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].

How Art Nouveau influenced the Digital Arts

How Art Nouveau lived on in the Digital Arts:

It’s been decades since the Art Nouveau Style started and vanished after the 1910’s. Although it’s importance in the applied arts and in the architecture itself remained and quite lively I might say. The style affected graphic design so much it has the right to say that it was a major influence to both the history and styles of art.

The most people that were influenced by this art style were illustrators, artists and the printing trade especially in America. During the post-war 60’s hippie movement there was a revival for the Art Nouveau Movement. Nowadays the effects and best features of Art Nouveau can be seen throughout all of the visual communication industry such as the famous painting of Marilyn Munroe  called “Visages de Renom” which was made by a New York based illustrator Les Katz. Another artist that made works of the same technique was Milton Glaser.

20 years later, the Art Nouveau has been re-evaluated because of the sudden rise of Post-Modern Design. Artist from all the corners of the around the world are making use and being inspired from the characteristics of the style such as the floral elements, the natural features and the charismatic colours and  they are incorporating them within their works.

This style can be still found in today’s fanciest homes, including both the architecture and the furniture itself. The designs of homes which have Art Nouveau decorations in them are pin-pointed by the various prints and decorative shapes which are used in the decoration of walls or in the tapestry itself. They are also used in the textiles and artistic artefacts found in these homes. 

This style also affected the digital arts and everything that is related. There is a site called deviantart where people from around the world submit both traditional works and digital art.  There artists who in both traditional and digital art have incorporated the Art Nouveau influences with modern day themes such as fan-art, original works etc.  I selected these two works because aesthetically they are exceptionally wonderful and the influences are quite visible in there such as the whiplash curves and the colouring style of the Art Nouveau.

Bigman, A. (2012). Good call, Bon Iver: Art Nouveau design inspiration - Designer Blog. [online] The Creative Edge. Available at: http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2012/09/19/good-call-bon-iver-art-nouveau-design-inspiration/ [Accessed 28 Jan. 2015].

 Pixel77, (2010). The Influence of Art History on Modern Design - Art Nouveau - Pixel77. [online] Available at: http://www.pixel77.com/the-influence-of-art-history-on-modern-design-art-nouveau/ [Accessed 28 Jan. 2015].

New York School Movement - Paul Rand

Paul Rand (August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) is a very famous American graphic designer, which is best known for his contribution to make corporate logo designs. Paul Rand was taught at several schools and institutions such as the Pratt Institute, the Parsons School of Design and the Art Students League. He was one of the first minds behind the graphic design movement called the Swiss Style. From the periods of 1956-1969 and the beginning of 1974, Paul Rand was a teacher and taught design at the University of Yale in New Haven, Connecticut. Rand was welcomed into a group of designers called the “New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame” in 1972. He designed a lot of posters and corporate identities, including logos for a lot of prominent companies such as IBM, UPS and ABC. Rand passed away during 1996.

Paul Rand (also known as Peretz Rosenbaum) was born in Brooklyn, New York in the 1914’s. Since Rand was an Orthodox, the Orthodox Jewish law dictates the forbiddance of the creation of images that can be easily “worshiped” as idols; Rand’s career in creating icons was highly valued and regarded very highly in the shrine of global capitalism. It was a career that he started to embrace at a very young age; he started out by doing painting of signs for his father’s grocery store and for school events at P.S. 109. His father did not believe that art could provide his son a sufficient livelihood, and so he convinced Paul to attend Manhattan’s Harren High School and take night classes at the Pratt Institute, though none of these institutions offered Rand any stimulation to his creativity. Despite his studies at Pratt and other institutions in the New York area which included the Parsons School of Design and the Art Students League, Rand was self-taught as a designer and used the works of Cassandre and Moholy-Nagy from a lot of European magazines such as the magazine called Gebrauchsgraphik as a source of inspiration for his works.

His graphic design career started with some humble assignments, such as a part-time position that involved the creation of stock images for an organization that supplied graphics to some various companies which they create newspapers and magazines. Between his school assignments and his work, Rand was also able to collect a huge portfolio, which was mainly influenced by the German advertising style Sachplakat (decorative poster) as well as the works of the artist Gustav Jensen. It was at around this time that he decided to camouflage (and reduce) his Jewish identity which was known as ‘Peretz Rosenbaum,’ and changed his name to ‘Paul’ and took the surname ‘Rand’ from an uncle to form his new surname.  Morris Wyszogrod who was a friend and assistant of Rand, said that “he figured that ‘Paul Rand,’ four letters here, four letters there, would create a nice symbol. So he became Paul Rand.” Peter Behrens also noted the importance of this new title and said: “Rand’s new persona, which served as the brand name for his many accomplishments, was the first corporate identity he created, and it may also eventually prove to be the most enduring.” Rand was moving very rapidly towards the forefront of his profession.

Design.uh.edu, (2015). Paul Rand. [online] Available at: http://design.uh.edu/~sechung/rand3/biography.html [Accessed 21 Jan. 2015]. 

Schneider, S. (2011). Paul Rand Will Change Your Life!. [online] noupe. Available at: http://www.noupe.com/inspiration/showcases/paul-rand-will-change-your-life.html [Accessed 21 Jan. 2015].

beiki, k. (2012). A Cup Of ART : Paul Rand. [online] Kamilgraphic.net. Available at: http://www.kamilgraphic.net/2012/12/paul-rand.html [Accessed 21 Jan. 2015].

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].