Thursday, April 25, 2024

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.

Sunday, April 21, 2024

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,


Thursday, April 18, 2024

what do you see? the simple rhetoric of consumability

Lester Beall posters, mid 1930's

Sunday, April 14, 2024

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: 






Go ahead!


Thursday, April 4, 2024

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.

Saturday, March 30, 2024

Your turn #7 (Hannah Hoch, dada collage)

HH, Untitled, 1930

HH, Untitled, 1926

HH, Gallery invitation

There are so many themes to pick from: 

Cubism (analytic and synthetic), Collage, Juan Gris, DADA, Paul Klee, Futurism, the onomatopoeic and its graphic side with Fortunato Depero,  The Stijl, Cubofuturism, Plakatstil, Fehmy Agha, Surrealism, Rene Magritte, Surrealist female art (Remedios Varo & Leonora Carrington). 

As usual, avoid the echo chamber effect! Go ahead.  

Friday, March 22, 2024

Your turn #6

Gustav Klimt, Woman in Gold, 1907

Hi class.

We're already in Twentieth-Century-earth. But the end of Nineteenth-Century was intense. 

We talked in detail about the Vienna Secession and its subsequent step, The Wiener Werkstätte (Germany and Austria's answer to England's Arts and Crafts movement), plus the Deutscher Werkbund.  

Plus, there are other topics, Expressionism's graphic arts and movies, Die Brücke, Der Blaue Reiter, Bruno Taut's Glass Dome, Henry Van de Velde (here's the video of Hohenhof House), Marcelo Dudovich, Peter Behrens, Josef Hofmann's Stoclet Palace. Don't forget Symbolism.

Avoid the echo chamber. Please don't repeat a theme already in the comment thread.

Thursday, March 21, 2024

the buildroman of lynn ward (illustrations without words)

Bildroman (the visual novel) is an expressionist narrative genre in which sequences of images without captions are used to tell stories. the atmosphere is inspired by medieval cuts.

I find ward's work to have an overpowering feeling (which fits the expressionist program).

                                    frans masereel 25 images de la passion d' un homme, 1918

the awkward appearance of this medium helped express fear and frustration about social injustice.

                                                        cabinet des dr. caligari, 1920

Lynd Ward brought the genre to the US in 1929 when he produced Gods' man, which inspired other American visual novels and a 1930 parody by cartoonist Milt Gross called He Done Her Wrong

                                                                lynn ward, shine of dreams

 

                                                                                            lynn ward, god's man

                                                        lynn ward, god's man (block and print) 

 

click here for an article on ward on vulture. 

Thursday, February 29, 2024

the importance of spelling names properly



This is a HISTORY class. History belongs in the Human Sciences, which means we pay attention to language and respect language conventions.

A name, by definition, has two parts: forename or first name, which identifies the person, and surname, which indicates family, tribe, and community. 

name = name + surname

Now comes the spelling of a name. Are we not a "diverse" society? 

Do you like it when someone who addresses you misspells your name? Of course, one may forgive an incidental misspelling (it happens to everybody) but not as a matter of habit. 

This is how to get a foreign name. Write it down several times until you memorize it.

Friday, February 23, 2024

Your turn #5

Ramon Casas, Decadent Youth, 1899.

Dear class:

We have important topics to discuss: Women in photography, Pictorialism, Art Nouveau, the daguerreotype, Talbot's Pencil of Nature, 19th-century Circus, and Madox Brown's Work. In addition, we have celebrities: Eugene Grasset, Charles Dana Gibson, Honoré Daumier, Gustav Doré, Privat Livemont, and Fox Talbot.

Go ahead, and please avoid echo chambers. 

Thursday, February 22, 2024

List of Images for the Midterm Exam (Spring 2025)

Lucien & Esther Pisarro, a page from Ishtar Descending to the Netherworld, 1903.

This piece is considered a prime example of the artistic movement within the book arts, showcasing Pissarro's mastery of woodblock printing and their interest in mythological theme

2.


Paul Rieth, Jugend, illustration for magazine cover, 1915. 

Jugend became known for showcasing the German version of Art Nouveau. It was also famed for its shockingly brilliant covers, radical editorial tone, and avant-garde influence on German arts and culture for decades, ultimately launching the eponymous Jugendstil.

3.

Alphonse Mucha, Gismonda, a poster featuring Sarah Bernhardt, 1894. 

Gismonda is Victorien Sardou's four-act play, which premiered in the autumn of 1894 at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris. Placing her life-size figure on an arched platform, Mucha rendered the beauty and dignity of her personality onstage rather than representing her realistic features or the story.
4.


Hector Guimard, Art Nouveau entrance for the Metro, Paris, 1900. 

The sinuous, organic lines of Guimard’s design and the stylized, giant stalks drooping under the weight of what seem to be swollen tropical flowers, but are actually amber glass lamps, made this a quintessentially Art Nouveau piece. 

5.

The Beggarstaffs, Kasama Corn Flour, poster, 1894. 

In the Belle Epoque age of excess, this poster stands out in is expert simplicity. Their works significantly impacted the course of British graphic design; the bold, simple and eye-catching works marked a shift from the often fussy, contemporary Victorian designs used for such advertising. 
6.


Antoni Gaudí, Casa Milá, Barcelona, 1906-1910. 

Gaudí designed this masterpiece around two large, curved courtyards, with a structure of stone, brick and cast-iron columns and steel beams. It has a total of five floors, plus a loft made entirely of catenary arches and two large interior courtyards, one circular and one oval. 

7.

Henri Van de Velde, Tropon food concentrate, poster, 1899.

This famous poster was issued for the German food manufacturer Tropon. It moves from realism to more abstract forms, emphasizing a pattern. Here he evokes the shapes and colors of the egg white and yolk, as well as the trademark of the manufacturer, three sparrows.
8.


   Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Hill House, 1904. 

Every item of furniture, textile, and decorative feature in the house was custom-made by Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald, a well-established artist in the Arts and Crafts movement who was also his wife. The end result, finished in 1904, is a sophisticated blend of the latest international fashion for Art Nouveau and local Scottish traditions.

9.


Randolph Caldecott, Babes in the Wood, cover illustration, 1879. 

Caldecott created a world where dishes and plates are personified, cats make music, children are at the center of society, and adults become servants. His drawings became prototypes for children's books and later for animated films. 

10.


William Morris, The Works of Geoffry Chaucer, book print, 1896. 

Morris combined a system of types, initials, borders, and illustrations to create the dazzling Kelmscott style. 

11.


Thomas Nast, The American River Ganges, illustration, Harper's Weekly, 1871. 

Nast was the first journalist who did not own his newspaper to play a significant role in shaping public opinion. He is considered to be the "Father of the American Cartoon."  

12.


Ford Madox Brown, Work, painting, 1852-1865. 

Brown's famous work erupts into proliferating details from the dynamic center of the action as the workers tear a hole in the road – symbolically, in the British social fabric, with each character representing a particular social class and role in the modern urban environment.

13.

William Blake, Dante's Inferno, illustration, 1824. 

Blake’s illustrations (done in watercolor over black ink) evoke nightly hallucinations and ghostly visitations – something he claims he experienced from a very young age. His art combines Miltonian themes with gothic themes.
14.


Eugene Grasset, Three Women and Three Wolves, print, 1900. 

Grasset produces a scene with magic expressionist overtones. Three young witches dressed in transparent robes fly in a panic through the enchanted forest. The main witch's facial expression and undulating hair contrast with the black wolves lurking behind red spruce trees with blinding eyes.

15.


Prive Livemont, Rajah Coffee, poster, 1899. 

Livemont produces a catchy design where the steam of the coffee cup and the product name become intertwined in a fascinating interplay of forms.

16.

Arthur H. Mackmurdo, chair, 1881. 

This is a dining chair, as suggested by its shape and practical leather upholstery, which is a copy of the original covering. The chair combines two completely different styles. While the legs and seat are both based on Georgian furniture of the 1780s, the serpentine design of the back is highly innovative, a harbinger of Art Nouveau
17.


Jules Cheret, Les Girard, lithography poster,  1877. 

A master of lithography, Cheret’s charming, frivolous Harlequins, columbines, and Pierrots, his girls and boys in masks and fancy dresses, were a delight to the eye; his brilliant yet delicate colors danced like flickering sunbeams over the gray stonewalls of Paris. He influenced artists like Lautrec and Degas.

18.

John Everett Millais, Christ in the House of His Parents, painting, 1850. An essential piece of PreRephaelite art

The public reaction to the picture was one of horror, and Millais was viciously attacked by the press. The Times described the painting as "revolting" and objected to how the artist had dared to depict the Holy Family as ordinary, lowly people in a humble carpenter's shop "with no conceivable omission of misery, of dirt, of even disease, all finished with the same loathsome minuteness." 


19.


Dana Gibson, The Weaker Sex II, illustration, 1903. 

A capable illustrator, Gibson is best known for the "Gibson Girl," an iconic representation of the beautiful and independent Euro-American woman at the turn of the 20th century.
20. 


Edward Steichen, Pond, manipulated photography, 1904. 

Pictorialism was an international style that dominated photography during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It refers to a style in which the photographer has somehow manipulated what would otherwise be a straightforward photograph to create an image rather than simply recording it.

21.



Margaret MacDonald: White Cockade Tea Room Menu, 1911. 

This menu design for a tea room at the Glasgow Exhibition shows the evolution toward geometric and modular forms. The composition of motifs, borders, and delicately defined solid volumes established a language of interlaced lines and flat shapes that works abstractly. The attention to order and arrangement of forms moves from the illustration dramatically, although the female face, rose, and hand hint at sensuality. The degree of abstraction of this work indicates the readiness for the repeatable modularity essential to design in an industrial context. 


22.

Walter Crane, Railroad Alphabet, illustration, 1865. 

Crane was one of the most influential designers of children's books. Before the Victorian era, children tended to be treated as "little adults." Victorians developed a more tender & didactic attitude through the development of "toy books" for preschool children.

23.


Richard Doyle, Punch Magazine cover, illustration, 1916. 

A British weekly magazine of humor and satire, Punch was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration. 

24.


Joseph Paxton, The Crystal Palace, 1851. 

Paxton's construction was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. It has 990,000 square feet (92,000 m2) of exhibition space to display examples of technology developed during the Industrial Revolution.

25.


Jan Toroop, binding for Psyche, by Louis Couperus, 1898. 

This is an excellent example of Toorop's "whiplash" lines; the lettering blends in with the illustration, especially on the spine. Toorop adopted the batik style from the design of the Dutch East Indies.  

26.

A. H. Wald, cover for Harper's Weekly, 1864. 

This cover, engraved after a sketch by a visual journalist in the field, is a forerunner of the newsmagazine coverage of so-called "current events."

27.


Herbert Horne, title page for Poems, by Lionel Johnson, 1895. 

Symmetry, outline type letterspacing, and alignment are superb & the letter form is a perfect companion for the illustration.

28.

Will Bradley, cover for The Inland Printer, illustration, 1895. 

Bradley achieves a design where figures are reduced to organic symbols in dynamic shape relationships. 


29. 

Rafael Nadar, Eugene Delacroix, photo, 1857. 

Nadar is famous for posing his subjects in natural, relaxed positions with sympathetic, atmospheric lighting. He became famous (and wealthy) for his ability to capture the character of his sitters, not just their physical resemblance. His portraits were typically full-face, searchingly frank, without any of the epoch's conventional trappings, drapes, or formal costumes.

30.


Henry Fox Talbot, Pencil of Nature, photo, 1844. 

This is considered the first commercially published book illustrated with photographs, a milestone in the book's art since Gutenberg's invention of moveable type.

31.

Johannes Gutenberg, Bible, 1450.  

First major book printed using moveable type. The superb typographic legibility, generous margins & excellent presswork make this first printed book a canon of quality that has not been surpassed.

32.


Codex Sinaiticus, Greek Bible, 4th Century AD  (found in 1841). 

Biblical scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus one of the most important Greek texts of the New Testament, along with the Codex Vaticanus. In the biblical uncial style, the words are written in scriptio continua, without separation between characters.

34.

Geoffroy Tory, a page from Champ Fleury, book, 1529. 

Tory contributed diacritics, cedillas, and apostrophes, as well as "grave" and "acute" accents to the French language. This work undoubtedly decided Francis I to choose Tory as his official printer in 1531. 

35.


Aldus Manutius, pages from Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, incunable, 1499. 

The woodcut images represent the best illustrations of their period and are exquisitely blended with the typography, producing a book of serenity and grace.

36. 


Erhardt Ratdolt, Euclid's Elements, book, 1482. 

Ratdolt's design uses a large outer margin. Small geometric figures whose sheer delicacy of the line represents a technical breakthrough are placed in the margins of the supporting text. 

37.


Hartman Schedel, Nuremberg Chronicle, book of world history, incunable, 1493. 

The large workshop of Michael Wolgemut, Nuremberg's leading artist in various media, provided an unprecedented 1,809 woodcut illustrations.

38.


Book of Kells, Christ enthroned, illuminated manuscript, 800 AD. 

This book represents the culmination of Celtic illumination.