What is "design"?

The design idea is essential for our class. 

So, what is design? 

Creating a plan or convention for constructing an object, system or measurable human interaction.

Design starts with a mark.

This is one of the first marks that we know of: a signature, early homo sapiens blows a reddish powder over his hand to leave his imprint on the cave's wall for posterity. As they aged, they kept coming back to it.  

These are formidable, monumental, massive marks. The pyramids in Egypt.

Which can be schematized as follows:

A modern mark? Take the famous Rietveld chair (I own one),

which started as a plan:

Or a Ferrari, a technological beauty (you can get this for just $350,000)

Here's the sketch: 

Or this gorgeous campanile, an example of a tower, which, of course,

started as a drawing/plan for an elevation. But even before the drawing, it was a mark in the mind of Bonanno Pisano.

How about this monster?

the ENIAC is the first digital computer, 1943

Now, you all carry it to class (as this lighter version):

ARH 346: History of Graphic Design Spring 2025 SYLLABUS

Chris DAZE Ellis 2021

Instructor: Alfredo Triff Ph.D.
dada1917@bellsouth.net

Textbook: Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide, by Johanna Drucker and Emily McVarish (or else, this blog's plentiful notes and images)

Introduction:
 
ARH 346 is a historical survey of Graphic Design from its origins to the present day. In addition, I emphasize 20th Century and early 21st Century developments in the field. 
 
Goals:

At the end of the semester, the student is supposed to be acquainted with the main trends and styles in the discipline's history. My focus is not "graphic" per se. I view design as a general term for the human mark (more of this throughout the course).   
  
Course content and grades, missing an exam
 
1- There are two exams: A midterm (25%) and a Final (25%). Each test has a written and a visual component.

 

2- There is a weekly 150-word (at minimum) comment assignment for each of my weekly posts. Comments must show a bit of research and the ability to discuss novelty on the topic at hand. Generally, I will close the comment window of our blog 6 days after posting. Posts for comment are posted until Monday at 12 noon, when I close the comment section. Here's the breakup of points:

Post for comments = 25% of the final grade, attendance = 25%, mid term & final = 50%.

 
4- I ask you to refrain from using your personal laptops during my lectures. We don't need more audio-visual overload on top of my image-laden lectures.
 

5- Missing an exam and retaking it can only happen if the student provides a doctor's note justifying the reason for the absence. 

Schedule of Classes
 
Introduction: This chapter covers the evolutionary foundations of communication, language, and design, early graphic forms, communicating ideas and beliefs, and the invention of proto-writing.

Chapter 1: Early Writing: Mark-making, Notation Systems, and Scripts 3000—500 BC
Mark-making, notation, varieties of early writing, the spread of writing as ideas and scripts, the alphabet, and literate culture.

Chapter 2: Classical Literacy 700 BCE—400 CE
Variations of literacy and the alphabet, the function of graphic codes, models of writing: gestural and constructed, writing at the end of the Classical age.

Chapter 3: Medieval Letterforms and Book Formats 400—1450
Medieval culture and graphic communication, graphic media and contexts, the codex book letterforms, manuscript hands, and pattern books; Graphic forms of knowledge, publishing communities, and graphic arts.

Chapter 4: Renaissance Design: Standardization and Modularization in Print 1450—1660
Early print design, graphic communication in Renaissance culture, print technology and type design, graphic forms of knowledge.

Chapter 5: Modern Typography and the Creation of the Public Sphere 1660—1800
Printed matter and the public sphere, news books, broadsheets, newspapers, politics and the press, graphic arts and design, and modern type design. On the edge of industrialization

Chapter 6: The Graphic Effects of Industrial Production 1800—1850
Industrialization and visual culture, illustrated papers, book design for mass production, printing images, advertising design, and typography, fine art and graphic art; critical issues.

Chapter 7: Mass Mediation 1850—1900s
Printed mass media, changes in print technology, changing patterns in the use of graphic media, media networks, graphic design and advertising, posters, and public space.

Chapter 8: Formations of the Modern Movement 1880s—1910s
Responses to industrialism, Arts and Crafts publications, Arts and Crafts dissemination, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Viennese design, Decadence and Aestheticism, the private press movement and modern design, integration of design and industry.

Chapter 9: Innovation and Persuasion 1910—1930
Visual culture and avant-garde design, the graphic impact of Futurism and Dada, from experiment to principles, propaganda, and mass communication studies, graphic persuasion and its effects institutionalizing graphic design.

Chapter 10: The Culture of Consumption 1920s—1930s
Designing the modern lifestyle, modern style in graphic design, consumer culture, and the profession.

Chapter 11: Public Interest Campaigns and Information Design 1930s—1950s
Public interest and education, photojournalism and documentary, wartime propaganda, wartime information, commercial and technical uses of information design, information analysis, and design process.

Chapter 12: Corporate Identities and International Style 1950s—1970s
Image and identity systems, International style: Style, systems, and graphic design concepts; technology, the profession.

Chapter 13: Pop and Protest 1960s—1970s
Pop culture and style, self-conscious graphic design, slick surfaces and high production values, counterculture and the alternative press, revolutionary culture and protest, changes in the profession, and critical vocabulary.

Chapter 14: Postmodernism in Design 1970s—1980s and Beyond
Postmodern styles, postmodern consumption, conservatism, critical theory and postmodern sensibility, postmodernism, and activism.

Chapter 15: Digital Design After the 1970s
Digital technology: from punch cards and plotters to desktop computing, Media transitions: type design and publications: Fluidity and functionality. The myth of immateriality and challenges of digital design.

Chapter 16: Today's Graphic Design

Ad Busters
Majid Abbasi
Chris Dixon
Eboy
Dave Eggers
Experimental Jetset (Amsterdam)
Sarah Fanelli
Isidro Ferrer (Spain)
Field Study
Lizzie Finn (London)
Tom Gauld (London)
Julia Hasting (NY)
Yuri Gutilov (Moscow)
Fons Hickmann (Berlin/Vienna)
Kim Hirthøy (Oslo)
Keiko Hirano (Tokyo)
Inkahoots (Brisbane, Australia)

Siobhan Keaney (London)
Ji Lee (NY)
Ken-Tsai Lee (Taipei)
Anette Lenz (Paris)
Kei Matsushita (Tokyo)
Ung Vai Meng (Macao, China)
Mooren & van der Velden (Amsterdam) Torturers of modern design
Peter Moser (Switzerland) Design as Theater.

_____________________

1. I don't grant a makeup exam if not adequately justified by a doctor. 

2. You'll miss the comment/option if you don't post a comment before I close the comment/option (each Thursday @ 2pm).

3. If you cannot come to class, let me know in advance so I won't mark you "absent" and instead "justified". I won't fix absences unless adequately justified by a doctor's note.   

Abschlussprüfung, 2025

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from typeface "distortion" (late 1990s) to 2000s maximalism

design for saatchi (2000s)

design for ferrari (2000s)

emmanuela harris, (2000s)

omatic design (2000s)

there are different names, glitch art, pixabay, holographic art, warp, etc. 

what do we see?

sedendipity, 

an unintentional distortion made by a digital crash has led to an entire, mind-bending sub-genre of graphic design.......

bold, rich colors,
pattern and texture saturation,
layering textures,
ornamentation is back,
avec-serif,
drawn typefaces,
 horror vacui!
mixing and matching vintage,

more distortion... typeface "morire" (the end of the grunge era)

Somewhere in the mid-2000s, clean lettering and subtle spacing experienced a resurgence in popularity, and the use of grunge typography went into decline: conservative became modern, and chaotic became clichéd. Fasforward to 2015: the reversion to classicism is nigh complete. Demand for grunge fonts comes from LatinAmerica and Europe rather than the U.S. (!)

jeffery keedy's manifesto

 

why jeffery keedy? 

not only is he an important graphic designer, he's also an accomplished design theorist.

here's jeffery's EMIGRE type specimens:

keedy is, guess what?,  a graduate of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, 

to be expected of a Cranbrook alumnus, keedy has been teaching design at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) since his graduation. 

keedy was also a frequent contributor to Emigre magazine throughout the twenty years of its publication. his designs and essays have been published in Eye, I.D., Emigre, Critique, Idea, Adbusters, Looking Closer One and Two, Faces on the Edge: Type in the Digital Age, New Design: Los Angeles and The Education of a Graphic Designer.

keedy's typeface Keedy Sans, designed in 1989, is distributed through Emigre Fonts.

he has also designed the Hard Times typeface which reassembles the elements of Times New Roman. 

according to keedy, the international style has been upgraded to what he calls global style.

so, what do we have?

1- keedy's "global style" is to 2000s what the international style was to the 1950s.

2- if the international style used typographic trickery to animate the frame, keedy's global uses the 4th dimension: time. it accomplishes this by looking like it was a single llime taken out of an animated sequence. 

3- what you see has undergone countless iterations and distortions.

4- the grid is not planned, but sort of process driven.

5- yet, the global style already looks familiar. 

what's the lesson here?

lifting and copying old styles was no longer seen as nostalgic. why? now, the past itself was considered to be an invention! (it's not, but that's a different story)

Jeffrey Keedy's emigre type (2002) borrows the geometric language of primary colors, red black, etc from constructivism, yet the design looks digital enough, this is what some call post-postmodern effect.

How are you doing in our ARH 346 class?

According to our syllabus, there are three grade parameters:

1. Attendance, 25%, 

2. Exams, midterm & final, 25% each, for a total of 50%

3. Posts for comments and project: 25%

_______

a) Suppose your attendance is 80%, you got an A in the midterm, and you have 9/10 assignments. 

or else,

b) Suppose your attendance is 70%, you got a B in the midterm, and you have 7/10 assignments.

a) Input the parameters and grades, and you have 25 points for the midterm, 20 points for attendance, and 22.5 points for your posts, for a total of 67.5.

b) Input the parameters and grades, and you have 20 points doe the midterm, 17.5 for attendance, and 17.5 points for your posts, for a total of 55 points.

Your turn #10 (& last post for comment!)

There's plenty to discuss: 1. Polish posters 1950-1970s, pick your favorite: Cieślewicz, Bodnar, Lenica, Flisak, Zamecznik, Gorka, Wałkuski, Tomaszewski, Świerzy. 2. The so-called self-conscious poster, 3. The amazing George Lois, or 4. Piet Zwart's typo-tect poster. 

If you are interested in exploring a future Polish-poster collection, click here,

or here. 

what do you see? the simple rhetoric of consumability

Lester Beall posters, mid 1930's

Your turn #9

Lester Beal, Fortune Magazine, poster, 1947

Dear class, there is plenty to discuss: forms of Dada collage, Bauhaus, our side of World War Two, Information Design, the difference between Propaganda and advertising, Kula Robbins' Jenny on the job, Herb Lubalin, Fortune Magazine, and the development of Logos. Logo stars include Giusti, Chesmayer & Geismar, Paul Rand, Saul Bass, Alvin Lustig, etc. And, of course, Graphic design does JAZZ & Shigeo Fukuda. 

I include the following, which I didn't mention: 

Otto Neurath's pictorial statistics,

Donald Cook and Shanowsky symbol signs,

The mark of Normal Rockwell,

The modern look of Lester Beal, 

Piet Zwart's TYPO TEXT.

Go ahead!

Your turn #8

 

Anton Stankowski's example of meta-design

Dear class: There is plenty to talk about: 

* Star designers of the 1930s, like Herbert Matter, Joseph Binder & Ladislav Sutnar. 

* Avantgarde stars like  Alexander Rodchenko, Malevich's geometric Suprematism, Marinetti's onomatopoeic graphic designs.  

* Nazi's Propaganda,  Leni Riefenstahl's 1935 Triumph of the Will (included in my announcement). 

* Graphic design developments like 1930s Neue Typographie and 1950s Swiss International Design, Constructivist posters,  

* The nine principles of Swiss typographic style.

* What are you, a less-is-more or a more-is-more advocate? 

Go ahead. Avoid echo chambers, even any form of A.I. copy & paste (shhhh, remember, I can tell). 😈

Cipe Pineles

cpie pineles, above, in her studio.

cipe for seventeeen, 1948

The graphic design career of Cipe Pineles (pronounced SEE-pee pi-NELL-iss) began when she was installed by Condé Nast Himself in the office of Dr. M.F. Agha, art director for Condé Nast publications Vogue, Vanity Fair, and House and Garden.

Through the 1930s and early 1940s, Pineles learned editorial art direction from one of the masters of the era, and became (at Glamour) the first autonomous woman art director of a mass-market American publication.

She is credited with another "first" as well: being the first art director to hire fine artists to illustrate mass-market publications; the first woman to be asked to join the all-male New York Art Directors Club and later their Hall of Fame.

After experimenting on Glamour, she later art directed and put her distinctive mark on Seventeen and  Charm magazines, until her death in 1991. Cipe Pineles continued a design career of almost sixty years through work for Lincoln Center and others, and teaching at the Parsons School of Art and Design (AIGA).

 pineles' cover for charm, 1955,

what do we see here?

1- Pineles' style is groovy, authentic; young women saw themselves in it (the polls prove it).  

2- she is the first designer to use fine artists to illustrate mass-market publications, which brought modern art to the attention of the young mainstream public.

3- let the epoch guide the design. 

4- typeface can be organic.