Original subtitles

my title is the magical eye learning to

see more early memories learning to see

I need to preface the following story

with an explanation up to about age 19

my learning prominently focused on

verbal numerical information essential

for a German high school diploma

we did have an art course and I

thoroughly enjoyed it but the time

allotted to it was minimal thus in my

teens when I was taught by an art

teacher to look at a tree to study it I

vividly remembered that I stared at the

tree

I recognized of course that it was a

tree but I had no access then to the

visual experience of overlapping

branches the resulting negative areas or

the wonderful progression from heavy to

light branches all the way up to the

tiniest twig

the same was true at the beginning of my

professional education I was asked to do

a poster for the abroad house in Basel

Switzerland I said in the courtyard of

the building unable to come up with any

visual idea that could represent the

building I simply saw the entire red

building a whole range of windows doors

clock then obviously my brain still

didn't have the tools to see my visual

knowledge was not sufficiently developed

though I did end up with a simple poster

design but I learned that the ability to

see more than the minimum amount we need

to get around has to be trained

developed my eyes finally did get

trained through an excellent education

in Basel Switzerland through my teaching

I noticed so much more around me and

frequently observe how my eyes get drawn

to something which is visually

interesting and beautiful without me

having looked for it it might be a

single object or an entire scene even a

composition the potential of the human

eye is astonishing maybe magical and it

is important for designers students in

any field of the Arts and for that

matter everyone to develop more of this

wonderful potential the benefits are

well worth it

learning about form color composition

theoretically sort of reading or

lectures in the early stage of a design

education is not helpful to give the

brain lasting visual impressions

students need to work intensely

practically with form s color value

contrast rhythm shape figure-ground

relationships they need to solve

meaningful basic design assignments

assignments that

visually challenging and have a clear

goal only then will students have the

tools to see in any of these terms which

means to truly see to see more than

nouns to see abstractly I would like to

include here a statement by Peter

Sheldon the art critic of the New Yorker

that he made in a recent review on the

renovation of the Yale University art

gallery he wrote that he ponders the way

that study the mainspring of

universities burdens looking the

playground of art in developing

assignments that might help students to

see it is important to set limitations

focus on a few important goals

one such assignment might involve

composition studies that use only a few

lines or shapes a square circle triangle

the visual acuity needed to develop a

coherent composition is more challenging

than most realize the I must be

intensely aware of the entire format

notice how changes in the placement size

or angle of individual shapes lines

influence other shapes as well as the

ground the eye has to learn to see in

relationships since all is

interconnected making decisions is

easier when the entire calm

vision is seen from a distance by taping

it on the wall and standing back so the

eye has the entire composition in its

field of vision again and again the eye

has to scan the composition does the

ground receipt or come forward does it

read a steep sky or create its own

shapes how do these shapes influence

existing ones

how do Lions divide the ground is the

entire format actively involved is the

cow in the composition or are some areas

left out how does the I move around in

the composition and so on

the same process applies if the elements

are representational or not it is

sometimes helpful to turn a composition

upside down to see it fresh or place

several stages of a composition side by

side to allow for comparison did see

composition improve or not which part is

the weakest what should be taken out and

envisioned in another way it might take

hours or days of such intense

observation until the composition holds

convincingly together but what a great

learning experience

after an intense composition for example

of of lions the eye might be tuned in

that it suddenly notices line events in

the environment

to

here the fan-like arrangement of needles

on a pine branch invites the eye to

envision a similar abstract composition

individual lines rhythmically dividing

the fan like ground contrasting with

clusters of lions varying in texture

intensity to solve any graphic design

problem even though the initial idea

might be verbal students have to come up

with a form language

suitable to represent the idea only a

clear form language can lead to a

coherent design solution let's look at a

few examples reflections on the water

surface consists of ever-changing fluid

forms and a strong contrast between

light and dark

this illustration of William Nicholson

from a children's book around 1900

beautifully captures these formal

qualities additionally the size and

placement of the duck in the square

format and the resulting shapes of the

ground are all carefully considered the

image is representational but it is seen

abstractly the representations of trees

by stealth sky spoiler are both

absolutely clear in their form language

close to being beautiful abstract

compositions there still

capture the typical quality of these

trees

being able to make the jump from an

abstract composition to the recognition

of a similar event in reality

or becoming aware of an underlying

abstract form language in something we

see in the environment that was the pine

branch for example both are important

steps in the process of learning to see

going to museums galleries provides a

great opportunity to practice seeing in

terms of form it is helpful to focus on

one aspect of the general form language

such as the use of color or value

changes in a painting the quality of

edges the figure-ground relationships

the range of color intensity the

rhythmic quality of a painting and so on

such conscious looking will make the

entire experience way more interesting

and valuable sometimes after such

intense looking I for example see for a

few hours with the eyes of the artist

works of art that leave a strong imprint

in your mind might influence your own

work

there's something wrong in the sequence

well we have to skip it who ever saw the

movie on Tuesday the beautiful wood cuts

of arrested my girl which I knew since

my student days influenced a poster

design for the Museum of Antiquities in

Basel this photo montage by Alice Itsuki

you don't see it so impressed me that it

stayed in my mind for many years it

influenced my design for a conference of

the Yale women's forum titled Yale

celebrates women's achievements in

today's world which was a conference at

Yale sketching is a helpful way to

realize fleeting mental images the

sketching tool is brush pen or pencil

might also shape the resulting forms

here brush sketches helped me to clarify

an image for a poster design

this little sketch for a cover design

simulated here since the original sketch

has been lost evoked an absolutely clear

image in my mind to guide me with the

composition and studio photography in

this poster by Ernst Keller for a swiss

exhibit in stockholm in 1924 the

calligraphy pen as drawing tool not only

creates a consistent form language in

the translation of the bird but also

links the letter forms to the rest of

the poster the hole is a linoleum cut

now we make a big jump and go to color

learning to see color or better being

able to distinguish between the

different dimensions of color is a

demanding task and excellent eye

training the dimensions of color include

the U of a color red blue yellow the

intensity of a color here the bluest

blue is the most intense of the blues

and the equivalent gray value or weight

of a color here's the entire munsell

diagram which visualizes these three

dimensions of color a grayscale like rod

stands in the center of this color

sphere

black is at the bottom white at the top

wings extend from this rod one for each

color the individual strips within the

wing of each color are connected to the

grayscale according to their gray value

the darker blue for example was more

black edit will sit towards the bottom

the lighter blue with white added will

sit closer to the top the most intense

version of each color strip is the one

furthest away from the grayscale the

difference in the lengths of the strips

indicates how many steps from gray to

the most intense version of that color

the eye can distinguish the yellow strip

therefore reaches out far more than the

blue strip here are some example of

examples of student exercises students

were asked to visually match a gray to

the value of 5 randomly chosen colors

disregarding intensity this sounds easy

but is in fact a very hard task

especially with bright colors to make it

a very physical experience students were

asked to mix the different Gray's by

hand and paint swatches using brush and

gouache paint many such swatches had to

be compared to each color again in the

in deciding if the gray was lighter or

darker until an equivalent gray value

with each color was achieved so the row

of gray squares should read as a correct

interpretation of the values of the five

colors by the way by the way it is not

these student exercises and there are

some flaws in it but it doesn't take

away from the value of the exercise by

placing the gray the gray values so they

attach the individual colors at the

third row of the original set makes it

easier to judge if the interpretation is

correct and that's where you might

notice problems the light gray with a

yellow on the left is too light but the

next color is a 10 with the darker gray

is perfect so they're very in their

quality to avoid any additional issues

of changing gray values a gray match to

the value of one of the five colors was

added in increasing amounts until a

progression of equal steps bar was

achieved and that is the bend the fourth

element down which again the step to the

gray is too big it didn't quite make it

the endless testing and intense

observation of variations in gray value

or color intensity left students with a

far greater learning experience then a

study of the Munsell

Grimm alone could offer this assignment

Josef Albers he was a teacher at the

Bauhaus but later came to the United

States and taught at Yale and Black

Mountain College and his publication the

interaction of color might well be in

your library here if you were a student

this assignment also focuses on the

ability of the eye to distinguish

between lighter and darker colors look

at these pairs of color rectangles and

decide which rectangle is lighter or

darker in each of these pairs you are

turn you will become aware how difficult

it is so give it a try make sure you

judge gray value not intensity the

helpful hint try and stare at the edge

between two colors really pick two

colors and stare at the edge and wait a

bit and you might be able to decide the

lighter afterimage on one of the two

colors

indicates that the other is darker but

you will see much more than that

so you might if you have the interaction

of color in the library really use it

it's absolute wonderful eye training

these two images also from the Ibis

portfolio interaction of color show

clearly how relative color is the same

color on a lighter ground appears darker

and on a darker ground lighter

additionally this student found a color

relationship between ground and figure

on both sides so that the figures

additionally appear to have the same

color as the opposite ground our eyes

can surely surprise us fool us if that's

not magical let a form design letter

form design also has a few cases of such

optical illusions a geometric circle

does not appear visually as a circle but

seems narrower it's the right and left

side and heavier it's a top and bottom

there's something very wrong it is

totally distorted what do we do now well

I just keep going so you can't see a

thing you can't read here at geometric

circle is placed next to a future oh-oh

I would like you to decide which is the

few Torah Oh

it's all a little bit distorted I don't

know why the left is the future oh so

even in the typeface Futura a face that

prided itself to rely purely on geometry

they all had to be optically corrected

to appear as a circle looking at the O

in gill sans Futura and Helvetica

invites interesting comparisons gill

sans

is on the Left Futura in the middle and

Helvetica on the right you notice the

difference

so both gill sans and Futura a close to

the circular oh dear sons is a little

bit extended and Helvetica has a strong

vertical axis

the letter the crossbar of the age sits

on the left in the measured middle on

the right in the optical middle which

means slightly higher turning the

Helvetica age upside down on the right

looks totally crazy way too low it is

fun to observe all the upside-down ages

on highway Hospital science and on your

license plates

a good way to train the eye as well as

fine-tune visual memory is to observe

existing typefaces and try to remember

typical characteristics I used the same

word here to help with comparison the

original Helvetica is at the top the new

Helvetica below Arial another version of

Helvetica further down then Futura in

the last one is Gilson's

the comparison shows how amazingly

calligraphic kill Sansa's comparing the

rest based on this one word the new

Helvetica does not live up to the

quality of the original one the curved

stroke on the R is too long the cross

bar of the T is too long in tooth in the

roof of the a is too thin compared to

the O the curved stroke defining the

bottom the counter space also is too

thin both the vertical of City as well

as the vertical stroke on the right side

of ca appear too heavy Ariel is much

better only the roof of ca seems to flip

back but looking at the Helvetica on a

train in Switzerland convinces me of the

superior quality of meeting us design he

seems to have paid special attention to

the beauty of the counter forms and that

carries the her original Helvetica

isn't it gorgeous on the train the last

exercise in teaching students to see

focuses on letter spacing please

seemingly simple writing exercise with

Spencer on tracing paper ask students

only to space the lines optically evenly

apart the exercise is usually done for

about an hour it is done in absolute

silence with full concentration - spaced

lines equally the optically equally

apart means to control the area between

lines not the linear distance this is

quite hard for many students introducing

curved lines

on top of vertical and diagonals ones

makes it even harder since the shape of

the negative area is now more varied

when this exercise is well done as it is

here this page looks very beautiful here

are some examples of type designed by

one of my students which is based on a

Greek inscription carved with a stylus

like tool into stone and here testing

the typeface in a text situation you can

judge the very beautiful letter spacing

as a special present I included here

some exercises of optical letter spacing

with a pen done by classmates of Adrian

Frutiger the designer of universe and

Frutiger and hans edward maya the

designer of syntax one exercise book is

supposed to be the one of frou tiga as a

student the brilliant teacher I afraid

Willy man who taught calligraphy to boys

fro tiga and Hans

Aerith Maya you can see in each page of

these exercises because he has a habit

to show examples to the students

can you see the very nice drawings and

notation he gave the students on their

exercise sheet and see third and fourth

line including the numbers are done by

Alfred Philemon he is the most exquisite

was the most exquisite calligrapher and

another example the fourth line is by

Alfred Philemon and here is a sample

sheet of unsure which was written also

by Philemon which is as you can see very

very beautiful and the last slide is a

present to myself

it's an Egyptian horse a relief of an

Egyptian horse which I saw in the new

Museum in Berlin the Egyptian collection

and it is so beautiful so if you like

horses enjoy many of the teaching ideas

I mentioned go back to the Bauhaus a

school founded around 1920 in vimar

Germany by Walter Gropius it was Gropius

who first instituted a course on the

basics of art and design which included

form color and material the first

director of the course was johannes

itten famous for his teaching on color

later moholy-nagy and Josef Albers took

on the directorship both Paul Klee and

Kandinsky

taught courses on basic form wouldn't

you have liked to be in that course this

introductory course was mandatory for

all students and existed throughout the

life of the Bauhaus to quote Lear

Dickerman in her great article on the

fundament of the teaching at the Bauhaus

in the catalogue of the most recent

exhibit on the Bauhaus it's a museum of

modern art I quote experience not

knowledge was the watchword at the

Bauhaus Josef Albers when he taught in

the u.s. at Black Mountain College and

Yale changed this watchword to his own

credo to open students eyes and it is

here where my teaching links thank you