Session 1

In the first lecture of the year and course in this subject area was based on a range of broad meanings for the Art forms; Graphic design, Photography and Fashion.

Before we looked into the meanings of these Art forms, we looked into the meaning of 'Visual culture'. From what I gathered in my notes was - 'Visual culture is being able to read and understand anything visual - imagery'. As my notes from that lecture didn't exactly make sense, I looked into the meaning a little further by researching the meaning on the internet.

Wikipedia - Visual Culture as an academic subject is a field of study that generally includes some combination of cultural studies, art history, critical theory, philosophy, and anthropology, by focusing on aspects of culture that rely on visual images.

The extra research I did was helpful as it gave me a stronger understanding. The simplest way of putting it -  Visual culture is the study of images that impact society or society and culture impacting images.

Graphic Design - below are the notes I took from the lecture on the meaning.

A way of visually communicating an idea.

It is generally aimed at an audience to catch attention and convey an idea to them - Using Layout, colour, typeface, imagery, shapes etc. It can be produced in many ways such as digitally, 2D, 3D, print etc.

Examples of Graphic design -

 

Photography 

Capturing a moment in time that conveys messages - meanings that people can interpret in their own way. (can be used in graphic design)

It also works well with other Art forms such as fashion. Taking photos of Models for instance, in interesting angles and editing the photos is a very popular and commercialised form of photography.

Can be used to tell a story - a single photo can give the idea of movement or a series of photos can give the idea of more than one movement.

Can be used to create emotion - the photo below shows a starving child somewhere in africa. The photo is extremely powerful and emotional. It makes you feel really sorry for that child and makes you want to do something about it. If you were actually there, walking past that same child, the emotion may not be there as much. 

Fashion

The notes I took down from my peers views over meaning of fashion concluded - expressing individuality and personality through physical media - something we wear in this case. 

There are also different levels of fashion. In present time, catwalk fashion designers generally design crazy and interesting garments where as 'Karen Millen' for instance, is a fashion designer that designed clothes for up market shops - to put it simply, just for people to wear because the garment looks nice and fits comfortably. 

As mentioned before, fashion is seen in photography and even Graphic design. Some graphic designers have their own clothing label - the logo, t-shirt prints, styles etc.

Below are some examples of Fashion. From extreme catwalk to street fashion.