The masters of type

 Georges Eugene Haussmann

The reneissance brought a new wave to the world and changed a lot mainly in the way of thinking. This renovation reminded me of Eugene Haussmann which I heard a lot since I go to Paris frequently. There are lots of places, streets in the name of this man. I wanted to know more about him and his renovation of Paris which made it one of the most, for my opinion the most, beautiful city in the world.

 The famous Haussmaan was hired by the Napoleon the 3rd on 22 June 1825 for modernizing Paris. He, Napoleon, wanted the city far more friendlier, sanitary and beautiful esthetically.

Haussmann started working by putting the city in to a geometric grid. The new streets were dividing the old Paris in to new sections. The plan and therefore the new city was very symmetrical reverse to the old complex planning. Every inch of the city was touched by Haussmann.

The new streets were very wider; you can see if you go to Paris there’s a relaxation in the streets no crowd. The traffic problem and the public health was a reason of making the streets that much wide. The new city plan was perfect solution of the problems they had including the increase in the population. The uniformity of the buildings are unavoidable; it’s written that to achieve that for example just one treet cost 9 million francs and the buildings on its side cost 50 million. Thats a huge amount of money when we think of the hole city.

There are huge differences between the old and new Paris. The renovation would have happen eventually but not that systematic and esthetically thoughtful. Even people refused his ideas and make him go to prison for stealing money; the beauty he created should be noticed.

the printing press: football press

Football is the most played and the most popular sport in the world. It is also very important in Turkey. Newspapers have special pages for football yet there are private newspapers for just football. So printing press plays a very important part in football which I’ll try to tell by giving examples since I’m a big fan of Besiktas and follow their every news.

Besiktas transfered Quaresma, the previous Chelsea, Barcelona and Inter winger last year. Before the signing, Arda Turan used to be every football fan’s interest in Turkey and everyday you could read news about him and his private life in newspapers but after Quaresma arrived to Istanbul, Arda popped like a baloon and it became usual to see Q7 news on printing press . The reason behind this is Q7′s popularism across the world. People want to see him on the pages and they want to know what he does in Istanbul.


Printing press gives people what they want, not what they need to know. Popularism has taken charges from the beginning of printing press. When Quaresma got injured for a month, he went back to Portugal to get treatment and suddenly nobody cared about him for the whole month. People were now talking about basketball and Allen Iverson’s transfer to besiktas.

the printing press

Albrecht Durer

As I understood Albrecht Durer is a must know person for people studying visual communication design. He is an extremely talented painter, printmaker, graphic designer. He lived between1471 – 1528 yet he still remains one of the important person in a range of areas. He started becoming populer in his twenties and remained still.

Durer is mostly known for his revolution of printing: he made it an independent art form. Another revolutionarydesign is the flying machine of him which is the first in the world. The watercolors make him the first European landscape artists. As we can see he was a typical hence very tallented Reneisssance man.

The Praying Hands (1508), is very famous and important painting of Durer’s. As a viewer the details are seen instantly and the working of hands anatomy is recognized. The first sketch was made in 1508 actually and Durer work on the final version of the painting for 13 motnhs. He wanted to make it so “that it will remain bright and fresh for five hundred years.” ; he succeded it I think.

The art of the books

THE BOOK OF HOURS

The book was very popular in Medieval Ages because of its content. It is illuminated manuscript. Especially in the Gothic period people needed easier books and they came up with Book of Hours which were far less complex than the breviarys they used. The common charasteristic of the Book of Hours is that they start with a calender which marks thespecial days of christianity. Then cames the part that is taken from the four gospels and continues with specific parts endind with various prayers. As it can seen from the name ‘hours’ it is based on a system and it is for people to understand clearly and systematicly.

It is said that majority of the books were made for woman and usually given to them as a wedding gift from the husband. It definitely becomes the family property and it goes through out the years. The illumination amount in the book decided its price. At the time it was not easy to have a book of hours; you had to be very very rich or it had to be given from your family.Hence it was impossible to have any book since 15th century when book became more affordable but the book of hours were very precious. Today its kept in a place dark so that light won’t get to the papers and it’s almost impossible to see them.

As we can see the drawings and the format of the pages are extremely complex and very new. We must look at them reminding us that they are hand made and each of the pages looks like a painting by itself. It is too much for a book of religion and visually very attractive. As the time goes the page structure evaluates but these book are very important step in the evaluation process for my sake.

References:

http://www.bookofhours.org/

http://justonemore.info/2009/11/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_hours

http://www.medievalist.net/hourstxt/hrsintro.htm

Alphabet..

Chinese Alphabet


Since I live in Turkey we use Latin alphabet which is very common through out the world. The chinese alphabet is very different for me. There are shapes and it’s a form of art from my opinion. I wanted to know more about this alphabet since Latin is used worldwide and easier, why do they still use their alphabet?

Chinese alphabet is the longest used alphabet in the world and it has 47,035 characters in it. According to other common alphabets its a lot more characters used. In order to be literate you have to learn three thousand to four thousand characters from those fifty thousand characters; which is still unbelievably many to learn. For just reading the newspapers you need to know at least 3000 characters. Chinese ‘letters’ are representing an idea, a concept or an object where in other alphabets letters by themselves do not mean anything; you have to put together to form a word that means something. Here’s just the very simplified characters of the alphabet;

Actually the earliest know chinese script is the Oracle Bone Scrip and when people started researching it they assumed that every letter symbolized a pictogram. These were found in 1899. Yet theres no clue of how or who have founded this alphabet. There are some theories and myths about the origin but the actual truth is not know.

Also in Chinese alphabet there’s no such things as capital letters. It’s just one size of writing. As I understand from their alphabet they don’t need the increasation of letters to emphasize a word or let the people understand a new sentence is starting; they have so many characters that represent many things and maybe thats why they don’t need capitals.


 There are enormous amount of characters as I said, that made me curious about the computers they use. Actually most of the Western people using Chinese, Korean and Japnese alphabet prefer writing in tablets or pads since it’s easier to write. Other than that they commonly use a specific type of keyboard among many options to choose;

Zen Garden Japan kyoto

I saw a lot of things in these slides about Japan and Chinese culture however the Zen Gardens take my attention very much because they are really interesting and beautiful.

Zen gardens are Japanese rocky gardens. It includes sand ,gravel  ,rock and sometimes grass. According to a common belief it used by Japanese Zen priests to make meditation.

Some examples of Zen Gardens in Japan...

ikebana

 

Flowers are cut not to death...


In western cultures to cut flower means to grow them in a pot. However in Japan cultures it is much more different. Ikebana means to make the flower live. There are lots of schools to live the flowers named ikebana, Sogetsu and Ohara

In 1930's the interest to Ikebana increased a lot and it become very common.