Wolfgang Wiengart

Saul Bass

Dada

Dada was the result of a reaction to WW1, it was a art movement of the European avant garde in the the early 20th century. To quote Dona Budd’s The Language of Art Knowledge, ‘Dada was born out of negative reaction to the horrors of World War I. This international movement was begun by a group of artist and poets associated with the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition.’
The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature, poetry, art manifestos, art theory, theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works. In addition to being anti-war, Dada was also anti-bourgeois and had political affinities with the radical left.

Artists decided because life and the war made no sense why should their art 

Dada’s use of typography and photomontage gave a dif- ferent standard and flexibility to Graphic Design

• Used bold, thick, san serif fonts
• Explored using more white space
• Set typefaces diagonally, horizontally, and vertically
• Experimented with line spacing, and letter spacing 

0. 
   
• Cutting and pasting pictures and type together from other sources of media
• Able to give different meanings to their art by combining images
• Explored photo manipulation, which today we now use photoshop for 

Emil Ruder

Emil Ruder was born in Switzerland in 1914 and he was a typographer and graphic designer, he also helped Armin Hofmann form the Basel School of Design and establish the style of design known as Swiss Design which later on wolfgang wiengart studied and thought there. Emil taught that, above all, typography's purpose was to communicate ideas through writing. He took the importance on sans-serif typefaces and placed them into his work.

 

Hans Arp, Emil Ruder and Armin Hofmann at the Basel School of Design in 1961

Like most designers he is associated as part of the Swiss Design movement which he favored asymmetrical compositions, placing a high importance on the counters of characters and the negative space of compositions. A friend and associate of Hofmann, Frutiger and Müller Brockmann, Ruder was the major key role in the development of graphic design in the 1940s and 50s. His style has been adopted by many designers, and his use of grids in design has influenced also the development of web design on different levels.

Hannah hoch

Hannah Hoch born in 1889 in Gotha,  she was a dadaist artist. She started studying at the collage of art and craft in berlin, were she frequented the curriculum glass design and graphic arts. After she continued her studies studies on graphics sector at the National Institute of the Museum of Arts and Crafts. In 1915, Hoch worked with Raoul Hausmann who was a member of the Berlin Dadaist movement in 1919. When Hannah Hoch started working in the handicrafts department, the influence of her early work and training had reflected her later work (involving dress patterns and textiles).  

Years later Hock had developed more friendship with other dadaists such as, Kurt Schwitters and Piet Mondrian many more. Also with Hausmann, they discovered the first art form technique that became known as photomontage. She is best know for her work of the Weimar period, when she was one of the contributor of  the today's known photomontage. She died at the age of 88 in Berlin.

Noam Chomsky's bespectacled eyes and his arm and hands holding chalk along with actress Colleen Dewhurst's mouth and chin and a relic found in the Indus Valley pasted on a found sepia photograph -  Homage to Hannah

Hoch.

 

Rauol Hausmann ABCD (Self-portrait) A photomontage from 1923-24.

Reference 

Livingston, A. I., 2003. Graphic Design and Designers. London: The Thames & Hudson.

Victor Moscoso

Mososo was a formally trained graphic designer who borrowed from comic books, Victorian images, Art Nouveau, and pop art. He used the techniques of vibrating colors to create the ‘psychedelic’ effect in many of his art work. The vibration is achieved by taking colors from the opposite end of the color wheel, each one having equal value (dark to light) and intensity (brightness).

He created evocative, vibrant, erotic, patterned posters designed for the newly emerged psychedelic culture of San Fransisco in the late 1960′s. He used hand made font, photo collage, and pop art to create a new aesthetic portraying psychedelic consciousness. He created “slow read” posters where the text was nearly unintelligible unless times was taken to stare into the image and sort out the dazzling effects of the contrasting colours and intense patterns.

Victor Moscoso Avalon Ballroom 1966 Big Brother and the Holding Company

Victor Moscoso Avalon Ballroom 1967 The Doors, Steve Miller Blues Band

Victor Moscoso The Matrix 1967 Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company

Art DECO(rative)

Art Deco was an art movement that lived from the 1920s until around 1940. It stated in France with a group of French decorators, designers, and artists at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, the name Art Deco was later coined from that title which means decorative arts.

Art Deco was a very modern movement, celebrating the beauty of technology in the early 1900’s. Art Deco contains many references to trains, planes, cars, and skyscrapers, mixing art with scientific improvement.

When human figures are seen in Art Deco, they’re often very stylized, like in this painting by Tamara de Lempicka entitled Sleeping Woman.

 

Every part of this painting is a geometric solid—the figure’s head looks like it was carved out of a single sphere, and her neck, arms, and fingers are all cylindrical.

Notice her metallic curls as well. Metal looked figure prominently in Art Deco, and when actual metals couldn’t be used (in paintings for instance) gradients were substituted to look like metal.

In that era where technology and machines were being increasingly idolized,  it was a revolutionary time where the artists began to perfected humans, with matte skin and metal for hair.

Bold colors, rays, and other strong geometric patterns were a trademark of Art Deco too. Charles Delmuth’s I Saw the Figure Five in Gold is a great example of Art Deco movement, geometry, and color.

Although the movement ended in the 40s, Art Deco is still used today, often as a design element that references the optimism of the 1920s and 30s when it seemed as though nothing could stand in the way of human progress.

Reference

Elif Ayiter, N/A. The History of Visual Communication. [online] Available at: <http://www.citrinit as.com/history_of_viscom/index.html> [Accessed November 2013].

Livingston, A. I., 2003. Graphic Design and Designers. London: The Thames & Hudson.

Parkland College, N/A. Art Deco. [online] Available at: <http://www.parkland.edu> [Accessed November 013].

DE STIJL

De Stijl movement originated in Netherlands, and it embraces an abstract geometric forms, pared-down aesthetic centered in basic visual elements such as geometric forms and primary colors. The movement also rejected it predecessor movement decorative excesses of the so-called Art Deco. Its creators envisioned the reduced quality of De Stijl art as a universal visual language appropriate to the modern era. 

Led by the painters Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian. It’s central and celebrated figures  De Stijl artists applied their style to a host of media in the fine and applied arts and beyond. Promoting their innovative ideas in their journal of the same name, the members envisioned nothing less than the ideal fusion of form and function, thereby making De Stijl in effect the innovative style. 

To this end, De Stijl artists turned their attention to virtually all other art forms as well, including industrial design, typography, even literature and music and  not only to fine art media such as painting and sculpture, but virtually all other art forms as well, including industrial design, typography, even literature and music. 

De Stijl's influence was perhaps felt most noticeably in the realm of architecture, helping give rise to the International Style of the 1920s - 30s. 

Now, here’s one of the more unique creations from this era: a chair by Gerrit Rietvel, fashioned in the same Neo-Plastic or De Stijl style.




Cover for De Stijl done in 1922 by Theo van Doesburg. Such typography shown in this cover in particular is asymmetrically well balanced in each four corners of an implied rectangle involving vertical and horizontal words.

Reference

Beazley, M., Aynsley, J., eds., 2004. Pioneers of Modern Graphic Design: A Complete History. London: Octopus Publishing Group Ltd.

Livingston, A. I., 2003. Graphic Design and Designers. London: The Thames & Hudson. 

Joost Scmidt 1893 - 1948

Joost Scmidt 1893 - 1948

He studied in 1910 -1914 in Weimar and after military service and a period as a prisoner of war, he returned to Germany in 1918.

From 1919 to 1924/25, he trained in the workshop for stone and wood sculpture under Johannes Itten and Oskar Schlemmer.

The design of a poster for the Bauhaus exhibition of 1923 in Weimar while he was student

In 1925 he accepted an offer from Walter Gropius to become a junior master at the Bauhaus Dessau

His students were required to attend two semesters of lettering design.

Here Sch­­midt explored the structure of letters – circle, square and rectangle – and then their flexibility in terms of shape and size as well as the treatment of colour and surface.

Through his teachings he strove to reform letters, which then became validated and standardized internationally.

This was probably Schmidt’s best known piece.

It was inspired heavily by constructivism and de stijl

which was designed for a competition,

In the form of a cross made up of circles and squares.

The diagonally placed cross incorporates the (Bauhaus logo)

Logo designed by Oskar Schlemmer,

The original version of the poster, which was used for advertising purposes in 120 German railway stations,

Specifies the months of July to September for exhibition dates.

Bauhaus

Bauhaus was one of the most definitive design movements of the modern age, reaching its peak between the 2 world wars. The word Bauhaus name, mostly translated from German, means house of construction or school of building, even though there was no architecture as such within the first years of its existence. Bauhaus was a new type of art school, historically European art academies thought each design subject separately, the Bauhaus offered foundation training in many design disciplines, they believed in verity. Understanding mass production was part of the curriculum and the school sought to develop students with art and craft whilst embracing new technologies. It was also the beginning of the art school as an alternative way of life. Germany at that time was a rather conservative place though. 

Bauhaus initial idea was to reject the idea of decorative art and replace it with minimalism in mass production. Its main inspiration came from the De Stijl movement which was a modernist movement founded by Theo Van Doesbeurg, its characteristics were the use of primary colours and horizontal and vertical lines and rectangular forms. The Bauhaus focused on intense form, absolute clarity, and distinctive visual identity.

Some Important Highlights in the Bouhaus history

•1919 – Bauhaus founded in Weinmar, Gremany. By Walter Gropius

•1921 – Theo Van Doesburg (de Stijl) visited the school and thought them ideas from futurism, constructivism, surrealism and dada. Bauhaus also starts to offer more varied courses. Women also are now allowed to enroll.

•1923- Johannes itten Leaves, being replaced by Moholy-Nagy who introduced now typography.

•1924- Bauhaus moved to Dessau because of funding problems.

•1926- Dessau Bauhaus finished being built.

•1928- Gropius resigned along with Moholy-Nagy and Bayer. Hannes Meyer became director.

•1930- Hannes Meyer dismissed as director. Ludwig Meis Becomes director of the school.

•1931-1933 Van Der Rohe cut out things from the curriculum. Due to lack of funds the Dessau Bauhaus was closed. Van Der Rohe moved the bauhaus to berlin (only lasted for a short time)

•1933 Nazis closed the school

•1933 onwards – Moholy-Nagy established the Bauhaus in Chicago which is now called the The Institute of Design

Characteristics of Bauhaus

•Geometric, functional and modern

•Order, asymmetry

•Rectangular grid structure

•Horizontals and verticals were dominant

•Circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, bars, and 

rules to unify or separate elements versus being used 

for decoration

•Extreme contrast in type size and weight to achieve 

various degrees of emphasis

•Typography without capitals - San Serif

•Introduction of flush left - rag right typography

•Copy rotated 90 degrees

•Only structurally essential components used.

•Elementary forms and the use of black plus one

 bright hue

New York School Era

 
In this era, Paul Rand was the biggest influence, along with graphic design today as well such as  Alvin Lustig, Bradburg Thompson, George Tscherny, Alexey Brodovitch, Herb Lubalin, George Lois and the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach , but paul rand was the one to initiate the American approach to modern graphic design. He started his career at 23 years old and went on to do work for many well-known companies/clients. He demostrated designers how important visual contrast and symbols can play in design. He had a vast knowledge of what he did and showed that juxtaposition and flat color (along with many other things) can be very important in design. Logos and branding as well as corporate identities became more and more common. Simple symbols were used to communicate and represent things or companies in every day design. Designers became more aware of page layout and magazine spreads, which helped the designs to read better and become more visually pleasing. This era inspired a lot of innovation in the creative thought process.

 

Paul rand's poster no way out made in 1950

Another paul rand's design for the IBM Company, that for me it was one of the biggest

 

Bass Poster for Exodus 1960's

Reference 

Livingston, A. I., 2003. Graphic Design and Designers. London: The Thames & Hudson.