With the birth of new technologies in print, photography and computer-aided design, this created what he describes as “dimensional illusion multiplied”. Selected quotations from his text are as follows:
“…design illusionism…has to do with deceiving the savvy among us into perceiving that two dimensions are really three.” [pp. 11]
“…creating the illusion of three dimensions in two-dimensional space has long been one of the graphic designer’s foremost – and probably most enjoyable – challenges.” [pp. 11]
“[In the mid-nineteenth century] types with large, massive, colourful shadows and other faux sculptural elements were commonly used on store signs or display windows to suggest dimensionality and drawn the eye to the focal point of attention.” [pp. 11]
“When [the Bauhaus master László Moholy-Nagy] conceived his three-dimensional cover for 14 Bauhausbücher, where he composed type on a piece of clear plastic and photographed both the type and its shadow falling on the surface behind it, his goal was to literally add another dimension to how graphic design was employed and perceived. Moholy sought to liberate type and typography, images and imagery, from the strictures of two dimensions, even if in reality the result was still stuck on the two-dimensional printed page.” [pp. 12]
“By the late 1930s, model-making had also become a major element in the designer’s toolkit. Building structures – large and small – that were photographed and often collaged or montaged to create new realities was so common that a genre called ‘three-dimensional illustration’ emerged.” [pp. 12]
He cites Peter Blake’s cover for the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as one of a number of major milestones from the forties to the sixties, that altered the standards and rules of dimensional design.
Heller considers dimensionalism as a spin-off movement from illusionism. He concludes his chapter thus,
“Even now, when the computer has made dimensional design, and therefore dimensionalism, so easy, the method still evokes a sense of wonder. But it is not the virtual images, but the handmade artefacts that continue to evoke the most wonder. The handmade method that makes objects seem to have volume, weight, and mass has the power to titillate the eye and mind. The designers who make these illusions are doubtless challenging the perceptions of their audiences, but they are also accomplishing what Meret Opphenheim may have had in mind when she first conceived her iconic ‘Fur Cup’: she made us look! Illusionism or dimensionalism – whatever it is officially or unofficially called – is the art forcing a second, maybe even a third look – and that’s what every designer wants to achieve.” [pp. 15]
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