What with traveling this summer and Tropical Storm Fay, I haven’t had much access to the Internet lately. Now school has started, and I’m looking forward to the classes.
I’m taking History & Theory of Graphic Design this semester. The textbook is Meggs’ History of Graphic Design but I’ve also bought Johanna Drucker’s new book, Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide, written with Emily McVarish.
Some interesting links from the first week of class:
- Ancientscripts.com has a lot of information about writing systems. The timeline visually shows which writing systems existed when and for how long.
- This wonderfully weird plaque was designed by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake as a greeting from earth to any aliens who might come across the Pioneer 10 & 11 space probes that were launched in 1972. It’s an interesting look at our own cultural skew. No language was included for obvious reasons, but isn’t an arrow a culturally derived symbol as well? In ancient Rome it was considered perfectly fine for men to be depicted nude but only prostitutes and low-class women were depicted nude. I guess 2,000 years is a blink of the eye: public outcry in 1972 caused this poor woman’s genitals to be erased 🙂
And a couple of amusing links:
- Sumerian Beer Project — History has shown that when people quit hunting/gathering and settle down in one place, three new elements of life emerge: writing, religion, and beer. For the Sumerians, one of the first agricultural civilizations, all three were interwoven. Again, 5,000 years is but the blink of an eye, although the technology has mutated: today it’s television, football, and beer, right?
- Write like a Babylonian — See your monogram in cuneiform, the way an ancient Babylonian might have written it.