Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Your turn #6

16 comments:

amanda said...

Would it be incorrect to compare Jugend magazine to Harper's? I know that Jugend was an art and design magazine and Harper's branched into such topics as politics, but it seems that both publications provided outlets for some of the most famous artists of the time. I feel that there are so many different styles present in each Jugend cover that it is hard to believe that they are from the same era, but I suppose that what connected them was the common Germanic theme. What an amazing publication to have had at the time, and they aren't limited to one specific form; there are drawings, paintings, and print illustrations on the covers, all using color for effect. Are there any publications (not newspapers) that we that can compare to Jugend today? There are such publications as Computer Arts and Post, but from what I understand it is limited to computer graphics and visual effects only, and is circulated amongst those in the busines as opposed to the whole population.

Alfredo Triff said...

I see your point Amanda. Amidst the amazing disparity of styles, the magazine keeps a fin-de-siecle common thread.

Alfredo Triff said...

I meant to say Jugend.

Luis E. Piñol said...

Juxtapoz, Beautiful Decay, Lemon, Swindle... there are many, many, many comparable contemporary art magazines. One just has to look for them.

John said...

So, does this Bitter Campri poster herald the death of the illustrated poster with it's singular realist image? I've often wondered when that death occurred exactly, and while this poster by Marcello Dudovich isn't a photo, it's very modern in the sense that it could easily be a Dior or some high gloss magazine ad where the image is the art, and often the image is just the model.
Where Jan Toorop is designing and illustrating an entire world apart, which is what i think posters do well, sell you on world and experience different than your own, this Dudovich sells our world draped in a particular mood. Soon, the posters and advertisements will sell just an inaccessible idealization of beauty, and the problem is that it's not an idealized Mucha or Gibson or Vargas girl, it's a photo. It's our world. There exists this dolled up person, on some photo set in our world. There's nothing magical or moving about it.
Look at a Chéret poster, that's transporting. They let your imagination run wild, and while that Dudovich does allow the imagination to wander and explore that mood, I see it as the beginning of the end of poster art.
Just look at movie poster art in the last three decades. The original Indiana Jones poster was an illustrated poster, but I'd bet that if it was released now, it'd be a studio shot of Ford with whip in front of some graphic background. Think of what could have been done with an illustrated Matrix poster, but instead it's vacant Reeves mugging and bunch of guns.
So, when did advertising leave illustration behind? And should photography be used in advertising? I get the idea that for some products you'd like to convey it's effects "truthfully", but that's the problem with photography as a sales tool, that it's truth based. Your setting the expectation bar very high with the truth.
That's my rant.

Alfredo Triff said...

This poster by Marcello Dudovich isn't a photo, it's very modern in the sense that it could easily be a Dior or some high gloss magazine ad where the image is the art, and often the image is just the model.

Good point, John.

Mariajose said...

Will H Bradley was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He is one of the best known American poster designers. Bradley came from an artistic family; his father was a cartoonist of the local Massachusetts newspaper. He worked for seven years at the Iron Agitator as a journalist, until he moved to Chicago in 1887. He was also part of the promotion of the Chap-Book and did a number of designs. One of the most famous designs he did for the Chap-Book is called The Twins (1895) and is categorized as the first American Art Nouveau poster. In Springfield, Massachusetts he founded the Wayside Press and published his own magazine, called Bradley: His Book. Even though Bradley was also a cartoonist, illustrator, decorator, and architect, his reputation grew because of the bold posters he designed for the Chap-Book. Once again these past generations took graphic design to the next level and today are an inspiration to us.

Barry said...

I find the developments that occurred with type styles during the late 1800 & early 1900’s very interesting. It seems to me that the entire history of graphic arts leading up to this period, has involved a progressive merger of text and illustration. Text actually became an integrated and a strategic part of the overall visual design of chromolithographic posters and advertisements in the mid 1800’s. Around the turn of the century this merger of text and illustration was pushed even further. Will Bradley, probably influenced by Morris, broke with tradition and approached type in a very original way. For example, he condensed and expanded lines of type to make them all the same length and he also distorted type to make it fit into spaces within his designs. Bradley played a significant role in changing the way text looked and how it was incorporated into design. Van de Velde took this even farther by abstracting letterforms until they were barely recognizable. Meggs asserts that these design breakthroughs foreshadowed 20th Century painting including Kandinsky and Abstract Expressionism. While it is easy to see this connection, it also seems important to keep in mind that all of this is happening in the context of the post-Impressionists (including Van Gogh & Gauguin) and Les Nabis (Bonnard, Vuillard, and Vallorron) who were working around this same period (1875-90.)

Unknown said...

For some reasons I have a desire to dig a bit dipper the period when Marcello Dudovich was creating his masterpieces. Long undervalued and neglected, vintage Italian poster art is today enjoying a renaissance as collectors and scholars rediscover its remarkable style. In Italy there was less of a poster mania than in France, where poster collecting was a phenomenon starting in the 1890s. There were fewer clubs, expositions, publications and galleries which promoted posters and poster collecting. Tragically, the largest remaining cache of classic Italian posters was destroyed in the late ‘60s when the great turn-of-the-century printer Ricordi threw out its archives to free up warehouse space. In most instances it retained only one copy of each poster for its collection. All of these factors contribute to the scarcity of Italian posters on the market today, strongly affecting market prices. The rise of the Italian poster is intimately tied to the opera, the only national cultural institution in Italy at the turn of the century. Ricordi, the music publisher of Verdi and Puccini, decided in 1874 to create an in-house printing operation to promote its music. It began by installing the most advanced German lithographic presses and hiring a brilliant German Art master, Adolfo Hohenstein, to train a staff of Italian artists. Hohenstein understood the Italian spirit so thoroughly that he is often called the "Father of the Italian Poster." Hohenstein’s charming La Boheme of 1895 was his first great Italian opera poster. It revealed the artist’s absorption of French poster art, particularly Cheret, in its playful and carefree depiction of Bohemian life in Paris.
By the turn of the century, a brilliant stable of talents had emerged under the tutelage of Hohenstein at Ricordi. Artists such as Aleardo Villa, Marcello Dudovich, Leopoldo Metlicovitz, Aleardo Terzi, Achille Mauzan and Giovanni Mataloni brought Art Nouveau, known as Stile Liberty in Italy, to a world class level. Dudovich was one of the greatest talent from this bright group and he rapidly developed the reputation as the leading poster artist in Italy. Despite on the fact that a high percentage of poster overruns were destroyed at that time we still have happiness to enjoy his brilliant work nowadays.

Alfredo Triff said...

True, Barry. Excellent comment, Natalie. Mataloni particulary (amongst the group) is extremely sensual in his designs. Copies of his posters still sell on E-bay!

Zury said...

The inspiration of Mucha’s artwork can be seen without hesitation in Privet Livemont’s work. In his advertisement for “Absinthe Robette” and even in the “Rajah Coffee poster”, one can see how Mucha’s work has influenced Livemont’s style by the way he would create and illustrate his women in the posters with the tendrilous hair, and their lavish ornaments. Mucha created a poster for Job cigarette papers, poster found on page 206 of the Meggs textbook, and you can see how he plays around with the free-flowing hair, the smoke, and the heavy countour line outlining the women. From this poster alone, one can see a definite influence towards Livemont’s posters.

Along with Livemont’s work, I also wanted to comment about Jan Toorop’s “Psyche” book cover illustration. On page 216 of our textbook, it shows the actual book cover binding of “Psyche”, including the spine. I was looking at the spine part of it and I was able to notice the play of typography with the illustration and how it blends together. This brings to mind the psychdelic art that many made during the 1960s where an artist would play around with typography and illustration to give it the style of this era; such as the example of Wes Wilson’s posters.

JohnFrank said...

Wanting to learn more, I did some research…

Chapbooks got their name from travelers that sold small, pocket sized, printed text in the sixteenth century. These travelers were called chapmen, Most of these works, contained wide letter spacing, a mix of roman, italic and all-capital type, sturdy woodcuts and plain rulers inspired the chapbook style of graphic arts.

Today a chapbook is used to describe a low-cost hard copy production. An example of a modern day chapbook is a zine.

A zine is an abbreviation of the word fanzine, and orignates from the word magazine.

It’s most commonly a small circulation, non-commercial publication of original texts and images. More broadly, zines encompasses any self-published work of minority interest.

A popular definition includes that circulation must be 5,000 or less and the intention of the publication is not primarily to raise a profit.

An example of which would be “cometbus”, a punk zine that derives from Berkley California. This zine captures the lifestyle associated with the genre of music and has been doing so for nearly 24 years now.

Persistence is the word that comes to mind when I think of these types of text’s that are still being printed. and yes they may not contain the most impressive elements in graphic design, they are still effective in getting a message out, something that everyone in the business strives for.

JohnFrank said...

by the way...

JF stands for Johnfrank.

Jomar said...

“Amazing” are the only way to describe the works of the man leading the charge in American Art-Nouveau inspired graphic design and illustration, along with many other styles, William Henry Bradley. Considering his 8th grade education, this man’s work is genius. The influences of Aubrey Beardsley and William Morris’s are most evident in his spectacular and highly decorative designs. Despite the clear inspirations, Bradley’s style is clearly distinct in his ability to take the combination of type and illustration together to create majestic masterpieces, while borrowing from various styles.

Bradley is credited with having restored the popularity and use of Caslon type. Caslon was an old and very simple typeface which had been used in early American imprints. Bradley studied its uses while at the Boston Public Library exploring with Colonial Revival style.

From his masterful achievements in type and design and combining styles, to his establishment of the very successful Wayside Press, to all of his major contributions to type design, layout, and 20th century editorial design, I would have to declare William Henry Bradley my new favorite “Design Master of the Week”.

Luis E. Piñol said...

Aside from Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Munich, Budapest, Vienna and Prague, Barcelona and Madrid, Milan and New York all developed schools of poster artists and gifted individual designers. The Poster art of Privat Livemont presented unique stylistic qualities not seen in previous Art Noveau efforts, an almost (in contemporary terms) psychedelic use of color and figure separation using the double contour or what is referred to as a stroke. The positioning and the manipulation of letterform as well as its role in the aestheticism of the piece (letterforms not necessarily developed for functionality) are also features that can be called psychedelic by today’s standards.

One trend I am noticing in the evolution of poster art, given the epochs we have covered, is the gradual abstraction of the figure and the use of less detail but more symbol. I figure these are prominent developments towards an era of artistic modernity.

AlexLee said...

An artist that caught my eye was Max Bill. For posters and book covers he used mathematical precision and used grids to align text and image. He was a Swiss architect, artist, typeface designer and graphic designer. He also created forms that visually represented mathematical complexity. But as complex as many of his pieces are he ties it in well with a good amount of simplicity as well. Part of the reason why his work caught my eye is because I work the same way, or at least like to think so. I try to mix complex shapes and text with a lot of open white space and area. Making a very clean look.