Ted McKnight Kauffer's avantgarde design

Edward (Ted) McKnight Kauffer was one of Europe's most prolific and influential advertising poster artists during the twenties and thirties, and as innovative as his more celebrated French counterpart, A.M. Cassandre.

In England, where he lived and worked, Kauffer was hailed for elevating advertising to high art, yet in America only the design cognoscenti knew of his achievements when the Montana-born expatriate returned to New York City from London in 1940—after 25 years there.

Kauffer had attempted repatriation once before in 1921, when he was invited to show his early posters at New York's Art and Decoration Gallery; at that time he also attempted to find work with American advertising agencies.

In Kauffer's hands the poster (or the book jacket, which for him was a mini-poster) was designed to be interpreted rather than accepted at face value. In this regard he continually struggled with the paradox of how to meet his creative needs, his clients' commercial interests and his viewers' aesthetic preferences, all in a limited period of time (AIGA).

life in GOTHAM: here's weegeeeeeeee!

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what do we see?

weegee draws attention to the extremes and foibles of the city crowd: thugs, murder victims, muggers, transvestites, circus, the street at night, as well as beautiful private moments

1. be quick & sensational,
2.get the shot,
3. create your own opportunities, don't just wait,
4. look for people with character,
5. the art of faces,

public health design (the anti-syphilis campaign of the 1940s)

the graphic evolution of Mondrian (from bottom to top)

take a look at Piet Mondrian's stylistic development, from the early 1910's symbolist Red Tree, his post Cubist period, his minimal work of the 1930's and his famous Boogie-Woogie from 1943.

What's the lesson? 

1- adherence to rules,
2- dutch aesthetics,
3- conceptual rigor,
4- less is more,
5- go slowly,