From Introduction: The reIationship between technology and art today is a logical extension of a collaborative tradition with ancient roots. The artist has always been a principal perpetrator of technological innovation. He, through the natural progression of technical means, has virtually evolved each new art form. There are many examples such as the 'lost wax' casting process, Jan Van Eycks oil paint innovations, Senefelders 'chemical printing' and Niecephore Niepce's first eight hour photographic exposures. Even woodblocks were in their time an innovation. All art uses technology of a kind and artists who prefer to remain aloof from it are in fact merely using technologies absorbed in older traditional media further back in the history of art. It is the flexibility of art to adapt to changing conditions of the world today which has spurred change and brought about a new dynamism in the graphic arts. The present intensity of interest in the print can be directly attributed to the advancement of technology and communication in this century. A whole new field of materials, methods and techniques are now available to the venturesome graphic artist and printmaker. Along with the contemporary technology dedication to expression leads naturally to innovation in aesthetics.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the academic requirements for the Master of Technology Degree: Graphic Design, Durban Institute of Technology, 2004. / This project has investigated African graphic systems, both writing systems and systems of symbolic graphics. These systems are commonly used in Graphic Design, but those of African origin have been largely ignored in both the applied discipline, and in its History and Theory. The project has attempted to explain this in historical and theoretical terms: its motivation is described in terms of countering the exclusion of African visual culture in the face of historical and ideological factors such as colonialism and globalisation. The project's research aims were to collect as much information as feasible on these systems; and to classify them according to such criteria as their language or cultural group, their location, and the functional nature of the systems. From this body of information a smaller number of representative systems were selected for further description and discussion, in order to highlight the variety of systems existing in Africa, their historical development, and techniques and materials used. These selected systems were then used as inspiration and raw material for a body of applied Graphic Design work, which is intended to provide a visual introduction to the material, and to promote and advocate the revaluation of this cultural material. Information has mainly been gathered by means of library and internet search, in order to establish approximately the extent of the literature in the public sphere. Because of the obscurity of most of this information, it has been gathered from such other disciplines as Linguistics, Anthropology, or History. The project has established the existence of a large number of graphic symbols and systems, and gathered a body of literature and references about them. Many are poorly documented, if at all, and even those for which extensive literature / M

王蘇琦. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-385). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Wang Suqi.

O presente trabalho busca realizar uma investigação acerca das narrativas históricas que o designer gráfico Alexandre Wollner montou sobre o desenvolvimento da própria profissão no Brasil, enfocando as formas pelas quais seu discurso aponta relações entre o design (com maior ênfase do design gráfico) e as artes visuais, o desenvolvimento industrial e noções sobre tecnologia. Primeiramente, a fundamentação teórica buscou diálogos com historiadores do design, com Mikhail Bakhtin, especialmente seus conceitos sobre “ideologia” e “discurso”, e a teoria de autonomia de Campo de Pierre Bordieu aplicada na prática artística. Em seguida, apresenta-se a trajetória de Wollner, relacionando-a com os momentos de desenvolvimento industrial do Brasil e, por fim, abordam-se três de seus textos de caráter histórico, escritos em momentos distintos (1964; 1983; 1998), nos quais o autor analisado buscou apontar as origens, eventos e nomes marcantes da profissão. No decorrer do trabalho, aponta-se a importância do contato de Wollner com as ideologias modernistas europeias de matriz abstrata e racionalistada Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm (HfG Ulm), escola alemã de design da cidade de Ulm, na década de 1950. Tal discurso modernista entendia a prática do design como um método de caráter científico, diferenciando-se assim de práticas artísticas mais recorrentes em alguns ambientes produtivos. Wollner buscou aplicar esses ideais em sua prática profissional, sendo a formação do escritório paulista forminform, em 1958, uma das primeiras expressões de tal postura, e na sua prática acadêmica, tendo auxiliado na formação da Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial (ESDI), no Rio de Janeiro, em 1963. Tais ideais modernistas condiziam com os momentos de desenvolvimento industrial brasileirodo governo de Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–1961) e do “Milagre Econômico” do governo militar brasileiro (1968–1973). Wollner argumentava acerca da necessidade do desenvolvimento design nacional como um diferencial produtivo e tecnológico que auxiliaria o crescimento da indústria nacional, baseado na concepção no modelo projetual alemão de Ulm. Defende-se que a trajetória profissional e intelectual de Alexandre Wollner, em seus esforços de pensar uma história do design brasileiro através da escolha de pioneiros da profissão, pautou-se num “modelo ideal” de design, deixando de lado experiências modernistas da década de 1950. Tal postura refletiria uma busca pela validação da própria profissão que surgia de forma mais pontual no meio produtivo brasileiro, buscando a criação de um espaço de diferenciação para com práticas anteriormente estabelecidas, geralmente ligadas àquelas de artistas gráficos. / This work aims to investigate the historical narratives in which the graphic designer Alexandre Wollner assembled about the development of its own profession in Brazil, focusing the ways in which his discourse points relations among design (with greater emphasis in graphic design) and visual arts, the industrial development and notions about technology. Firstly, the theoretical setup searched for dialogues with design historians, with Mikhail Bakhtin, specially his concepts about “ideology” and “discourse’, and the theory of Field Autonomy by Pierre Bourdieu applied in the artistic practice. Following, the relation between Wollner’s own journey and the Brazilian industrial development is shown, and, at last, three of his historical texts are studied, which are written in different moments (1964; 1983; 1998), being those in which the analyzed author wished to point out the origens, events and names that are more remarkable. Throughout the work, it is pointed the importance of Wollner’s contact with the modernist european ideologies that share an abstract and rationalist matrix found at Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm (HfG Ulm), the german design school from the city of Ulm, in the 1950s. Such modernist discourse understood the practice of design as a method with scientific character, being then different of some other more recurring artistic professional practices in some productive sectors. Wollner aimed to apply such ideals in his professional practice, being the foundation of the paulista office forminform, in 1958, one of his first expressions of such posture, and in his academic practice, helping the foundation of the Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial (ESDI), in Rio de Janeiro, in 1963. Such modernist ideals went along with moments of the Brazilian industrial development during the government of Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–1961) and the “Economical Miracle” from the military government (1968–1973). Wollner argued about the need for the development of national design as a technological and productive differential that would help the growth of national industry, based on Ulm’s project model concept. It is defended that Wollner’s professional and intelectual path, in his efforts of thinking a history of Brazilian design through the choice of pioneers in the area, was founded on an “ideal model” of design, leaving aside the modernist experiences from the 1950s. Such posture would indicate a search for validation of his own profession that was beginning to become more evident in Brazilian productive means, aiming the creation of a differential space in comparison with pre-established practices, usually link to graphic artists from the time.