We start the night talking about Paul Rand and American Corporate Design. Besides branding products with promises, identity systems became the means of making complex organizations seem like a single entity with distinct personas. Paul Rand understood the value of invented forms for both symbolic and communicative ends, through skillful analysis of the context. Symbolic and text based logos become the basis of American Corporate Design. “Good design is good business” was the rallying cry in the graphic design community beginning in the 1950's. Branding was seen as a major way to shape a reputation for quality and reliability through “brand promise.” Paul Rand used his wit, using invented forms for both symbolic and communicative ends. Simplicity enables the viewer to interpret the context immediately.
We then move on to Bradbury Thompson. Being an adventurous spirit, he claimed that all visual forms carry history. He expanded the range of design possibilities through a thorough knowledge of printing and typesetting and interest in the vernacular of his time. The self referenced processes of printing were used as content and form.
Stepping forward into the 80s, we start to talk about Chermayeff and Geismar Associates. This Design Firm was established by Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar. Their “early design office” was unified with a strong aesthetic background through educational diversity of the partners. They went on to play a major role in developing post war corporate identity in America.
No longer limited to determining graphic forms, expanded roles included large scale coordination of campaigns and value added investments in slogans, catch phrases, exhibits, and annual reports. These compact messages and expressions of design maintained a common voice by through large budgets available to design firms. Many pursued abstract forms unto themselves, free from alphabetic, pictographic, or figurative connotations.
Vignelli Associates developed Unigrid System in 1977 for the United States National Park Service. Standards for format sizes, typography, grid systems, paper specifications, and colors realized tremendous economies in material and time. Design programs so rational and so rigorously systematized that they become virtually foolproof as long as the standards were maintained. Designers embraced the ahistorical universalism of the international style that preferred abstract form over figurative references.
Herbert Matter appears in New York in the 1950's and is rapidly accepted as a godfather for Corporate Design. By the late 70's, modernism equals “mainstream” losing its political and revolutionary heritage. Design for business dulls the innovative edge as it servers new corporate masters. Corporate design – begun with Peter Berhens – sees its zenith with American design for global marketplace in the 70's and 80's.
TV is the new media being explored, which is in known for its competition for viewership. A “mediated” condition of existence and its preoccupation with “image” was the subtext of a new culture called Pop. No longer confined to a static image, pioneers of motion graphics used timing and sequence in tandem with graphic forms, typography, and photographic images.
The New Advertising (of the 50's and 60's) “The BIG Idea”
Visual statements used simple images.
Talked about intelligently to their audience.
Focus on the benefits of a product
The result was a new way to think about text and image.
Cutting edge meant sly and clever, an awareness that consumers knew they were being manipulated. Conceptual strategies for typography was unified with photography by locking text and display tightly into the photograph image. Irreverent, flippant copy and polished ironic photography sets a new tone in the industry.
The role of art director was expanded into editorial deliberations.
George Lois' concept was dominate and text and image became complete interdependent. Lois most innovative concepts grew from his ability to understand and respond to the people and events of his era.
Herb Lubalin – Photo-typography had a profound impact on the direction and look of design. Influenced advertising as well as editorial layout. Became viable with the establishment of a firm in New York 1936. The perfected technology finally allowed an expansion in the mid 50's. Provided a major advantage with the radical reduction in the cost of introducing new typefaces. Gutenburg's invention of 1450 was obsolete by the 1960's. Decorative faces had a revival which loosened the grip the “international style” had held on type design in the US.
The photo-typography provided new flexibility.
Lubalin almost single-handedly defined the aesthetic potential of photo-typography. The goal was to give graphic form to a concept or message that engaged the reader through an intensification of the message requiring active participation. Cutting edge publications push the envelope of permissiveness.
Leo Burnett – Message and image is inseparable in layout. He isolated individualism an overriding theme of the 60's era creating myths and stereotypes.
Opportunity and responsibly intermix - products of a complex system of representation. Lived experiences are replaces by symbolic expression of ideas. Social conventions and standard design thinking was challenged as new conceptual approaches emerged from the new advertising and the advent of photo-typography. Not until the 1960's did graphic design slowly become a national profession through the merging of the International Style of Typography and American corporate design with their large “image” factories.
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