Graphic Design History

bauhaus ideas that are central to modernism

1. a designer should strive for the highest quality and craftsmanship. for example, perfect geometric form and highly refined typography. 2. less is more. ornament was corrupt and unnecessary. 3. work should be true to its materials. wood should look like wood. and steel should look like steel. 4. form follows function. the design of something should be functional and never decorative.

guttenberg

1820-1880 printing press used to advertise until wood type came to be used as well for larger print.

victorian advertising arose

1830-1900 because competing business became a thing

la belle époque

1870 - 1914 artistic peaceful prosperous time. lots of advertising and luxury goods and performance. "the golden age"

arts and crafts

1880 - 1910 shares similar principles as art nouveau and occurred in the same time. but different results. everything was refined. craft > mass production. negative space filled with pattern and decoration (which relates to eliminated manuscript pre printing press). launched a renaissance of book design. commitment of design to quality

Art Nouveau

1880-1914 sought to counter machine-made-things-boom. crowded slums, urban pollution, child labor etc with solutions based on nature and an idealized agricultural medieval life. fluid and flat in general. influenced by the japanese wood block.

Plakatstil

1905 - 1915 German Posters. young artists look passed complex forms of victorian design, art nouveau and arts and crafts. ideas in the air about new and fresh approaches.

European Avant-Garde

1909-1923 shift from agrarian lifestyle to urban culture.

soviet revolution

1917- 1930 constructivist work came out of this revolution

De Stijl

1917-1931 aka the style in dutch. the leaders rejected the traditions they believed called WWI. unlike futurists and constructivists, they wanted to rebuild the world with an approach that merged math and harmony. artists architects and designer group in the Netherlands came together to start the movement. the rational minimalism in this style is related to dutch values of calvinism and discipline. working with limited pallet of colors and square shapes, these designers hope to create solutions that talk to everyone and lost any sense of national or personal identity. austerity and purity drove much of the graphic design and typography. san serif fonts, lots of whitespace. only black white and primary colors.

the bauhaus

1919-1933 most important influence on contemporary design (perhaps lol) school in germany training designers in all fields. to this day most design education is based on the teaching method from this school. this is where all the previous styles and movements came together. at the core of all prior movements, was the idea that design could make the world a better place. that is this styles guiding principle. old world ended new world began. culmination of WWI Industrialization and all the previous movements. color followed de stijl movement.

The New Typography

1923-1940 influence by the bauhaus. it is characterized by the use of sans serif fonts, preferably one font in a range of weights and sizes. symmetrical layouts were not efficient as they forced the content into one form regardless of the message. asymmetrical layouts provided a solution that provided better hierarchy. content drove the solution for efficient communication. color pallet was limited, working mostly with black white red and yellow. this removed the designers role as an artist and promoted idea of a universal visual language. color existed to aid the viewer in the communication and provided hierarchy only. negative space became an important element. Tsichold also added rules, bars, circles and boxes to aid in efficient reading. these also expressed a kinetic energy connecting to the new age of the machine. objective is clarity not decoration.

The Great Age of Posters

1928-1939 in paris, ideas of purity and geometric forms found a voice. rise of the poster as a great art form. strong market and luxury led to continued usefulness of ads. printing got better. designers could work with finer tonal values, gradations, finer typography and larger variety of colors. shadow, dimensionality and fine lines could be printed.

Nazis shut bauhaus party down

1932 deemed work bolshevik and degenerate. students dispersed and teachers migrated to the US. sparking a revolution in design

WWII, Allied Powers

1933-1945 included Britain France Soviet Union China and The United States. optimism, teamwork, and challenge exemplified in every message.

American Modernism

1933-1945 modernist and avant garde ideas introduced by the incredible work of Brodovitch, Pineles, and Joseph Binder. (in vogue, seventeen, and bazaar) but mags only reached small elite audience. to a wider audience in america through posters. the WPA employed designers were urged to speak to the masses in least elitist way possible. imagery was representation but not overly realistic. subject matter ranged from travel posters to local art exhibitions. integrated simple forms and geometric shapes shapes with clear iconography and symbols. pure colors easier to reproduce with offset and silkscreen printing and communicated hope and progress. influenced by the bauhaus as they fled to the US from Nazi germany but it evolved to communicate more complex ideas or to promote products to wider audience than ever before. resulted in kinder, gentler modernism for american way of life.

WWII, The Axis Powers

1933-1945.

the american magazine

1933-1965. the 20s were a boom time in the US, increase in advertisement. magazines are features surroundeddddd by ads. they existed not to tell a story but sell advertising. dominant form of communication in the 30s. Eurpoean Avant Garde and Bauhaus ideas filter into the design with wave of immigration from germany.

The Fused Metaphor

1945-1970. takes one image that is a symbol for something and combines it with another symbol. the most successful merged the two to create something new. think of it as 1+1=3. the genius if this approach is the interaction with the viewer.

Post War Optimism

1946-64

American Corporate Identity

1950-1975 in the 50s and 60s corporations embodied american values (conformity order hierarchical power structure and security. viewed as leading the way to great big beautiful tomorrow. before the 50s corporate identity was casual. each division had their own logo often and were autonomous in design choices. then companies got too large and adopted one logo and letterhead design each.

Japanese Design

1950-1990 pre WWII japan isolated and traditional. after the wwII Mcarthur plan revived japanese economy and introduced social changes. modernity and tech was embraced. by the 60s japanese design reflected an integration of western ideas into a japanese aesthetic. swiss modernism for example. neutral geometric shapes. flattened shapes and high contrast combined with a connection to mathematical proportions and minimal symbols.

the new york school

1950-65 about a group of designers working in and around new york. less of a movement but yeah new york was big on design at this time. modernist ideas of less is more, functionalism, and the use of images and geometric forms to convey a message. the american iteration of this placed importance on this being egalitarian, open, and direct. they took advantage of common cultural symbols. combining them with verbiage to tell a new story. creating symbiotic relationship between word and image. much of this work used a clever twist on a common image. the upside to this approach was a fast read that provided a sense of delight and positive connection to the brand/product. tenant in modernism, less is more, makes this work. defining ideas of the school are simplicity honesty humor and intelligence and they echo the american culture of the 50s and 60s.

swiss typography

1955-1975. aka the international style. it prodominated european graphic design. style relied on order, mathematical proportions and a rigid grid structure. just as dutch culture influenced de stijl with order and a calvinist discipline, Switzerland's national character influenced the international style. preference for clarity and structure based on rigid rules led to swiss typography. type should be dynamic and functional. muller's devotion to math and the golden rule is how this style differed from Tschichold's. ounded on strict proportional guidelines- primary the golden section. a grid structure was used to organize elements. typography and visual elements scaled mathematically. color used sparingly to highlight info or create a focal point or as large color fields. v functional goals.

typographic eclecticism

1963-1975 rooted in ideas of decoration, expressive form, and the human touch. looked back to victorian and art deco forms. overly decorative and shocking to modernists. illustration replaced photography. warm and appealing to wide mass audience unlike elitist swiss type.

Protest

1963-1975 women and minorities had new freedoms during WWII but when it ended all the soldiers returned to the workforce and women and minorities were forced back into a box... design history shows the story of how this is hard to do. things that are hard to misinterpret.

The Golden Age of Album Design

1963-1985 perfect vehicle fro personal connection to design

fillmore posters and counter-culture

1965-1970 after WWII SF was the place for discharge and a lot of them stayed in the city. SF became epicenter of counterculture revolution. lots of psychedelic drugs. typography very creative and unique. clashing colors

new wave design

1973-1986 merged motion and dimension with information and concept. questioning rules of type. combined functionalism of the bauhaus, energy of constructivism and rigor of swiss modernism. accepted intuition and play.

postmodernism

1977-present graphic designers began exploring ideas such as decoration, pop culture, historical classical forms. rejecting the tenants of modernism, form doesn't follow function. design can be expressive and ignore the function. images can be taken from anywhere and irony is important. representation of a word more important than the information. all work in this genre designed to be analyzed from a historical, semiotic, and physiological point of view. friendly and humorous as opposed to french modernism. solutions are nostalgic and warm. the design world deconstructed every element. reviewing the complex interplay of political and cultural meaning.

Digital Revolution

1984-1994 the mac revolutionized the entire industry. new mediums typically try to emulate previous forms. digital errors and typography highlighted, photos pixelated. the idea of accident and imperfection incorporated into design. enhanced idea of new wave typography and 3 dimensional space. typography became radically 3d and layered.

vernacular design

1984-now whereas vernacular architecture speaks to aesthetics related to local region or building usage, a roadside motel is the vernacular of route 66. in graphic design this idea is about language. a way of celebrating low end culture.

Minimalism

1984-present work to speak to a wider audience. creating meaning with fewer forms. return to singular ideas and minimal layouts. air of optimism in reference to the new york school of the 50s. embraced simple geometry and clear color pallets. less 3d type. legibility prioritized. concepts of postemodernism wouldn't allow for retreat to purely minimal bauhaus approach. every symbol image and word examined for its multiple meanings. minimalism escaped the trap of being dull. freedom to play with scale and negative space radically. strongest solutions appeared playful and light while the reality was a tight control over every element. with less on the page, everything mattered.

Low Tech

1985-now about being cheap and durable. appealed to those focused on authenticity. targeted to music. found imagery + raw typography + a sense of immediacy (short time limit). less is not more. lack of self importance. ephemeral. to be used and discarded. no weight of being high art or precious.

January 30th, 1933

Adolf Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany. by 1934 Nazi propaganda machine controlled communications (from radio to posters)

June 28, 1914

Austrian archduke franz Ferdinand assasinate in serayevo. began WWI in europe. Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain needed to promote their own message to recruit and convince public the fight was good and possibly victorious. no radio or tech communication but cost efficient printing became primary tool for war propaganda. (mass produced posters). explorations and stylistic approaches of arts and crafts and art nouveau were set aside. british french and american gov commissioned the work and prefererd approach that favored realism and traditional images. britain france and america relied on messages of patriotism, home, family, mans role to society. british posters questioned a mans masculinity if he did not enlist. others appealed to mans sense of honor to the women of britain. american posters used image of uncle sam and flag for patriotism. realism had impact.

herbert matter

European immigrant encased images of new furniture in bio morphic shape. negative space used is as critical as the positive shape

James Montgomery Flagg

I want YOU poster. 4 million printed and distributed across america. america is direct nd straight forward unlike britain.

A.M. Cassandre

Ukrainian immigrant living in paris, a leading designer of poster art. didn't have ONE set approach. liberally borrowed elements from styles (de stijl, constructivism, any movement) because they all promised a utopian society. cassandre cared that attached to it was implied wealth. his posters promoted luxury, travel, expense, upper class style. rather than using baroque and gaudy form like others, he displayed wealth using minimal geometry and iconic imagery of the constructivism and bauhaus movements. abstract not realistic.. big is huge, small is tiny, and negative space defines objects. the same shape is repeated many times on each composition. designed for maximum impact when seen briefly. colors and tones have high contrast, and the details of the image are deleted. typography is typically only the name of the product letting the image do the work. basis for ads today. create a sense of excitement/adventure and invite the consumer to be part of this refined world.

California Design

West Coast community based. after WWII some designers moved to cali. lots of collaboration and teaching. surf and skate culture influenced with a casual attitude and DIY approach.

william morris

acknowledged leader of the arts and crafts movement . rejected industrial revolutions bad quality. ands killed workmanship. worked with keats.

Designers of post WWII America adopted

adopted bauhaus as stylistic approach rather than strict rules. simplicity and less is more approaches employed, but exuberant colors and form replaced the clinical perfection of disciplined modernism. pastel and bright colors were favored. iconography and symbols replaced text driven message. organ shapes replaced the hard edged forms of the warriors. graphic design emerged as a profession in the 1950s.

AIGA

american institute of graphic arts founded in 1914 by typographers and printers. in 1950s the organization changed with leaders called graphic designers.

aubrey beardsley

bad boy of art nouveau. high contrast and "grotesque" imagery and natural shapes at the foundation. did work for wilde. known for the death of arthur artwork he did.

futurist and dada movements

changed how we look at typography. type was more than a choice of a legible typeface or a way to decorate a poster. it was a picture of a word. typography could be expressive and dynamic or like an illustration used solely as a compositional element.

primary idea in propaganda

characterize your side as heroic and enemy as subhuman.

Lucian Bernhard

design can be minimal and clear. found the core of modern graphic design TODAY. relies of symbols and shapes rather than literal illustration. this is known as plakatstil or poster style

constructivist

designers rejected the personal expression of fine art and view decorative ornamental design as symbols of aristocracies oppression. elements turned on an angle to suggest forward movement and energy. photography replaced illustration. as a mechanical process photography celebrated the machine and industrial. illustration celebrated self expression (which constructivists rejected) no art. shift toward function rather team aesthetics. concepts of functionalism designed for the common man, abstract geometric symbols, preference for photography are constructivists strongest legacy.

design solutions favored photography

due to its realism as opposed to something hand made or interpretive like a painting

Yusaku Kamekura

emerged as influential design leader in japan. nickname boss in japanese. applied art just as good as fine art. did the poster for japanese olympics in 64.

works progress administration

emplyed millions of americans to build infrastructure and stuff. a division, the federal art project, employed designers illustrators photographers sculptors and painters. THIS INTRODUCED MODERNISM. began tradition of public arts projects

jules cheret (late 1800s)

expanded on the typographic wood type posters. introduced illustrations. exaggerated lighting. energetic movement. integrated the typography into the imagery with hand drawn and painted letter forms. presented women in a new way. they were called cherrettes. they wore shorter dresses and smoked and operated new machines.

WWI

first time power of design was used effectively on a mass scale.

graphic design of the bauhaus focused on

focused on typography, shape, and color. unlike in product design, where design for the masses replaced the idea of designers as craftsman.

J Howard Miller

focused on value of work for example Rosie the Riveter, a moral booster for war effort in factories.

Futurists (in Paris)

formed by Filipo Marinetti, includes Russolo, Carra, Boccioni, and Severini. a group of designers. they wanted the changes to happen quick. rejected traditional approach to art. wanted to celebrate the components of the new industrial society; SPEED MACHINES WAR AND REVOLUTION. work used typography, energetic form, chaotic composition. radical violent change working out of the confines of society. hated harmony and classic forms. viewed them as remnants of a culture only interested in recreating the past and pacifying the masses. typography to be expressive and dynamic. energy is top priority. (over by 1918)

walter gropious

founded the bauhaus in 1919. he believed the old order of aristocracy and corruption had led germany into the catastrophic war. design would create a new society and a better way of life. solution was a return to an really medieval time when artists and craftsmen worked as one. he wasn't into medieval romantic form. he viewed the machines and an industrial civilization as the way forward.

photography moved from

from static imagery taken at eye level, shifted to a cinematic approach. camera could be at birdseye view or from the ground up. subject part of a larger world beyond the frame.

90%s of Americas rural areas in 1935

had no electricity lol

Joseph Goebbels

head of nazi ministry of propaganda. he used film, books and graphic design to communicate the nazi's twisted set of values. one of hitlers strongest supporters, very anti-Semitic. commissioned work that spoke to ideas of aryan racial purity and inherent german superiority over the world and anti-semitism.

Walter Pepke

helped form the american bauhaus in chicago, founded international design conference in aspen, and was responsible for promoting graphic designers with the container corporation advertising. rather than advertising the product (cardboard boxes in this case lol) he invited designers to use great ideas of western man for advertising content.

Alexey Brodovitch

immigrated to the US to escape the nazis in the 1930s. became art director at harpers bazaar. was a fan of cassandre. encouraged him to spend two summers in NY in 1936 and 37. the result was a series of striking covers. Brodovitch was a genius of composition and scale. he played with montage and mixing typography and photography. ideas taken directly from eurpoean avant garde tailored to an american audience. unfortunately american magazine were printed in giant quantities and offset printing did not have the capabilities t maintain perfect color tone and small detail. Brodovitch used this weakness to his advantage, employing black and white photography dynamically. not just laying out images after the fact. changed what an art director was. conceived ideas the setting and look of the images. he was the mastermind behind all aspects of the layout. he fostered the talents of many of the best photographers of the time (like richard avadon and irving pen.) moved the traditional magazine layout away from a centered stodgy approach with small illustrations, to asymmetrical dynamic and photographic solutions.

Nazi Propaganda

in its early years adopted many of the modernist ideas such as simple messages, iconography, and strong forms. but as time passed this changed to a more traditional and illustrative approach that hitler preferred. by mid 1930s, the typography was regulated to only using the official germanic black letter typefaces. most modernist fled or were imprisoned in concentration camps. other designers used sentimental and emotional scenes to manipulate the audience. hitler glorified in godlike religious way. abstract and geometric shapes replaced by the realistic yet idealized illustrations. german citizens forced to hang these posters in their homes to prove loyalty. others plastered around city. Nazi soldiers, hitler youth, and german athletes, relentlessly portrayed as pure and aryan.

design is the oil

in the machine of capitalism, design is. it is a lot about commerce.

the use of implied form with negative space

incredible way to make the viewer work.

design driven more than just aesthetics and good values

intimately connected to commerce.

theo van Doesburg

leader of De Stijl. he wrote "the old is connected with the individual. the new is connected with the universal." an individual with personal expression might use images and form that are specific to one political regime. but an individual designer could not own reductive abstract geometry based on mathematical proportions. these are universal forms. they could not be related to the soviets, the germans, british or any nation.

alfonse mucha

like beardsley but uses color and complex pattern

Cipe Pineles

one of the first women in the field to rise to prominence. took and softened ideas from constructivism to create a distinctive look for mags like vogue and seventeen. phography of the bauhaus with unexpected photographic cropping and POV, influenced many of her choices

DADA movement

opposed futurist and were anti war (WWI). rejected reason and logic. interested in nonsense irrationality and intuition. worked to shock the middle class. made anti-art. dada manifesto promises the abolition of logic, social hierarchies, memories, and the future. work random and improvised. died out by WWII. many designers switched to surrealism or modernism. many were killed in hitlers concentration camps they were categorized as degenerate artists.

Jean Carlu

originally from france, brought modernist and european avant garde to his american work with simplified shapes and iconic imagery.

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

photographer that introduced experimental photography with unusual POV, montage, and darkroom techniques. this enhanced the design work, adding dynamic energy

lester ball

poster for rural electrification administration great example of complex messages reduced to geometry and symbols. goal was to convince rural areas to adopt electricity. used silhouetted photography and icons like arrows and radically simplified shapes. left no doubt to the message.

theophile alexandre steinlen

shared Lautrecs passion for japanese woodblock art and impressionism. tighter and less fluid form. (see le chat noir)

professors Johannes Itten and Paul Clay

taught foundation classes in color and shape. exercises they invented are used by most design course today

Joseph Muller-Brockmann

taught typography and graphic design in Zurich. his work founded on strict proportional guidelines- primary the golden section. a grid structure was used to organize elements. typography and visual elements scaled mathematically. he was influenced by bauhaus. type should be dynamic and functional. muller's devotion to math and the golden rule is how this style differed from Tschichold's.

the more the view tries to understand the visual

the better they will remember it

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

took Cherets approach and also influence from japanese flatform simplicity woodblock prints. image based poster but flat and simpler. theatrical lighting and dynamic movements. less refined style of typographic integration. used large expanses of negative space and implied form like japanese woodblocks.

ikko tanaka

took expected imagery from japanese culture and reimagined with modern geometry.

Jan TsChichold

typographer influenced by the bauhaus in 1923 when he was 21 in a bauhaus exhibition that profoundly changed his thinking about typography. he was trained as a traditional calligrapher. before bauhaus his work was symmetrical and based on classical typeface. 5 years later, published die neue typographie. his color pallet was limited, working mostly with black white red and yellow. this removed the designers role as an artist and promoted idea of a universal visual language. color existed to aid the viewer in the communication and provided hierarchy only. nazis barged in (1930s) to his apparent and arrested him. accused of creating bolshevik and un-german work. after 6 weeks he was released and moved to switzerland. after the war he moved to london and rejected the new typography, now believing designers should work with humanist forms and integrate classical topography. in 1946 he wrote that the new typography's impatient attitude conforms to the german bent for the absolute and its military will to regulate.

herbert bayer

used fluid shapes as abstract talk bubbles

British and American Propaganda

used to mobilize national spirit, appeal to patriotic duty, and encourage hard work. Norman Rockwell and the 4 freedoms. other designers focused on value of work.

Norman Rockwell

used values of freedom of speech, religion, from want, from fear as basis of WWII's best example of allied propaganda. the 4 freedoms!! large broad ideas, hard to tackle initially. then used his own hometown as the point of view to tell the story.

De Neue Typographie

written by TsChicold. promoted asymmetry (and dynamic and energetic which mirrored the modern world and new way of working celebrating the machine rather than the human hand), sans serif fonts, repulsion to degenerate typefaces and arrangements of traditional typography. following the tenants of bauhaus, said typography should never be decorative. most important job was to relay information as efficintly as possible. no room for expressive and personal work. proportions tied to the golden sections and mathematical calculations determined placement of elements on a layout. he added another functional layer, recognizing the value of beauty and incorporated the values of harmony and spiritual content.