Curent Event

The American Graphic Design Award was won by Jaipur Rugs this year. This will be their second time winning this award. The American Graphic Design Award is hosted by the magazine Graphic Design USA. Jaipur Rugs is a company that makes Indian hand knotted, flat woven, and hand tufted area rugs. What they won the award for though was their product catalog and press kits for this year. Sadly I can not seem to find pictures of their catalog, I can only find some of their rugs, but their purpose in this catalog was to help brand their image and at the same time to reach a very broad audience. They tried to keep the important information in their catalog easy to read at a quick glance.

Book of Hours

Illuminated manuscripts were highly decorative compared to the books we have today. Out of all the medieval Illuminated manuscripts that have survived to the present day, the most common one is the Book of Hours. A Book of Hours was a Christian devotional book so they were widely made during the Middle Ages; hence there are a lot that have survived to present day. A Book of Hours normally contained prayers, Psalms, office for the dead, little office of the blessed Virgin Mary, a calendar of church feasts, and the hours of the cross. These books often became important family heirlooms due to their expensive nature. Naturally, the more highly decorated the specific Book of Hours was, the wealthier the patron was. The illustrations often were of scenes from the bible or that of saints and occasionally the book would also have an image of the patron of the book in it somewhere.  A Book of Hours was typically written in Latin but there are some were written in other languages. Like most illuminated manuscripts, a Book of Hours was typically made on parchment or vellum and at this point in time most used iron gall ink because this ink could be tinted to different colors when combined with various other minerals. In the latter Middle Ages it was possible for someone to go and buy a pre-produced and very generic Book of Hours which just goes to show the popularity of these books. With all the work that had to go into a book in this time period no one would make a book unless they were sure it could get sold. That’s why most were done on a commission basis.

Manga

Manga is similar to comic books but have a few key differences.  Manga originates in Japan and even today most manga artist are Japanese but in the past few years non Japanese manga artists have started to emerge. Manga tells stories along the same lines as comics do, using a combination of artistic images as well as words set up in panels.  However, manga are typically much longer than comic books and manga are bound more like books while comics are bound much more like magazines. My favorite manga artist is actually an all female group goes by the name of CLAMP and this group is one of the most famous and well known in the world of manga. They debuted in 1989 with RG Veda which ran for ten volumes. CLAP consisted of eleven members but by the time of their debut they dwindled down to seven and in the next decade they dwindled down to just four members, Satsuki Igarashi, Ageha Ohkawa, Tsubaki Nekoi and Apapa Mokona. CLAMP currently has release twenty-one different manga series and two of them are still ongoing.  While their works typically have some themes in common such as romance but they do not stick with any one genre.  This is uncommon as most manga artists stick to one genre. Another odd note about CLAMP is that their art style from work to work. Though it helps that they have three different artists that work on everything,  Ageha Ohkawa doesn’t work on the art but she takes on the role of director. CMALP’s most popular manga is commonly accepted as Cardcaptor Sakura.

Graffiti

Graffiti is something that is being done all over the world and is considered vandalism pretty much everywhere.  One thing some governments have done to help reduce the vandalism of graffiti is to make specific places in the communities where graffiti artists are allowed to showcase their talents. Although this was mainly done in order to try and reduce vandalism these places got approved because some realized that graffiti actually acted as public art and made the community more interesting. After all, how interesting is it to look at a plain old wall wherever you go? Since graffiti is legal in these areas it allows the graffiti artist the ability to take their time and produce great work, this luxury something that most graffiti artists do not have. It is widely debated if these graffiti approved zones have actually reduced the amount of graffiti elsewhere but this does show that at least in some places graffiti is being respected as an art form and not simply a crime. One such place is “Graffiti Tunnel” at the University of Sydney in Australia. Any graffiti can be put up in this tunnel as long as it is not offensive. Looking at pictures of Graffiti Tunnel it is easy to see that people have no problem taking the government up on the offer of graffiti approved zones. There is hardly any spot at all that isn’t covered by some type of graffiti. While this area is technically supposed to be for students of the university only, from all that I’ve read that really is not listened to. Graffiti Tunnel is just one such spot though. There are many other spots like this in Australia. Australia also isn’t the only country to have such places though. In some areas in the UK there are also graffiti approved places for the artist to show their talents.