History of Graphic Design March 23rd

We start the night with Art Deco. The true synthesis of so many of the preceding art movements. Futurism, Constructivism, De Stilj, and Cubism combine to idealize and promote the future and the machine age. The engines of war slowly become consumer products, but to make the consumer like these formerly vilified devices, the artists had to promote them in a cold, unemotional detached way. The propaganda of World War I revolved around the death and destruction of human life so much, it was a challenge to get people to trust these devices. But soon, the faith in innovation was restored and the machine age of art came forward. Air France posters to advertisement for the Underground, Art Deco presented motion and expanded thinking in a visual format. With the drums of war pounding, many of the artists from all the movements that combined to form Art Deco immigrated to the United States.

With the drums of war, though, comes propaganda. The Nazi's and the Americans utilized mythic realism to promote themselves, while vilifying the enemy. The propaganda of this era remains at the idealized form of itself. I feel that even today, if you were to ask teens about war propaganda, they are more likely to cite the not so subtle of the World War II propaganda than any modern form. Granted, this was in the era when posters were the mode of communication. Today, with television, the propaganda is more successfully integrated into others forms, that without training, I feel it would be possible to be unaware of the forces acting upon you. The utilization of the icons and ideals of the enemy to demoralize the opponent and promote patriotism successfully embeds the most negative emotions of the human condition in one's head. I can still clearly imagine the poster of the children playing as the shadow of the Nazi swastika creeps over the yard in which they play. It'll likely remain in my head forever, despite the war being so distant from my generation.

History of Graphic Design March 16th

De Stijl begins this week, bringing laws of equilibrium and harmony. The most straightforward horizontal and verticals all the break down of art, divorcing the art of the De Stijl movement from the natural world. Mondrian, Rietveld, and Oud exemplify De Stijl, producing art free of representation, based solely on form. Architecture and furniture exist merely as the meeting planes in space, pure form.

Swiftly, we move in to Bauhaus, the focus of the evenings discussion, and the school that breaks artists free of the master/apprentice constrictions, producing the first of many schools of art and design to come. It was an Intensely visionary period - possibility for a universal design that integrated aspects of society. They produced works, declaring the distinctions between fine arts and applied arts to be nonexistent. Their furniture and products showed form following function, invoking ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement. True art pieces that united aesthetics with the use of their products.

Jan Tschichold establishes the New Typography, as he calls it. He is unique in the history of design. He brings 20th Century typographic expression based on Bauhaus theories to the public. He manages to bring the ideas and ideals together and articulate them. He goes so far to declare san serif as the Modernist typeface. Further unique, he turns on his rules and dictums, saying that they are limited in use and not nearly as universal as he once proposed.

History of Graphic Design March 2nd

The Constructivist movement also emerged in Communist Russia as Suprematism, though the Communists would be loathe to associate themselves with Constructivism due to the political environment of the times. Suprematism established a vocabulary of geometric structure and form based on the perceptual effects of color and formal juxtapositions in the early 20th century. The graphics of the time, place, and political setting used suggestion and its subculture to produce pervasive works. The art was surprisingly had a theme of equality throughout, the emphasis being equality between the sexes.

Some of the important and influential designers discussed in class were Solomon Tellingster, the Steinberg Brothers, Rodchenko, and El Lissitzky.

The Steinberg Brothers merged the usage of photomontage, montage, and design. Using illustration and other elements of design in combination with photography, they were able to produce a large body of work that provided a real world context to their messages.

EL Lissitzky is the designer we talked about the most tonight. Through his careful navigation of politics (a dangerous field for artists) he managed to bridge the gaps between Suprematism and Constructivism. Using his skills in art and his position, he established a typographic standard for the modern movement. El Lissitzky succeeds at
the first book that is built on modernist ideals. The “Isms” of Art was the establishment of the grid as the groundwork for page layout. As an artist, he saw no distinction between the 2D visual arts and the 3D. Often moving into other fields, he was capable of capturing the movement and use of pure forms in three dimensional space.