The Graphic Design Time-line

The Graphic Design Timeline:

Graphic Design as we know it started out in the very beginning of time since the Stone Age when the cave-man drew pictures of them hunting animals etc but as humanity went along it took records of the ages and time and records of what happened. This is the time-line of Graphic Designer:

1465 - Gutenburg

1480 - Intaglio Printing

1750 – The Gothic revival

1798 - Stone Lithography

1814 - Grotesk typeface

1818 – Photo-engraving

1837 – Queen Victoria’s reign (Victorian Era)

1846- Rotary press

1850 – The Arts and Crafts Movement

1885 - The half tone process

1886 - The linotype

1890 - Art Nouveau

1908- The offset lithography

1917-  De stijl / Constructivism

1919 - Bauhaus

1925 - Art Deco

1930 – Swiss Style

1940 – The New York School Movement

            -Paul Rand (designer)

1950 - Saul Bass

1957 - Helvetica

1960 - Pop design — Milton Glaser / photo type setting

1970 - Psychedelia  / Digital type / Punk (Jamie Reid)

1984- The birth of the Macintosh

Artists - Wolfgang  Weinhart

               David Carson

               Stefan Sagmeister

                Paula Scher

This information was given to us by our lecturer during one of her lessons. 

David Carson

            David Carson is an American graphic designer, an art director and also a surfer. He is famous for his innovative designs of magazines and his use when it came to deal with experimental typography. He was also an art director of a famous magazine called Ray Gun in which he implemented much of his typographical and layout styles for which he is known most for. He was also the founder of the ‘grunge-typography’ era.

            He was born on the 8^th of September of 1954 in the area of Corpus Christi in Texas. In his early years he attend the San Diego State University and graduated with a Bachelors in Sociology. The first time Carson came contact with graphic design was during a  two weeks graphic design course at the University of Arizona in 1980. From 1982 – 1987, Carson worked as a lecturer at a highschool which goes by the name of Torrey Pines High School in San Diego. While he was teaching there he was enjoying his life as a professional surfer and during 1989 he got the ranking of 9^th best surfer in the world.

          During 1983, Carson started his experimentation with the graphic design and he quickly plummeted into the world of the artistic and relaxed culture of Southern California. That same year he went abroad to Switzerland and attended a three-week long workshop which was part of his degree in graphic design. The workshop was being taught by Hans Rudolf Lutz thus Carson used him as his first great influence.

        After some time Carson became an art director of a magazine called Transworld Skateboarding and held his position with the magazine up till 1988 to help the magazine get a distinctive look and get more appealing to people. While he was working there he developed his style by using the ‘dirty’ type and photographic techniques which were against the norm. He also collaborated on another version of their magazine called ‘Transworld Snowboarding’.

AIGA | the professional association for design, (2015). David Carson. [online] Available at: http://www.aiga.org/medalist-david-carson/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2015].

Flask, D. (2015). David Carson : Design Is History. [online] Designishistory.com. Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/1980/david-carson/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2015].

New York School Movement- Saul Bass

Saul Bass:

He was an American Graphic designer and was also an Academy Award winning film-maker which was widely known for his design of movie title sequences, movie posters and corporate logos.

During his 40 year old career, Bass worked for a lot of prominent film-makers. The list of film-makers varies from Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorcese. Among his famous title sequences there is the famous one known as Preminger’s the ‘Man with the Golden Arm’ which is about a heroin addicted jazz player.

Saul Bass also designed some of the most famous corporate logos in the North American TV including the Bell System logo during somewhere in 1969 and also the AT and T’s globe logo during 1983 after there was some chaos of the Bell System. He was also responsible for the logo of the Continental Airline and became one of the most  famous airline industry logos.

Bass’s philpsophy of his title sequences was to ‘’try to reach for a simple, visual phrase that tells you what the picture is all about and evokes the essence of the story”. Another philosopy he used to describe the thought about his title sequences was that the audience can see familiar parts of their world in a very strange and unfamiliar manner. A few examples of that theory are the sequences “Walk on the Wild Side” which describes a cat that in the sequence he becomes a predator. He had been designing title movie sequences for over 40 years and while doing it he used and implemented a lot of interesting techniques which ranged from cut-out animation which is seen in “Anatomy of a Murder” to fully animated short movies like the epilogue for the movie Around the World in 80 Days. There were also live action sequences which their purpose was mainly to be used for title sequences that contained prologues to their respective film and transitioned in their opening scenes.

When his career seemed to be reaching an end he was once more discovered by James L. Brooks and Martin Scorcese whou both of them grew up admiring his works done with the opening sequences. He created the titles sequences of Goodfellas, Cape Fear and Casino in collaboration with Scorcese and his second wife Elaine Makatura.

Socialpsychol.wordpress.com, (2015). Anatomy of a Murder | socialpsychol. [online] Available at: https://socialpsychol.wordpress.com/tag/anatomy-of-a-murder/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2015].

Saulbass.org, (2015). Saul Bass. [online] Available at: http://saulbass.org/index.html#about [Accessed 29 Jan. 2015].

Psychedelia

Psychedelia:

           The psychedelic movement started in the mid 1960’s effected a lot of things such as music but its effects also lingered on many characteristics of popular culture. This included fashion in which meant the style of what kind of clothes were being worn at that time, the language and how people communicated with each other and the way how people spoke about the arts, literature and philosophy.

         The term “psychedelic” refers to the effects that drugs leave on the individual. During that period drugs were very popular within the youths. The posters which were designed for rock concerts a lot of effort was put in to try to express visually the drug-like feeling of tripping out.

          The visuals of the psychedelic art include inspirations from the much earlier movements and their characteristics such as the Art Nouveau-inspired whiplash shapes, and “un-able to read” hand-drawn typography, and the intense optical colorful vibrations which were heavily inspired by the Pop Art movement.

           The end of World War II in 1945 brought with it a post-war economic boost in the United States of America. It also brought a fluctuation in the birth rate which is famously known as “the baby boom.” It is known that between 1945 and 1957 about 76 million babies were born in America and by the middle of 1960s, most of these kids were the young adults of that generation.

            As young people usually do, these “baby boomers” started questioning America’s greediness and the conservative cultural and political social norms. Following these events a youth movement emerged, which sought to create an free society which was free from discrimination. The Feminists and the Black movement are the off-spring of this revolution.

           The Americans in the 1960s and 70s started to address a lot of controversial issues which ranged from civil rights, the Vietnam War, nuclear explosions and the environment to have free drug use, sexual freedom and being original. Many youth sought spiritual beliefs through Eastern Mysticism and the usage of drugs that induced psychedelia. 

     

            There was also a rise in music festivals and concerts and they were a very prominent feature of the 60s eralandscape, and there were a lot musicians that were in vogue such as Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Grateful Dead and Janice Joplin who were the super-stars of those times. It is very hard to say whether the psychedelic music influenced the culture itself or vice versa. It was a unique artform that found its expression in prominent band posters.

Graphic Design History, (2011). Psychedelic 60s. [online] Available at: https://visualartsdepartment.wordpress.com/psychedelic-60s/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2015].

Gds.parkland.edu, (2015). Graphic Design History | Psychedelia. [online] Available at: http://gds.parkland.edu/gds/!lectures/history/1960/psychedelia.html [Accessed 29 Jan. 2015].

Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister 

The famous graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister (August 6, 1962) is designer which is based in New York. He is also a lettering artist which means he incorporates the manipulation of letters with his works. He is also the co-founder of a design company called Sagmeister and Walsh alongside his colleague Jessica Walsh which is based in New York City. His works included album covers for famous musicians such as the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith.

Sagmeister started his graphic design career at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. After some time he received a Fulbright scholarship from the Pratt Institute in New York. His career of an actual graphic designer started when he was at the age of 15 with “Alphorn” which was an Austrian magazine for youths. The magazine was named after a traditional musical instrument which was used by people in the Alpine regions.

During 1991, his journey in graphic design took him to Hong Kong  to work with an individual which goes by the name of Leo Burnett to work with Hong Kong Design Group, two years later in 1993 he went back to the city of New York to collaborate with Tibor Kalman’s M and Co design company although his stay in there was short lived because after a while Kalman decided to retire from the design business and went to work for the Colors magazine which was part of the Benetton Group which was situated in Treviso in Italy.

After that happened, Sagmeister made the proceedings to form his New York based company named Sagmeister Inc which specializes in branding, packaging and graphics for a lot of diverse clients like bands such as the Rolling Stones, broadcasting services such as HBO and telecommunication companies such as Time Warner.  

Sagmeister is very well known to have collaborated with a lot of famous people such as the musicians David Byrne and Lou Reed.

Show, S. (2015). About Stefan Sagmeister. [online] Stefan Sagmeister: The Happy Show. Available at: http://thehappyshow.tumblr.com/Bio [Accessed 29 Jan. 2015].

Flask, D. (2015). Sagmeister : Design Is History. [online] Designishistory.com. Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/2000/sagmeister/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2015].

Swiss Style

The International Typographic Style/ Swiss Style

The International Typographic Style, which is also known as the Swiss Style is a form of graphic design style which originated from Switzerland during the 1950’s. It’s characteristics emphasized neatness, very accurate readability and a sense of independence. One particular characteristic was that the style contained asymmetrical layouts, the usage of the grid system and a sans-serif typeface like the famous “Akzidenz Grotesk”.  This style is also known to have a particular preference for photographs to be used instead of illustration and drawings.

There were two major Swiss design institutions which are responsible for the birth of the Swiss Style. The inspiration of this style came from the earliest form of a graphic design technique which was built on grid-work that started sometime in the 19^th century. It was starting to be used to change how some of the courses viewed their foundations at the School of Design. After a while during 1918 Ernst Keller started his career as a professor at the Zurich School of Applied Arts which is also known as Kunstgewerbeschule. He started to develop a course related both to graphic design and also typography.

As a teacher, he did not teach and educate his students with a specific style but rather taught a philosophy that said “the solution to the design problem should emerge from its content.” Keller’s works used a combination of simple geometrical forms, bright colors and images that shocked the individual to enhance the meaning behind each and every one of his designs. Several important people that gave contributions to the style were Theo Ballmer and Max Bill.

During the 1950’s the style started to evolve and some of its elements started to be included in other types such as the “Univers”. The “Univers” paved way for a certain individual known as Max Miedinger and his collaborator Edouard Hoffman created the font known as “Neue Haas Grotesk” which is most commonly known as the “Helvetica”. In 1959 there was a publication called the “New Graphic Design” which was edited and run by a lot of influential graphic designers who played major roles when it came to the development of the Swiss Style. The format of this journal was designed to have a lot of the style’s characteristics such as to be effective to when it came to visually demonstrate the content that was present and it was being published internationally which further lead to the flow of the movement.

After the events of World War 2 there was a sudden boom to when it came to international trading and good relationships between a lot of countries were starting to get better and stronger. The Swiss Style facilitated the process because there was a certain clarity in it that made the style an effective way of communicating.

The style quickly spread throughout America and one of the first graphic designers that integrated the style with his own works was Rudolph de Harak. He shown the influence of this style on a lot of his works such as the book jacket designs for McGraw-Hill which was basically a jacket with a book title on it and his author.

Flask, D. (2015). Swiss Design : Design Is History. [online] Designishistory.com. Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/home/swiss/ [Accessed 28 Jan. 2015].

Terror, D. (2009). Lessons From Swiss Style Graphic Design - Smashing Magazine. [online] Smashing Magazine. Available at: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/17/lessons-from-swiss-style-graphic-design/ [Accessed 28 Jan. 2015].

Dada

Dadaism:

The Dada art movement started out as a reaction against the whole world due to its war-like atmosphere that was present during the origins of this movement. The Dada was ironically an anti-art movement because it embodied both a strong negative and a very destructive element. Artists and writers started to use the shock and protest elements combined with nonsense to strongly emphasize the rebellion against the horrors of World War 1.  They rejected everything that was traditional and sought to achieve a sort of freedom when it came to the arts.

The Dada was started by the poet known as Hugo Ball who opened the place called Cabaret Voltaire which was situated in Zurich for painters, poets and musicians. Ball alongside a young poet from Romania; Tristan Tzara,  Hans Arp and Richard Huelsenbeck started exploring how to create literature with nonsense in it. Tzara contributed a lot in this movement because of the rate he was publishing the Dada manifestos in which they created the perfect definition of the word chaos. The Dada art was characterized by its intention of causing emotional reactions which typically were in the form of either outrage or shock, its art contained a lot of abstractions and Expressionism (these two were its main influences) which was followed by Cubism and on a minor scale, Futurism gave its contribution as well.

Like the element of which this movement was built on: chaos, the movement spread throughout the world at an incredible fast pace thus there was a range of art in which they were either ‘pointless’ and just random works to actual meaningful visual arts which greatly influenced graphic design. Two artists of the Dada movement Raoul Hausmann and Hannah Hoch invented the technique called photomontage which basically is the manipulation of photographs to create juxtapositions in the imagery.

Kurt Schwitters:

An important figure of the Dada was the Germanic artist, Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) created a magazine called “Merz”which was pin-pointed from the phrase ‘kommerz’ (commerce). His ‘Merz’ compositions contained a lot of photographs and recycled images and found materials to create a lot of different elements by combining color against another color and different  forms and textures with each other. His designs were very complex and they matched the “nonsense” part of Dada very well. Although he tried to join the Dadaists because he was "an artist who nails his pictures together," his appeal to enroll as one of them was refused because they said that he was too conservative.

He also wrote and designed poetry that combined sense with nonsense. He added Constructivism as an influence in his works after he contacted Theo van Doesburg whom in return invited Schwitters to Holland to promote the Dada.  Later on they worked on a book design that involved typographic forms to be used as the characters. Schwitters throughout his career published 24 issues and the 11^th one was particularly focused on advertising.

Flask, D. (2015). Dada : Design Is History. [online] Designishistory.com. Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/1850/dada/ [Accessed 28 Jan. 2015].

Guity-novin.blogspot.com, (2015). A History of Graphic Design: Chapter 45; Dadaism; The meeting point of all contradictions. [online] Available at: http://guity-novin.blogspot.com/2011/08/chapter-44-dadaism-meeting-point-of-all.html [Accessed 28 Jan. 2015].