World War 1 lecture videos

These are the videos I used in the lecture on 19 November

British War Posters

This video shows a selection of recruiting and other morale-boosting posters from the British. Compared with the German and Russian selection shown in the lecture, they are less aesthetically accomplished. However, it could be argued that because they used a visual language that was entirely familiar to its audience, borrowed from advertising imagery at the time (and largely produced by the same people who created commercial advertising) the posters were far more successful than some of their ‘better’ designed European counterparts.

Music: Pack Up Your Troubles

British War Artists

The British armed forces have a long history of official artists, what we would now call ‘embedded’ (nothing’s new, it seems).
They were commissioned to capture the atmosphere and story of battles and other engagements for regimental histories. Hundreds (thousands) of paintings and drawings were made which have rarely, if ever, been seen.
Many are kept in the archives of the Imperial War Museum but are now available to view online.

This video, a mood setter for the lecture, shows a small selection but they are much more impressive when viewed ‘properly’ on the IWM website. Some of the images are quite horrific and seem to bring home the true extent of the conflict much more than photography or film could do.

The music is the Agnus Dei, from Benjamin Britten’s ‘War Requiem’ composed in the 1960s.
The work combines the Catholic requiem mass with the poetry of Wilfred Owen.
In this movement the tenor sings the poem ‘At A Calvary Near The Ancre’ while the choir sings ‘Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserer nobis/ Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserer nobis/ Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem’ (Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace).

The words of the poem, together with an explanation, are below:

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ’s denied

The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate

The poem describes a ‘Calvary’, a crucifixion scene that was often placed at crossroads in France (examples still exist today). Owen uses the fact that the figure of Christ has lost a limb to describe some of the absurdities of religious attitudes to war.
“Near Golgotha strolls many a priest” refers to the chaplains who accompanied troops to the Front and who claimed that wounds gained in the fighting were things of which to be proud. “Flesh-marked by the Beast” refers to the Devil and to the enemy, the claim being that the war was a righteous one, and that God was on ‘our’ side (the same of course being claimed by all combatants).

“The scribes on all the people shove/And bawl allegiance to the state” is a description of how the pulpit is used to denounce those who object to the war.
The last two lines are ambiguous, and in his setting of the poem to music Britten appears to read them as saying that those who are willingly laying down their lives are doing so for love of their friends and family, and strangers back home – this is not a time for hate. This would be typical of Owen, who often used irony in his poems; he is saying that the priests are advocating hatred, which is exactly the opposite of the message embodied in the crucifixion scene that sparked the poem.

Wilfred Owen was killed at the age of 25, a few days before the end of the war. He had originally been sent back to Britain suffering from shellshock. Posted first to a hospital in Scarborough, and then to Ripon (scene of Britain’s biggest army camp) he chose to return to the Front, despite his opposition to the war, rather than accept a safer posting back home.

Coughs and Sneezes…

When I was growing up my teachers used to tell any kid who didn’t cover up their mouth when they sneezed that “coughs and sneezes spread diseases”. It was a lesson that had been drummed in to them as kids via health campaigns like the one above and, subsequently, into people like me. It’s a testament to how effective the campaign was that a kid growing up 30 years after it ran could still recite it.

The BBC has a great audio slideshow of images from a new book by Dr Laragh Gollogly from the World Health Organization that collects together health campaigns from around the world. They show how a mixture of emotion, whimsy, humour and just plain facts have been used to educate the public about health issues.

Some of these health issues are a thing of the past in the west now, but still rife in developing nations, along with other more modern ailments. The importance of health education through graphics and illustration, and of design developments in areas like textiles, interior and product design to combat disease, has never been more obvious than it is today.

Pink book covers make me see red

Imogen Russell Williams goes off on one about the use of pink on books aimed at girls:

I acknowledge that I’m a massive snob about cover-design, and particularly about pinkness. Not only (alas) do I no longer belong to the teen target market, but even at the appropriate age I ostentatiously scorned such flouncy frivolity … In fact, while I don’t object to nudity, foiled fonts, Gothic excesses or guns, I find it almost impossible to pick up a book with pearly grins and pony-tails on the cover – still more so if the background is rose-tinted. Last week I strove to overcome the prejudice (which kept me from enjoying Jacqueline Wilson for a stupidly long time) and bit the rosy bullet, seizing three books of undeniable pinkness from the library’s teenage-fiction shelves.

[...]

Pink in the wild is a lubricious colour – the shade of a consenting blush, the sole of a naked foot, not to mention the genitals themselves – but there is nothing grown-up, challenging or alluring about a glittery candy-floss book cover.

Read the rest at Pink book covers make me see red | Books | guardian.co.uk.

After School Club

After School Club is a one-off night of talks by young illustrators and designers discussing their work, methods and experiences following graduation, happening this Saturday night at The GRV in Edinburgh. Speakers include illustrator Stuart Kolakovic, designer Alex Ostrowski, creative collectives Nous Vous and Plats. It is open to anyone! Go along

Sequalab – a podcast for comic creators

Scott Kurtz, webcomic artist and creator of, among others, PvPonline, was recently invited over to Savannah College of Art and Design and recommends anyone who’s interested in creating comics to listen to their podcast:

You HAVE to subscribe to the sequential department’s podcast SEQALAB. It’s hilarious fun and you’ll learn a lot about comics and sequential art in the process.

Beano 70th anniversary exhibition in Dundee

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEANO!

The Official 70th Anniversary Exhibition

Lamb Gallery, 18 July – 20 September 2008

This summer the University of Dundee is hosting the official 70th birthday exhibition about Britain’s favourite comic The Beano. This will be a unique opportunity to see original artwork from from the very first issue up to today. The material has been loaned by D C Thomson and most of it has never been shown in public before – including work by legendary artists such as Dudley D Watkins, David Law, Leo Baxendale and David Sutherland.

The official exhibition launch will be on Wednesday 30th July in the D’Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre, Tower Building. The event will feature a mix of comics historians and artists revealing the hidden history of Dundee’s famous comics. The provisional programme is as follows:

• 5.30pm Welcome
• 5.40pm Matthew Jarron, Before the Beano – the Prehistory of Dundee Comics
• 6.00pm Chris Murray, The Birth of The Beano
• 6.20pm Laura Howell, Working for The Beano (provisional title)
• 6.40pm Gary Northfield, Flippin’ ‘eck! I’m in The Beano!
• 7.00pm Wine Reception
• 7.20pm Gallery Tour with Morris Heggie (archivist at DC Thomson), Alan Digby (editor of The Beano) and David Sutherland (legendary DC Thomson artist)

Tom Eckersley online archive

A stunning collection of posters by Tom Eckersley has been digitized and is now available online at vads.ac.uk [NB you need to use the search box to access the images - search for 'eckersley']

Eckersley is one of the foremost poster designers and graphic communicators of the last century. He used bold simple designs, often resembling collage, and the collection reflects the range of his work from propaganda posters to his post-war posters. The collection was formed by Eckersley and is held at the University of the Arts London Archives and Special Collections Centre.

Eckersley’s bold, graphic statements coupled with memorable slogans and unique use of colour, were seen promoting some of the most iconic of British institutions such as London Transport, General Post Office, The Ministry of Information and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). Eckersley was also a teacher of poster arts and established the first graphic design course in Britain at the London School/College of Printing (now College of Communication, part of University of the Arts London).

Over 100 posters are now available online from this unique archive and further images will be launched on VADS in the coming months.

The collection complements other resources on vads.ac.uk such as the Imperial War Museum’s poster collection which includes works by Eckersley and his contemporaries such as F H K Henrion and Abram Games.

For more information about the Eckersley Archive, see vads.ac.uk/collections/TEC

Representing classical music

This advertisement for Zurich Chamber Orchestra is a clever interpretation of what it feels like to listen to a live orchestra (if you’ve never done it, give it a go).

I’m not keen on the choice of music in the ad, and a more dramatic piece would have made the point a lot more clearly, but the concept is clever.

Are music graphics dead post-digital?

Adrian Shaughnessy writing in Design Week:

The music industry is set for massive upheaval, with digital distribution destabilising long-held business models. How will this affect the designers who create the all-important visual imagery? asks Adrian Shaughnessy

Those of you who’ve followed the EMI story in recent months will know that it’s a gripping tale of clashing cultures. In 2007, venture capital firm Terra Firma, run by Guy Hands, acquired the British record company for £3.2bn.

With a back catalogue that includes The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Coldplay and Cliff Richard, EMI is Britain’s only major record label, and one of only four ‘majors’ left in the world.
We can all enjoy a snigger at Guy Hands’ comments about artists having to be more productive, and the £200 000 spent on ‘fruit and flowers’ – a euphemism familiar to anyone with knowledge of the hedonism of the record industry. But Hands has correctly spotted that the record business is being run on an outmoded, unsustainable model. The business has to change, because its audience has changed.

In the new digital music environment, the consumer calls the shots. And the new generation of music fans want instant access to music via whatever platform they choose. And just as they do in other consumer sectors of the economy, they want to dictate how much they pay for it. While Hands wrestles with this, and with the vested interests of the powerful managers of the artists signed to his label, the most widely predicted outcome is that music will be given away free, with labels and bands deriving their income from advertising on download sites, and from live gigs – a boom area at a time of declining record sales.

But what about music industry designers? Is there still work for studios set up to service the music business? Zip Design was formed in the mid-1990s working almost exclusively for the record business, and today 60 per cent of the studio’s work is music-based. ‘We’ve noticed a drop in budgets,’ says creative director David Bowden, ‘but I’m optimistic that the digital music era will eventually generate lots of design work. Increasingly, we find that our work is coming from the live sector, and a large percentage of our music work now centres around live venues, clubs and events, and it’s growing fast.’

Brighton-based Red Design has moved from being an almost exclusively music-based design studio to one with a wider spread of clients. ‘At 35 per cent, last year was our lowest ever for music work,’ says Red creative director Ed Templeton, ‘although our total music income has remained pretty steady for the past three years.’ But as Templeton adds ruefully, ‘major label artwork budgets are the same today as they were when Red first opened its doors in 1996.’

How has the downloading scenario affected Red? ‘We’ve begun doing single covers whose only format will be download,’ notes Templeton. ‘Creatively, a 50mm square 72dpi canvas doesn’t give you much to play with, and financially it’s almost not worth bothering about. But if you are designing an album project and the download packshot is just one element of the artwork then it’s fine. That said, we’re actually still doing lots of really good projects with bands and record labels that care about their artwork.

‘We’ve been asked to do our first pitch where the winning firm will do album artwork, videos and websites,’ adds Templeton. ‘That seems like the way forward to me, and is exactly what we have been striving to do for music industry clients for the past few years.’ Striking work for Beck, Goldfrapp and The Enemy has made Big Active into one of the most highly regarded music industry design houses. ‘A large percentage of our output is music-based,’ notes creative director Gerard Saint, ‘but we’re all beginning to feel a squeeze on budgets – certainly with new and developing acts, and definitely in terms of print and production.’

‘We try to look at all campaigns that we create as having a holistic structure across different media from print to digital,’ adds Saint. ‘We try to use each medium appropriately to make use of the opportunities available in each.’ It’s an approach that can be seen in the group’s work for The Enemy’s We’ll Live And Die In These Towns album campaign. A slatted railway timetable board supplies a robust and practical visual framework for everything from CD covers to downloading individual songs.

But Saint is critical of the way labels view digital work. ‘Their thinking is that if it’s digital it must be cheap. There almost seems to be a naive attitude that things should cost less when created for digital usage when we all know that in commissioning terms the cost and value remain the same no matter what the usage. Ethical photography, image-making or graphic design do not become cheaper to produce just because the end usage lives in a virtual medium.’

However, since the music-buying public has come to equate digital with free, so too have the labels. Guy Hands is going to have to find a way round that if his label isn’t going to become part of an endangered species. It may already be too late.

Adrian Shaughnessy’s book Cover Art By: New Music Graphics is published by Laurence King on 7 April, at £24.95

Why Man Creates

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