Art Deco

Art Deco 

              As exemplified by the geometric shapes and designs of various famous buildings in New York like the Chrysler Building and the Rockefeller Centre, the Art Deco Movement was one of the most fashionable and international design movements in modern art starting from the 1925’s till the          1940s.

            Much like the earlier Arts and Crafts Movement and as the curvilinear and organic style of design known as the Art Nouveau accompanied by the German movement known as the Bauhaus design school concept, Art Deco sought to embrace all types of the arts, including crafts as well as fine arts. It was being applied to a lot of the decorative arts such as interior design, furniture, jewellery, textiles, fashion and industrial design; it was even being applied to the art of architecture and in painting and graphics.

            Art Deco was influenced by a lot of the major art styles that occurred during the early 20th century. These influences contain a lot of the geometric forms which are also found in the Cubism, the machine-like- forms of the Constructivism and the Futurism movements and the unifying approaches of the Art Nouveau movement. Its highly intensive colours may have been inspired from the Parisian Fauvism. Art Deco also borrowed some of its designs from the Aztec and Egyptian art and as well from the Classical Antiquity. Unlike its predecessor movement Art Nouveau, however, the meaning of Art Deco was purely decorative and aesthetically pleasing.

              The Art Deco movement which was adopted by architects and designers all around the globe which gave life to a series of “events” such as the "Roaring Twenties",  the Great Depression which occurred in the early 1930’s, and the years which lead up to World War II. It suffered a great blow in its fame during the period of the late 1930’s and early 1940’s when the movement  was starting to be seen as too extravagant and showy for its surroundings which contained a war-like atmosphere. After that it quickly fell out of fashion. Later on there was a revival of the interest in Art Deco which occurred during the 1960s which coincidently occured with the movement's effect on a more recent art movement called Pop Art  and later on in the 1980s which was in line with the growing interest in graphic design.

Bigman, A. (2012). Art Deco: A strong, striking style for graphic design - Designer Blog. [online] The Creative Edge. Available at: http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2012/06/05/art-deco-a-strong-striking-style-for-graphic-design/ [Accessed 23 Dec. 2014].

Visual-arts-cork.com, (2014). Art Deco Design Style: Origins, History, Characteristics. [online] Available at: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/art-deco.htm [Accessed 23 Dec. 2014].

Modernism

Modernism

            Together with the great advances of technology, the Modernism movement started to breakthrough during the 19^th Century and in to the 20^th. The Western society began to find new ways of how to improve the environment and its constructions and to shape the human culture. Modernism is also considered one of the “abstract movements” in graphic design because it was mainly influenced by some of the fine-art movements such as Cubism and Fauvism and even by other movements such as the Dada and the Bauhaus.

          The Modernism movement influenced and was influence a lot by the creative disciplines such as the arts, architecture, music and even literature. It was the time that machines were in vogue and the artists of that time had to learn to adapt with their surroundings and with the technology that was available which made it easier to mass reproduce certain types of objects. With that said the machines became a source of inspiration for the artists to use during the Modernism Movement.

            Modernism changed and restructured the thinking processes for graphic design, typography and the communications sector because the style of the design changed a lot from the earlier phase of its stages during the 19^th century. During the 19^th century, the whole concept of Modernism was filled with a lot of graphic design and typography that was overly decorated and intricate in every possible manner which led to posters to be packed with a lot of images and fancy text. The designers of the Modernist era stuck to the severely, structured grid system which emphasized a lot on the negative space. They also emphasized the usage of the clean sans-serif type. The whole idea was to create a great usage of strong graphics that were heavily against the commercialism of that time and the greediness and cheapness. The typefaces which were commonly used during the Modernism movement included Franklin Gothic, Monotype Grotesque, Futura and Helvetica Neue.

Citrinitas.com, (2014). The History of Visual Communication - The Modernists. [online] Available at: http://www.citrinitas.com/history_of_viscom/modernists.html [Accessed 23 Dec. 2014].

Modernism, T. (2013). The easy guide to design movements: Modernism | Graphic design | Creative Bloq. [online] Creativebloq.com. Available at: http://www.creativebloq.com/graphic-design/easy-guide-design-movements-modernism-10134971 [Accessed 23 Dec. 2014].

New York School Movement

New York School Movement:

During and after World War 2, a lot of talented artists from Europe migrated to America from Europe and from its countries. The artists at that time were escaping the political instability which was occurring throughout all of Europe and when they migrated to America they took their design styles with them and influenced the American Design which was “pragmatic, intuitive and less formal in its approach to organized space”. Another factor that helped to boost this movement was the fact that at that time New York was bustling and booming with life which led for that city to let this movement flow freely. The movement in general consisted in not only artists but also poets, musicians and painters. When it comes to graphic design, the New York School it is split into two different categories: The elder generations which where the teachers and were the ones who fled the political chaos and the other category were the students that were being taught about design by these same people. The students were being taught at a lot of institutions which specialized in graphic design such as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The aim of the New York School Movement was to emphasize the way how the designers expressed their ideas with a very open and perfect direction of information. Many artists were influenced by the New York School Movement; a particular artist which was greatly influenced by it was Paul Rand.  He started his career of a graphic designer by working as a promotional and editorial designer for diverse companies such as Apparel Arts, Coronet and Esquire. In his career he also worked hand-in-hand with the copy-writer Bill Bernbach by becoming the example of an art/copy team to work with each other. Rand also created a lot of famous logos that are very familiar with use and are still being used to this day. His style usually contained a lot of puns and manipulation with the typography; it also contained a lot of contrasting colours such as blue vs orange, yellow vs purple etc.  His work also featured a lot of geometrical shapes and cut edges against sharp forms and textured backgrounds with white text to oppose them to create interesting effects. 

Ahistoryofgraphicdesign.blogspot.com, (2011). The History of Graphic Design: The New York School. [online] Available at: http://ahistoryofgraphicdesign.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-york-school.html [Accessed 23 Dec. 2014].

Citrinitas.com, (2014). The History of Visual Communication - The Modernists. [online] Available at: http://www.citrinitas.com/history_of_viscom/modernists.html [Accessed 23 Dec. 2014].

Constructivism

Constructivism

             The Constructivism Movement is a movement that has Russian origins. It primarily started out as an art and architectural movement. Its philosophy was to ‘reject the idea of art for art’s sake’. It was directed as a practice of art for societies use and to make change. It started developing after World War 2 thus it encouraged people to change their views into rebuilding a new society on a ‘Utopian’ model. The movement influenced a lot of the arts such as the ones mentioned above and others like theatre, film and even music!

            The term ‘Constructivist Art’ started when Kasmir Malevich used it in reference to describe the art of Alexander Rodchenko. In Constructivism, the elements which contained graphic design and its influences were a lot so much that they extended from product packaging to book covers and movie posters.

Alexander Rodchenko:

He was born in Russia in 1891 and was an artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. His graphic design works involved advertising and packaging. He was greatly influenced by his surroundings and what was happening around in the world at that time, mainly by the Russian Revolution. He was one of the most important artists of that time and also a member of the ‘Productivists’ of which their aim was to push the introduction of art in the normal everyday use of life. When he first started out, his main focus was painting but then he delved into the further experimentation of photomontage and photography. A great deal of his work was for a Russian airline company called Dobrolet. After that he started designing book covers and bookmarks; later on he made photomontages and illustrations for theatre companies throughout Russia and even made costume design. The art of Rodchencko also inspired many artists work. Throughout the years Rodchenko’s art became an enormous inspiration to other artists, mainly located in the western world such as Jan Tschichold.

Kurt Schwitters:

Kurt Schwitters was an artist that was primarily associated with the Dada Art Movement but also had a crucial part in the Constructivists and Surrealists Movement. Like Rodchenko he also experimented in the same fields which then led him to influence the art world with his artistic style of collages which spread throughout the U.S. and Europe. After World War I ended he became less active in the Constructivist and Surrealist and went to join the German Dada movement. When he was in the Dada he published a journal by the name of Merz which contained a great amount of his most influential works in graphic design.

Kurt Schwitters : Design Is History. 2014. Kurt Schwitters : Design Is History. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/1920/kurt-schwitters/. [Accessed 02 November 2014].

Constructivism : Design Is History. 2014. Constructivism : Design Is History. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/1920/constructivism/. [Accessed 02 November 2014].

Constructivism Movement, Artists and Major Works | The Art Story. 2014.Constructivism Movement, Artists and Major Works | The Art Story. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.theartstory.org/movement-constructivism.htm. [Accessed 02 November 2014].

The Bauhaus Movement:

The Bauhaus movement and how it affected Graphic Design:

             The Bauhaus was an art movement that changed a lot of how the world approached the arts, such as the fine-art world and the arts and crafts. It also influenced graphic design alongside with a lot of 20^th century modern art. Bauhaus was originally an art school which was founded by Walter Gropius in the city of Weimar, Germany in 1919, later on in 1924 they moved to Dessau and unfortunately it was forced to close down by the Nazi. The school’s aim was to give the idea that art and mass production could walk hand in hand with each other and make our lives easier.

          In this school there were a lot of important arttists teaching at this particular school such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Herbert Bayer which contributed a lot for the development of graphic design. One particular contribution that was given in the graphic design section was that the Bauhaus started teaching typography as a subject which was crucial to the development to of sans-serif typography. That type of typography was making a huge hit because it contained simple geometric forms.

          Lazslo Moholy-Nagy was best known for his great versatility on of what he could do. He experimented with a lot of artistic fields such as fine-arts, typography, photography, industrial design, printmaking etc. All of these experimentations that he did eventually led him to make exceptional graphic design work which combined bold typography and photography.  At some point he resigned from his position of a lecturer at the Bauhaus and chose to work in the film industry as a film and stage designer in Berlin. Later on during 1937 he moved to Chicago and re-founded the Bauhaus under the name of ‘New Bauhaus’ which nowadays is known as the Illinois Institute of Technology.

            Another artist of great importance that influenced the Bauhaus movement was Herbert Bayer. He was a student at the Bauhaus and later on in his life he also became a teacher in there. Bayer worked and experimented in a lot of fields such as painting, sculpting, typography and advertising and studied his painting with Kandinsky. He also studied architecture. His career as a teacher started when he started teaching one of the very first typography. Eventually he moved to America and became an Art director for Vogue Magazine Offices in Berlin. One of his most noted is the typeface he created that used lowercase letters because the German Style contained a lot of fancy styles when it came to introducing capital letters etc.

References:

The Bauhaus : Design Is History. 2014. The Bauhaus : Design Is History. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/1920/the-bauhaus/. [Accessed 27 October 2014].

The easy guide to design movements: Bauhaus | Graphic design | Creative Bloq. 2014. The easy guide to design movements: Bauhaus | Graphic design | Creative Bloq. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.creativebloq.com/design/easy-guide-design-movements-bauhaus-8134146. [Accessed 27 October 2014].

Art Nouveau and Graphic Design.

Art Nouveau and how Graphic Design is related with it:

                Between the 1890 and 1905, the world witnessed the popularity of a new artistic movement called Art Nouveau. It was a style which descended from the Arts and Crafts Movement and managed to combine art and design into the everyday life. As the research shows, Art Nouveau was the “first style of commercial art used consistently to enhance the beauty of industrial products” and its main influences were mainly seen in art and architecture such as applied arts, graphic work, and illustration.

                For the purpose of this research, specific attention is going to be given to the influence that Art Nouveau had on graphic design. According to Flask, book production and poster printing were the most influenced sections in the graphic design section as their typography was highly ornate so that these productions were mostly left for display work. Nonetheless, artists continued to include this style in other works such as advertisements, magazines, labels and typography. However the artists did not limit themselves to use only paper as their medium to convey their message but also used glassware, jewellery, textiles, household silver, domestic utensils, cigarette cases, and furniture and lighting. Moreover, some of the artists also managed to be influenced by this style to design theatrical sets and costumes.  

         Numerous graphic artists were influenced by the Art Nouveau but two of the most important artists were Jules Cheret and Alphonse Mucha. Jules Cheret was mainly trained as a lithographer when he travelled to England and after his return back to France, he created several posters for the Parisian famous cabarets and theatres. One must also note that his designs were greatly influenced by the artists of the Rococo period. Cheret’s designs continued to gain popularity and so did his advertisement business as various clients required his productions in relation to liquors, perfumes, soaps, cosmetics and pharmaceutical products and railroad companies amongst others. Alphonse Mucha created one of his masterpieces in 1895 for the French actress Sarah Bernhardt as he designed a poster for an overnight sensational theatrical play, Gismonda. After this success, Mucha signed a six year contract with Bernhardt in order to design posters, sets, and costumes for her plays. Mucha was considered as an Art Nouveau artist because of the various rich curves that were visible in his art which were inspired by natural forms, vibrant colours, and complicated ornaments.

Visual-arts-cork.com, (2014). Art Nouveau Design: Characteristics, History, Artists. [online] Available at: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/art-nouveau.htm [Accessed 12 Oct. 2014].

Metmuseum.org, (2014). Art Nouveau | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [online] Available at: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/artn/hd_artn.htm [Accessed 12 Oct. 2014].

Guity-novin.blogspot.com, (2014). A History of Graphic Design: Chapter 25 - Pioneers of the Art Nouveau, Chromolithography and the emergence of the modern poster and cigar box labels. [online] Available at: http://guity-novin.blogspot.com/2010/05/history-of-graphic-design-birth-of-art.html#Five [Accessed 12 Oct. 2014].

What is Graphic Design?

What exactly is Graphic Design?

      

      Graphic Design is a type of art that combines both pictures and illustrations with typography to convey a message to people such as raising awareness about issues that are happening around us or for example the promotion of a product. The use of graphic design dates back into the earlier periods of time itself because during the Stone Age there are paintings in caves that depict what the people of that time were doing throughout their daily activities.

     

      Graphic Designers use a lot of media when creating their work such as drawn, computer generated pictures and when they’re making their work they even choose and manipulate the typography so that it fits with the theme of their work. In graphic design what affects the most is the presentation of the image and typography.

In graphic design there are 4 categories on how the work is composed such as these:

Image and Type:

          

Designers usually make use of a combination images and typography to communicate a specific message to an audience. They explore a lot of creative options which are either presented by the usage of words such as typography or by images that make use of photographs, illustration materials and fine-arts but then it’s up to the designer to research about the topic and come up with the ideas to create the appropriate work with letterforms and images but also to create the best balance between all of them.

Image-based:

           

The designer usually casts a great importance on the image so that the message which is shown is clear and effective for the public to understand while instilling a particular mood and emotion. Take for example a designer would use a lightning bolt because the public is familiar with the expression “lightning speed” so with this knowledge the designer combines images and typography to express the message to the general public.

Usage of Symbols, Logos and Logotypes:

           

The use of symbols and logos is a form of special and highly summarized information of forms or identifiers. Symbols are an unusual representation of a particular idea or identity. For an example take the CBS “eye” it’s a symbolic form, which we learn to identify that it’s representing a particular conceptual idea or a company.

Type-Based Design:

There are cases in which the designers make use words to convey a message, but they use them way differently from the way writers do. To designers what the words and fonts look like is as important as the message they are trying to convey. They can capture your attention on multiple things such as on a poster, can help you clearly identify a product name on a package and also show the text and typography on a particular book. Designers are professionals at presenting this kind of information in their own way in the form of visuals in printing, film, packaging and signs.

AIGA | What is graphic design? . 2014. AIGA | What is graphic design? . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.aiga.org/guide-whatisgraphicdesign/. [Accessed 03 October 2014].