OME 3.23.09

In todays lecture we talked about Post Cubism and Art Deco of the 1920's and 30's. Art Deco expressed the desires of a modern era and a passion for geometric decoration of the machine age. AM Cassandre was considered one of the great illustrators of the 20th century who also had great typographic skills. He used a lot of bold designs and iconic elements. With his L'Intansigeant poster in 1925 he was called the master of art deco letterforms. Another man known for his posters was Kauffer, he used synthetic cubist ideas. He was known for is underground London posters. Between the wars Germany became the central hob, German art absorbed cubism and french advertising. Ludwig Holwien produced propaganda posters the evolution of his work coincided with Hitlers. Even the Olympics was becoming ideas for propaganda images. Then a style of realism developed, celebrating national strength and offering grotesque depictions of the enemy. Herbert Matter fully expressed the role of extreme contrast of scale in photography for european posters style. He was very good at approaching his posters, he used pictorial symbols by silhouetted images, uncommon angles, black and white images with sign of color. and over printing and transparency. The war had a big impact on whit kinds of art came out of this era, because the Nazis were such a threat artists portrayed them in different ways with so many different styles. When the railroad was first introduced artists began to produce skiing posters which no one had ever seen because before the rail road on one could get that high in the mountains. 

OME March 16th

In todays class we talked about De Stijl and how it shared the same goals as Malevich and Supermatists . De Stijl was concerned with the spiritual and intellectual climate. Theo Van Doesburg was the founder he applied De Stijl to architecture, sculpture, and typography. He formalized a typographic style. His Alphabet was made up of all curves and color was a structural element not for decoration. Mondirans paintings were a huge visual representation of their work. M.H.J Schoenmaker defined horizontal and vertical lines in shaping his world, jsut like Mondrian. The colors blue, red, yellow, and black were a big part of this movement everyone was using them in their work. De Stijl did not survive after Van Doesburgs death in 1931.

The Bauhaus was to solve design problems created by industrialization. There was no distinction between fine arts and the applied arts. There were two locations of the Bauhaus, one in Weinmar from 1919-1925, and then the on in Dessau opened in 1925-1933 after all the staff left and the students were sent to Dessau. At the Bauhaus the heart of education was the preliminary colors. At the Bauhaus Johannes was to teach the fundamental principles of design with an underlying of visual art. Moholy Nagy also had an impact on the Bauhaus he was to design the type image curriculum. Where type met image in experiments and helped plot the course of modernist design. The Photoplastics expanded the role of photography in a design context. The faculty voted to close the school August 10th 1933.

Jan Tschichold introduced the New Typography, he explained modernist ideas to a wider audience of printers, designers, and typesetters. His book "The New Typography" used alot of white space, symmetrical arrangements, dynamic forces, point, line and plane. He also designed the Sabon font in 1964 which amazed other graphic designers because it was a serif font that was yet modern. 

The Dutch Masters of Typography messed around with alot of different elements but also elements that we have seen before. Paul Shoetema used photos in design and type play. Hendrick N. Werkman did not live along life but he did accomplish great designs. He let his imperfections in his work become the work. Piet Zwark was the most different of the three, he did things no one had really seen before especially for someone who is self taught. He incorporated all of the design elements in collages, diagonals, grids, movement. He had alot of typographic contrasts within his work, but yet he never lost concern for the reader.

Discourse 1

1927 I AM TYPE  

Frederic W. Goudy

• 1933 New Yorker magazine profile described Frederic as the "Glorifier of the alphabet"
• Designed 124 typefaces 
• designed Books and pamphlets 
• Founded 2 journals : Typographica: a pamphlet devoted to typography and letter design, also Ars Typographica
• He handset and printed many of his own books
• Proprietor of the village press in Marlborough, New York
• I AM TYPE also titled THE TYPE SPEAKS

I chose this image because is shows Goudy, hand drawing the text. Goudy was named the "Glorifier of the alphabet". The article also said that he hand set and printed many of his books, which takes alot of work. So i wanted to have a photo that somewhat captured him hard at work doing something he obviously had a passion for.

 I found this image that someone used using Goudy's type to illustrate him and it was an innovative way of using his type. I think this makes you think about how creative you can be with someone else's work of art. Goudy designed his typeface most likely with the intent to have it typed out on in paragraph form. Its nice to see it in a different way, and how the different letterforms look at different angles.

 This image not only shows you Goudy's typeface with the letterforms it also talks about him and the typface. The page talks about the Lanston Library having inked proof of his brass patterns, which i think is amazing. Goudy's village was replaced with the Village # 2.  It also goes on to tell you about the Type Face and how it changed .

OME March 2nd : A Pure Art Of Visual Relationships

A Pure Art Of Visual Relationships. A new language of form never been seen before.

Supermatism creates a theoretical model for visual language, where form is a set of forces. Kandinsky was influenced by russian lectures, russian artists and designers absorbed cubism and futurism and " Cubo - Futurism " was developed. Then came along the Constructivists movement, the constructivists were made up of 27 artists and Rodchenko's Poster which was a collaged poster of photos. Malevich and Kandinsky thought that art must return to a spiritual quest and they rejected social and political roles. But yet photos had a power illustrations could never convey. Rodchenko was all about art for art sake. His goal was to formulate a set of universal principles and a utopian in vision. The Constructivists goals were to forge a new world of objects for a new social order. Their 3 principles were Tectonics; identity with visual form, Texture; material and how they were used and Construction; creative process. Rodchenko was a tectonics master, he used photos which became primary design elements in his work, he also used attempted to create a narrative for the revolution society using modern design tools. Rodchenko was also innovative with his photomontages, he superimposed images, used extreme close ups and perspective. By 1927 He imposed a new way to see soviet life. He also made book form more dynamic by incorporating the grammar and syntax of theater and film in his design. Rodchenko called him self an "advertisement constructor" he then used package design in his art. The along came El Lissitzky a visionary, ian icon and an innovator  of 20th century graphic design. He gave importance to his objects to embody ideals not only functions. Supermatist abstract elements transformed into political service, h then became the soviets leading designer with his red wedge piece. He also became very well known for his Of Two Squares, where modern graphic design language became characterized by geometric forms and high contrast arrangements. The red square signified a bloodstained town square in the book.