Europos, in Asia Minor we learn that a narrative form of Judaic art also existed, which depicted the figures from Bible stories as a way of sharing and teaching Torah to its prosperous community. Like its neighboring Christian meeting house and the Mithraic shrine, devoted to the Persian sun god, the Jewish narrative or ceremonial art, that was deeply rooted in its rich culture, were sumptuously adorned on the splendid murals and manuscripts with narrative scenes from their collective memories. On their synagogues painted tiles of zodiacal symbols ornamented the ceiling, and plaques with dedicatory inscriptions give some indication of the individuals and families who funded the building of such synagogues.

Bowl Fragments with Menorah, Shofar, and Torah Ark

The earliest Judaic illuminated manuscripts that are found belong to the 10th century, and were created in the Middle East . There are also later manuscripts from the early 13th century Iberia, France, Germany, and Italy. Some the colophons in certain manuscripts indicate that the illuminations and illustrations were done by renowned Jewish artists. As well, some Christian miniaturists have been commissioned to produce the art works for other manuscripts . Hence the definition of “Jewish Manuscript Art” in the Middle Ages does not necessarily implies creation by Jewish artists.

The first Hebrew illuminated manuscript to attract scholarly attention was the Sarajevo Haggadah, a Sefardi manuscript from the 1330s. It was eventually published in 1898, and from that time on scholars have utilized various methodological approaches to study and analyze medieval Jewish book art. In 1950s Kurt Weitzmann’s recension theory replaced the bibliographical approach of the earlier decades. Weitzmann theorized that every narrative image cycle was necessarily emulated from an early predecessor, and that it is the aim of the art historian to reconstruct a prototypical version. According to this theory the earliest surviving example of a Hebrew illuminated manuscript is a Pentateuch fragment from Egypt, dated 929, and several Middle Eastern Bibles and other texts were produced during the subsequent centuries. The decoration of these books was rooted in the tradition of Middle Eastern manuscript illumination and did not include any figurative art.

Detail of the 'Maror' page of the Sarajevo Haggadah (courtesy of the Foundation for Jewish Culture)

The reality of the Jewish community under Islamic rule, during the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, explains much of the evidence of restrictions in Jewish art which focused on the construction of synagogues and the illustration of manuscripts, in those eras. Countries with strong Muslim influences, including Spain, featured much less physical representation of human forms in art than the Northern European communities, because Muslims shun such literal renderings of human forms.

"Moses Receives the Ten Commandments." Machsor mechol hashana. Germany, ca. 1290, leaves 59b, 50a. Vellum (2)

The Rothschild family commissioned this Persian-style Haggadah from Victor Bouton in the second half of the 19th century. The Braginsky Collection (Ardon Bar-Hama)

A similar tradition of aniconic book decoration appeared later in post-reconquest Iberia. In parallel, beginning in the 1230s, a rich figurative and narrative art began to develop in Christian Europe, including Bibles, prayer books, haggadot (the liturgical text for the Passover ceremony), compilations of the ritual law, and miscellanies. Hardly any Hebrew illuminated manuscripts from the Byzantine world have survived, the only extant works being a few haggadot from the 16th century, which have not yet been studied in any depth. It should however be noted that unlike Christian Hellenist and Latin communities the Jewish culture was quite familiar with their own Biblical stories that made it unnecessary for visual communication of those narratives to the illiterate pagan masses. As the Encyclopedia Judaica states, “For the Jews, with their high degree of literacy due to their almost universal system of education and their familiarity with the scripture story, this was superfluous.”

This Haggadah is illustrated throughout with depictions of Passover rites and biblical episodes related to the Exodus as well as to the lives of Moses, the Patriarchs, and other figures. The numerous scenes, which are mostly based on midrashic sources, are accompanied by rhymed inscriptions, usually set within scrolls. The same artist, whose identity has not yet been discovered, decorated another similar Haggadah, and both are filled with outstanding illustrations.

By the 20th century, Jewish artists of the Diaspora while moving away from Judaism were among the vanguard of the modern artistic liberation. Artists like Camille Pissarro, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, Jacques Lipchitz, Moïse Kisling, Ossip Zadkine, Joseph Csáky , Jacques Chapiro, El Lissitzky, were able to incorporate their Jewish cultural heritage into the grammar of their modernist art. In their book Peintres juifs à Paris-- (Paris: Denoel, 2000) the authors; Nadine Nieszawer, Marie Boye, and Paul Fogel, estimate that over five hundred Jewish artists were working in Paris in the interwar era. Many of these artist were part of the École de Paris movement, who arrived in Paris in the decade before the First World War.

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Class of 2018

Lovely film by 2018 graduate Natkritta Chanmee, which she filmed over the course of her final year at Edinburgh College.

YCN At The Barbican

Earlier this week we attended the YCN Awards in London to see five Edinburgh College students (four from Graphic  Design and one from User Experience Design) receive YCN Commendations.

YCN has been going now since 2001,  and we have been regularly attending the awards since 2008. This year Director Nick Defty introduced the ceremony at the Barbican with a nice summary of the YCN ethos, its aims and achievements since its inception. He talked about some of the challenges currently faced by the Creative Industries, and also the opportunities encouraged by YCN, things like collaboration, fresh ideas and inclusion.

This year there were three guest speakers - Ciara Phelan and Dorcas Brown from Grand Matter,  Anna Carpen, Creative Director at And Rising, and James Greenfield, the co-founder of Koto.  As always these speakers were tasked with providing words of wisdom and advice to the YCN Commendees, and their efforts were insightful, amusing and hugely appreciated.  James Greenfield in particular stuck a great note when he advised all creative students to try and eliminate worry from their work, and just get on which developing great ideas.

HND Graphics students Iain Waugh, Kit Lawson and Kryz Wajand produced winning entries for Dogs Trust, Art Fund and British Gymnastics respectively, with Natasha Ryan and Sophie McKinlay (from the HND UXD course) commended for the Action on Hearing Loss brief. All received a wonderful YCN wooden block this year, designed by Tom Forsyth.

Since 2009 the HN Graphics course has amassed no less that 19 YCNs, a formidable feat competing against Art Schools and Universities across the UK and Europe.

Its become a tradition on these visits to the YCN Awards to catch up with any former graduates who are now working in London, and this year we met up with 2015 Graduate Olga Kominek, who went on to study Graphic Design at Glasgow School of Art, graduating this year with a 1st BA(Hons). Olga is now working as an intern with design and fashion magazine Wallpaper*. You can check out her work over on behance.




Kryz, Kit and Natasha at the YCN reception.


Iain Waugh, Natasha Ryan, and Tutor Alex Gunn


YCN solid wooden blocks


Kit Lawson gets on stage at the Barbican.

Chapter 93: Posters commemorating 9.11

Chapter 36 - Art of Posters for Films - the Cuban School

Table of Contents: Introduction: Eduardo Muñoz Bachs Antonio Perez -- Ñiko Antonio Fernández Reiboro René Azcuy Cardenas Raúl Martínez González

Introduction:

The Cuban school of Film posters started after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, with the pioneering works of gaphic designers such as, Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, Antonio Perez known as Ñiko, Antonio Fernández Reiboro, René Azcuy Cardenas, and Raul Martinez Gonzales among others. The most important impetus came from the establishment ofEl Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC), the Cuban Art Institute of cinematography, by the Cuban revolutionary leadership in 1960. The bold, aesthetically powerful, stunningly balanced compositions, and thought provoking posters are the main features of the Cuban school.

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs was born in Valencia, Spain in 1937. The family moved to France when Eduardo was two years old and after a year relocated to Cuba. His father was a journalist, a teacher and one of the first television producers in Cuban  in the early 1950s. Bachs,  a naturally gifted artist, began to work as a graphic designer at the age of 16,  without ever attending any art school. In 1958, one year before the Cuban Revolution, he was hired as a full time animation artist for the Cuban television.

Zoro, 1976

 

 Zatoichi challenged! , 1967 

Cría cuervos , 1976

Bach joined the animation department of ICAIC, upon its inception in 1960. His distinguished career as the most prolific ICAIC poster designer was launched by his creation of the first  ICAIC poster: Historias de la Revolución in 1960.Bach spent his entire career at the ICAIC, except  for a brief period between 1962 to 65, when he joined the advertising department of Agencia intercomunicaciones, while continuing to make occasional posters for the ICAIC. 
Having a friendly attitude, and eager to accept and respond rapidly to  various projects he created a large body of work,  that has never been cataloged. 

Vampiros en la Habana, 1985

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, 1974

  Gigi, 1958 

 The Lovers of Hiroshima/A Record of Love and Death, 1966

Using powerful compositions enhanced  by a  rich and vibrant pallet of five to six colors together with an elegant  handwritten typography his silkscreen  posters are archetype of an aesthetically potent visual communication. It is estimated that over two thirds of his posters include a handwritten typography, which allowed him to quickly submit a finished model when orders came especially during emergencies. He also worked as graphic designer of children's books. Bachs'  work has been recognized internationally.   In 1968, he won the bronze medal in a children  books' competition in Varna, Bulgaria, as well, in 1986, he won the second prize in an International Competition of book illustrations for Youth, in Japan. But it is also true that many of his posters have a monumental character, quality first showing. During his career,  Bachs has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions  such as Exposición International Graphic Arts (Brno, Tchescoslovaquie), the International Poster Biennale (Warsaw, Poland) and the International Biennial of Lineup (Lahti, Finland). He also won several prestigious awards for his movie posters including, the First International Prize Filmexpo Ottawa in 1972, the First Prize at the International Competition in Paris movie posters and the First Prize at the international film posters in the US, in  1978. He died in Havana on July 22, 2001.

Antonio Perez -- Ñiko

Antonio Perez -- Ñiko, was born in Havana, Cuba in 1941. He studied History of Art at University of Havana, and has taught at Universidad Veracruzanas' José Antonio Echeverría Politechnical Institute, Instituto Superior de Arte de la Habana,  Instituto Superior de Diseno Industrial, and  Gestault School of Design in Xalapa.   Closely associated with ICAIC, since 1968, he has made posters for Cuban and foreign films  as well as revolutionary political posters during the 1960- 70 era. He is currently living in Mexico.

 Che, 1983

Pablo,

 

De algún tiempo a esta parte

Ñiko is mainly interested in social posters, but he has also created a number of memorable posters for films. He participated in the International Film Poster Exhibition, at Ottawa, in 1972, where he won an Award of Merit. Five years later his works were exhibited in Paris at Centre national d'art et de culture Georuges Pompido. As well, he has exhibited  at  Bienal Internacional del Cartel en Mexico (1989, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998), International Poster Biennale, Warsaw (1994) and Lahti Poster Biennale (1995).

 Frenesi, Poster for Alfred Hitchcock's  Frenzy,1972.

el oscaso de los cheyennes, Poster for John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn, 1964.

Poster for James Whale's Frankenstein

 Contratenor

In 1983 Ñiko won National Culture Award of Cuba, and in 1992, he won the second prize, Bienal Internacional del Cartel en Mexico. Other prizes include Special Prize (group) First Contest of Movie Posters, Cannes, 1973; Special Prize (group) Contest of Movie Posters, 1974; Prize of Second International Biennial of Movie Posters, Cannes, 1974; Prize at Second International Biennial of Posters, Mexico, 1974; First Grand Prize  Paris International Festival II, 1976.   He has published the Book of Catalog  (Ñico Carteles, 1998), Expo Jiráfica Catalog, 1999. Expo France Catalog, 1999 and essays about the culture of Veracruz Plastic, 2000. 

Antonio Fernández Reiboro

Antonio Fernández Reiboro was born in Nuevitas, in Camagüey, Cuba in 1935. His parents  Antonio Fernández de la Fuente, the owner of "La Francia", a department store, and Julia Robiro  Varquez  were Spanish emigrants to Cuba.  Antonio began to work as a graphic designer at La Francia, while studying architecture and design at the University of Havana. He worked a as a designer for Flogal Department store an Olivetti in Havana, and during 1960-63, joined as an assistant to the architect Ricardo Porro in the construction of National School of Art in Havana, and in 1963 designs the poster for for the 7th International Congress of Architecture.   In 1964 he joined the ICAIC as poster designer. He designed the Cuban pavilions in the Leipzig Trade Show in 1965, and in Tokyo in 1067. 

Reiboro has been a prolific  poster designer, who was among the first artists  abandoning  Socialist Realism. He has won numerous awards such as  Prix Special Prize at Ottawa international  Film Festival in 1972,    Merit Prize, at  Cannes' XXVII International Film  Festival in 1974, Grand prize  for poster exhibition at Cannes'  XXVIII Internatinal Film Festival,  and Grand Prize at Paris Internatinal Poster Exhibition in 1975.  In 1982, Reiboro migrated to Spain and began to work at the Ministry of culture. He has also directed several films.

René Azcuy Cardenas

Paul René Azcuy Cardenas was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1939.  In 1955, he entered the National School of Fine Arts (Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes), at San Alejandro, Havana -- the oldest and most prestigious fine arts school in Cubaand at the very same year, 1955 he entered for a two years course  at the College of Arts and Crafts in Havana. He also studied at the School of Psychology at the University of Havana. Over the period 1964-83 Cardenas worked as a Graphic Designer for the ICAIC. He has taught at the School of Architecture  at Universidad Metropolitana Xochimilco, Benemérita University of Puebla. Pacific University of Chile, the Higher Institute of Applied Arts
 Hungary, the Oriental Institute of Naples in Italy,   Escuela Superior of Graphic Design in Rosario in Argentina,  University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada and Colegio Universitario de Segovia in Spain. In 1992 he served as a judge of the Second  International  Poster Biennale  at  Mexico, and in 1996 acted as a member of the Organizing Committee for the Fourth International Poster Biennale at Mexico.

Cardenas'  Solo Exhibitions include his 1977 exhibition  ''The hands of Azcuy " at Sala Rubén Martínez Villena,UNEAC Gallery  , in Havana, and his 1988,''show "René Azcuy Affiches" at the  Maison de L'Amerique Latine, in Paris, France. He has also participated in a number of group shows. Among the awards and honors he has received are:  Poster Prize in 1966. World Chess Olympiad, Havana, 1968 Poster and logo Prize of Cultural Congress in Havana, 1974 Award  from International Film Poster Exhibition in  Ottawa, the 1974 First Prize of the International Film Poster Competition from the Hollywood Report, Los Angeles, the 1984 First Prize Coral of the Sixth  Latin American Competition for Film Posters at the Sixth International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Havana. Cardenas  works are at many international galleries including the  Center for Cuban Studies in  New York, the George Pompidou Centre in Paris, Library of Congress in  Washington  and the Poster Museum, at Wilanow, Warsaw. 

Throughout his career René Azcuy has focued primarily in black and white compositions. In fact, this has been the hallmark of his artistic expression in a visual communication paradigm. In his posters  René Azcuy is particularly interested in the expression conveyed by hands as well as  the exaggerated facial expression  as the main feature  of his main thematic compositions, which may  include; the open hand, holding hands, fist, and various hand gestures associated with imploring, quarreling, threatening, rage, fear  and a wide range of other human experiences or various expression of silence, suspicion, sadness and so on, which reveal his deep understanding of human drama. 
  

Raúl Martínez González

 

Raúl Martínez González, was born in Ciego de Ávila and studied in Havana and at the Art Institute of Chicago. His early works were abstract, but he moved towards figurative design later in his career. After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Martínez participated in the establishment of the ICAIC. He was influenced by the growing pop-art movement, and used this style in a number of his magazine, book and poster designs. Many of his works carried the themes and iconography of the Cuban revolution, using vibrant colors and comic book themes. In 1966 Martínez began the first of many designs based around the image of national hero José Martí. Works by Raúl Martínez are on exhibit in museums throughout the world. He had a large number of solo and group exhibitions, including  an exhibition of his drawings and designs at the Center of Cuban Studies in New York in 1975. He won the Silver Medal in the  Cuban Painting Exhibition at Tampa University, Florida. Cuba’s National Museum of Fine Arts dedicates a large space in the permanent collections halls to Raúl Martínez.

In the early 1950s, Martínez—along with such artists as Guido Llinás and Tomas Oliva—established the group Los Once (The Eleven), whose members adapted New York School-style Abstract Expressionism in the context of Cuban art. After the success of the Cuban revolution in 1959, Martínez moved to advertisement, and his success  provided him the opportunity to assume the art direction of the literary magazine, Lunes de Revolución. Meanwhile, he continued to produce large abstract paintings. However, with his 1964 "Homage" series, Martínez began to use collage  with a wide array of  images,  including;  furniture, magazine covers, family photos, and everyday objects, fused with the spontaneous aesthetic of the revolutionary graffiti and street art of Havana. 

Martínez’s 1968 film poster design for “Lucia;”  was reproduced in the 1970 book The Art of the Revolution,  with a preface by Susan Sontag. As an artistic photographer, he participated in the influential Foto-Mentira exhibition of 1965 and for the Venice Biennale of 1984, he participated with a mural design.  With his 1978 “La Gran Familia,” he began to integrate photography into his art, in which he juxtaposed  the faces of Cuban youth along with their leaders, the mural is now at the permanent collection, of El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, in Havana. He died in 1995. 

 Go to the next chapter; Chapter 37 - the Polish School and the Polish Art of Opera, Film and Circus Posters 

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