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].