Discussion point 5 + Course Reflection

As vulgar as McLuhan was when he described us as the sex organs of technology, he was also correct in saying so. If you can describe human beings in one two words it would be "Constant Evolution", so how do we keep up?

While, as mentioned in the lecture in regards to Blurb publishing, designers love nothing more to pick up a brand new personalised book with their name on the cover, it could be an aspect that may die with our generation. In the long run, the bigger picture, our love of print of which we were born and raised may be a nostalgic trait of our age. Rather than Golden Books, we now see children in prams with iPads and tablets and as such consumed in a digital realm; this is what they will be neurologically attached to. It's the next step up from "Generation C". ¹

As Jean Baudrillard predicted, semeiotics will replace the real equivalent, in this sense digitally - masking the basic reality of humanity ². Marketing will create needs that digitally represent the real via the hyper-real through online social media, shopping and more. This will only keep evolving until we are in an entire simulation of reality that has no more trace of reality. 

As a result, I do believe this will be the end of print. We've seen the decline of Kodak and the rise of digital photo frames. We've seen the world finally embrace e-readers as they've been integrated smoothly into iPads, an interface which we accept. As a human race, we must get ready to accept the inevitable - the simulation which will soon overpower reality and the physical as we move further from hardware devices and into the digitally created future.

[1] McArthur, Ian. "Contemporary trends in Publishing." Online Lecture. College of Fine Arts. 07 10 2012. Lecture. URL <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h2hJZV9lkzn87Te1mGr-WshEm9fk3582JGpl0cb0TC8/edit?authkey=CKvqjJUB>

[2] Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. . Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Pr, 1994. Web.

Course Reflection

I initially thought this course would be more focussed on kerning, the anatomy of a typeface and more 'hands on' like it was at the beginning. In retrospect, I can understand why the course skipped these generalities - as the course was Advanced Publication. However, sliding in a few more principles of design as a refresher would have been useful. What I truly found valuable in this course was working as a group with the whole class. We got to see each other's work which was quite motivating and inspirational. I liked the class discussions where we all worked together to try and find solutions regarding the magazine. I felt the class was quite agreeable. I also found the letterpress segment of the course, although tediously frustrating at times, very insightful. The excursion to the distillery was exciting and again very useful to see how the printing world works on the 'other side' of things. I think if the inDesign workshop went through I would've gotten more from the course, but my own experimentation in the last assignment did allow me to feel my way around the piece of software.