The Fifties...

Like with my seventies research, I need to research into the fifties to help me produce a well informed collection of designs to suit the fifties era...

Brief overview of the situation in the 1950's:
By its end, the world had largely recovered from World War II and the Cold War developed from its modest beginning in the late 1940s to a hot competition between the United States and the Soviet Union by the beginning of the 1960s.

Clashes between communism and capitalism dominated the decade, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. The conflicts included the Korean War and the beginning of the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik I. Along with increased testing of nuclear weapons (such as RDS-37 and Upshot-Knothole), this created a politically conservative climate.^{[citation needed]} In the United States, the Red Scare (fear of communism) caused public Congressional hearings by both houses in Congress and Anti-Communism was the prevailing sentiment in the United States throughout the decade (this is what primarily led the country to intervene in the Korean War and later the Vietnam War). The beginning of decolonization in Africa and Asia occurred in this decade and accelerated in the following decade, the 1960s. The 1950 congressional seminar gave way to the new focus of contention between communist and capitalist ideology. Through which multiple instances of terminal interests, but never became an open conflict.

Natural Disasters that occurred in that decade:

- On 15 August 1950 an earthquake and floods in Assam, India kill 574 and leave 5,000,000 homeless. Mount Lamington erupted in Papua New Guinea on 18 January 1951, killing 3,000 people.
- On 31 January 1953 the North Sea flood of 1953 kills 1,835 people in the southwestern Netherlands (especially Zeeland) and 307 in the United Kingdom^[1]On 9 September 1954 an earthquake centered on the city of Orleansville, Algeria killed 1,500 and left thousands homeless.
- On 11 October 1954 Hurricane Hazel crosses over Haiti, killing 1,000.
- On 19 August 1955 Hurricane Diane hits the northeastern United States, killing over 200 people, and causing over $1.0 billion in damage.
- On 27 June 1957 Hurricane Audrey demolishes Cameron, Louisiana, US, killing 400 people.
- Typhoon Vera hit central Honshū on 26 September 1959, killing an estimated 5,098, injuring another 38,921, and leaving 1,533,000 homeless. Most of the victims and damage are centered in the Nagoya area.

Science and Technology:



- The United States conducts its first hydrogen bomb explosion test (Operation Castle).
- The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth on October 4, 1957.
- The invention of the Transistor.
- The invention of the Solar cell.
- Passenger jets enter service.
- Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the spiral structure of DNA.
- An immunization vaccine is produced for polio.
- The first successful ultrasound test of the heart activity.
- The CERN was established.
- The world's first nuclear power plant was opened in Obninsk near Moscow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950s

After all the trouble from the wars, there was a much more optimistic feeling in the air, here are some of the optimisms from the 1950's: (taken from Retro Style by Marion Haslam)

-1951 - Sir Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister.
-1953 - Edmund Hillary and his team conquered Everest.
-1953 - The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
-1953 - Dwight Eisenhower becomes president of the US.
-1954 - The end of rationing.
-1954 - The four minute mile was broken by Roger Bannister.
-1955 - The Guggenheim in New York opened.

Other exciting things that happened:
-1951 - The first supermarket chain opened.
-1951 - Andy Pandy aired on the BBC.
-1952 - Tetley tea was launched.
-1952 - The first British single chart was launched.
-1953 - The James Bond era began.
-1955 - Birds Eye Fish Fingers launched 'heat and serve'.
-1955 - Disneyland California opened.
-1958 - Blue Peter began on the BBC.
-1959 - Austin Mini car launched.
-1959 - The birth of Barbie.
-1959 - Soviet rocket photographed the far side of the moon.

The Seventies...

To help inform my project I will be looking at the Seventies so by gathering as much information about this decade as possible I can help create a really vintage seventies experience for my project.

Brief overview of the situation in the 1970's:
In the Western world, social progressive values that began in the 1960s, such as increasing political awareness and political and economic liberty of women, continued to grow. The hippie culture, which started in the latter half of the 1960s, waned by the early 1970s and faded towards the middle part of the decade, which involved opposition to the Vietnam War, opposition to nuclear weapons, the advocacy of world peace, and hostility to the authority of government and big business. The environmentalist movement began to increase dramatically in this period. Industrialized countries, except Japan, experienced an economic recession due to an oil crisis caused by oil embargoes by the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Natural Disasters that occurred during the decade:
The 1970 Bhola cyclone, a 120-mph (193 km/h) tropical cyclone, hit the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during November 1970, killing an estimated 500,000 people (considered the 20th century's worst cyclone disaster). On July 28, 1976 the Tangshan earthquake flattened Tangshan, China, killing 242,769 people, and injuring 164,851. On August 8, 1975 the Banqiao Dam, in China's Henan Province, failed after a freak typhoon; over 200,000 people perished. Bangladesh famine of 1974 — Official records claim 26,000. However, various sources claim about 1,000,000. On January 5, 1970 an earthquake (Richter Scale 7.7 magnitude) at Yunnan, China killed at least 15,621. On May 31, 1970 the 1970 Ancash earthquake caused a landslide that buried the town of Yungay, Peru; more than 47,000 people were killed. On September 29, 1971 a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, in Orissa State in India, killed 10,000. On February 4, 1976 a mayor earthquake in Guatemala and Honduras killed more than 22,000.

Technology:
The birth of modern computing was in the 1970s, which saw the development of: the world's first general microprocessor the C programming language rudimentary personal computers pocket calculators the first supercomputer Consumer video games. The earliest floppy disks, invented at IBM, which were 8 inches in diameter became commercially available in 1971 A Philips N1500 video cassette recorder, with wooden cabinet. The 1970s were also the start of: fiber optics, which transformed the communications industry. Microwave ovens became commercially available. VCRs became commercially available.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s

Other exciting things that happened in the Seventies:
-1971 - The invention of the floppy disk.
-1971 - Nasa and the Soviets sent the first probe to Mars.
-1971 - Bangladesh was formed, due to Pakistan splitting.
-1971 - Magic Kingdom in Florida opened.
-1972 - Nike running shoes were sold.
-1972 - Eugene Cernan was the last man to walk on the moon.
-1972 - The first embryos (mouse) to be successfully frozen.
-1973 - The second tower of the World Trade Centre opened which completed the construction.
-1975 - Computerised supermarket checkouts appear in shops.
-1976 - Apple computer is launched.
-1976 - First artificial gene is developed.
-1977 - MRI is first used.
-1978 - First testtube baby.

Photoshop Workshop...

Green in RGB Colour:
Change colour profile to CMYK in Image menu:

Same colour in CMYK profile:

Original in RGB:

CMYK Mode:

To view Gamut Warning:

This shows the colours out of range:

Proof Colours to see RGB in CMYK while still in RGB Mode:

File name changes: (.../CMYK)
Ways to apply colour - Swatches:

Colour picker:

Picking Spot Colours from Pantone library:

From Colour Picker, selecting, Colour Libraries:

Creating a Duotone image:
(Original)

Select Image, Mode, Duotone:

Click the black square to pick your Spot Colour:

Apply the Colour to the image:

To adjust the way the colour is applied, click the square next to the black one with the diagonal line through it, here you can adjust the curves:

By changing Monotone in the Type field, to duotone, another colour can be added:

Adjusting the curves, again changes the ways and amounts in which the colour is applied:

And here is the final image:

Creating a Spot Colour image from selection:

Make the selection on the image:

Go to New Spot Channel, in the Channel menu:

Select colour:

Here is the colour applied, normal painting effects can be applied too:

Adjusting the line in the Spot Channel can make the boat look more natural and lose the hard edge:

A large brush with the lowest hardness can take away the hard edge:

And the Spot Channel will now look like this:


And with the Grey channel back in view, the boat looks a lot more natural:

And for the finishing touch, to repaint the oar:

Design For Print... Printing Processes

Printing is the application of ink or varnish on to a substrate through the application of pressure from a printing plate. Ink jet is a modern process where the substrate is sprayed. There are different printing processes used and all differ in quality, production rate and cost.

offset lithography - available in sheet-fed or continuous web fed
engraving - fine stationery
thermography - raised printing, used in stationery
reprographics - copying and duplicating
digital printing - limited now, but the technology is exploding
letterpress - the original Guttenburg process (not very common)
screen - used for T-shirts and billboards
flexography - usually used on packaging, such as labels
gravure - used for large runs of magazines and direct-mail catalogues

Design For Print... Offset Lithography

Definition:
A printing method in which the image on a plate is transferred 'offset' to an immediate roller prior to final transfer to the paper.

Taken from:
Production For Print by Mark Gatter

'Paper is loaded onto a platform at the back end of the press, above which is a series of suckers. These lift the paper, one sheet at a time, and enable the grippers (grabbing pincers mounted on a chain-link drive) to grab it along one edge (called the gripper edge) and pull it into the first ink unit, where it is printed with the first colour. As it leaves, it is grabbed again and pulled forwards into the next ink unit, and so on.'

A brief history...

The first rotary offset lithographic printing press was created in England and patented in 1875 by Robert Barclay.[1] This development combined mid-19th century transfer printing technologies and Richard March Hoe’s 1843 rotary printing press—a press that used a metal cylinder instead of a flat stone.[1] The offset cylinder was covered with specially treated cardboard that transferred the printed image from the stone to the surface of the metal. Later, the cardboard covering of the offset cylinder was changed to rubber,[1] which is still the most commonly used material.
As the 19th century closed and photography captured favor, many lithographic firms went out of business.[1] Photoengraving, a process that used halftone technology instead of illustration, became the leading aesthetic of the era. Many printers, including Ira Washington Rubel of New Jersey, were using the low-cost lithograph process to produce copies of photographs and books.[3] Rubel discovered in 1901—by forgetting to load a sheet—that when printing from the rubber roller, instead of the metal, the printed page was clearer and sharper.[3] After further refinement, the Potter Press printing Company in New York produced a press in 1903.[3] By 1907 the Rubel offset press was in use in San Francisco.[4]
The Harris Automatic Press Company also created a similar press around the same time. Charles and Albert Harris modeled their press “on a rotary letter press machine,” (“Short History of Offset Printing”).

Advantages:

- The high quality of print is consistent.
- Plated are easy to produce.
- Cheap - medium to long print runs benefit from this.

Disavantages:

- Not as high quality as rotogravure.
- Colour variation can occur when the ink and water levels fail to remain consistent, this is likely to occur in longer print runs.
- Imperfections on the printed image that are caused by dirt or other alien particles cause 'hickeys' or 'bullseyes'.

Illustrator Workshop

CMYK - Default process colours.

What Is Good...

Abram Games (1914-1996)

I felt some of this designers work was appropriate to my research on two levels, it looks at Graphic Design and the transport side of London. The following images are taken from the book 'Poster Journeys - Abram Games and London Transport' compiled by Naomi Games.



This is a poster for London Zoo, I love the simplicity of the design in terms of the limited colour pallet and the simple shapes, which gives a fun and almost childlike effect. The London Underground logo has been incorporated into the design aswell which is clever.

This is the development for the 'Stockwell Swan' platform at Stockwell on the Victoria Line. It's interesting to see the beginning development from initial sketches to the finished lithographed tiles for the seating areas on the platform.

I like how the below image is far more simplified from the previous image, as this is often the case when going through the developmental stages of the design process, you can see where the idea has come from, but they are visually, very different.

This is the finished design in its intended environment, the underground, the colours work really well, and I love the subtle black and orange of the swan's beak, that is what really distinguishes it as a swan rather than a pattern.

Liam Gillick (b. 1964)

Folllowing on my transport theme I looked at the design for the front cover of the London Underground Tube Map. The type on the front represents a significant day in the London Underground history, it was the day before the first ever Tube ran. The colours used are those used for each line on the actual map itself, the colours break up the flow of the words making it awkward to read. Taken from the book, 'The Moving Metropolis - A History of London'd Transport since 1800'.

Cecil Walter Bacon
This is taken from the same book, it is a poster to advertise and promote the extension of the Picadilly Line opening in 1932.

Edward Johnston was a calligrapher, he was approached by Frank Pick, who was responsible for the poster campaign in 1908 for the Underground, he wanted Johnston to design a typeface to be used for the company as he was not satisfied with the ones available. This typeface stuck until 1979 when Banks and Miles redesigned it to improve its ability to be applied while keeping and retaining the initial character, to then be called 'New Johnston'.