De Stijl

 De Stijl

It started in 1917 with Theo Van Doesburg, and it influenced international avante garde in the 20’s. It was very committed to the unity of the arts, on a quest for harmony and order through a universal language of form. De Stijl rejected all representation and self expression.  It was restricted to the use of straight lines, right angles, primary colours, and the so called non colours; black, white and grey.

Unlike it’s predecessor, Dada, it sought to regain order in design. The overall look was disciplined, due to the use of sans serifs, straight lines and rectangular blocks. The layout was asymmetrical. The De Stijl movement paved the way to the international typographic style. Later on, Van Doesburg introduced his ideas to the Bauhaus.

This movement came to an end in 1931 when Van Doesburg passed away.

Piet Mandrian – Composition (1920)

This here is an example of neo plasticism

Composition with blue yellow and red (1921)

The De Stijl manifesto cover was a clear example of DeStijl characteristics. The layout combined heavy lines, sans serif types, and an assymetric composition.

Van Doesburg, as we mentioned earlier, was the forerunner to this movement. He was an architect, a writer, a designer, and a painter. He was sent to the war, and when he was near the front he began comtemplating a new manifesto, for a movement called De Stijl: Maandblad voor nieuwe kunst, wetenschap en kultuur. In 1916 he met other artists with similar thoughts as his, and they started De Stijl. So De Stijl was a reaction to Dada and to the war, where everything was chaotic and not nice and very distracting. De Stijl sought to regain order, and as we mentioned before, it paved the way to the typographic styles we currently have in our magazines, posters and all around us.

Theo Van Doesburg – Contra Construction (1923)

Theo Van Doesburg – Counter Composition IV (1924)

Theo Van Doesburg – Rectilinear Sans Serif Type

Another De Stijl Graphic Designer is Vilmos Huszar. Huszar experimented with and created highly geometric logotypes, with letters wrapped around each other, text breaking down into abstract forms, all reflecting on the Gestalt psychology.

Gestalt – The emphasis on the relationship between parts that creates the perception of the whole.

Piet Zwart was another De Stijl artist. He applied constructivism in his works. He is known for rejecting the traditional typographic conventions and creating his own way, with bold sans serif, repetitive word patterns, photomontage, primary colours, and strong diagonals.

links:

http://kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu/collection/explore/artwork/484
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/theo-van-doesburg-1017
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-de-stijl.htm

Timeline In Graphic Design

1455 – Gutenberg Press

1480 – Intaglio Printing

1750s – Gothic Revival

1798 – Stone Lithography

1814 – Grotesque Typeface

1846 – Rotary Press

1880 – Photo Engraving

1885 – The Half Tone process

1886 - Linotype

1837 – 1901 – Victorian Era

1905 – Offset Lithography

Mid 19^th Century – Arts and Crafts Movement

1890-1910 – Art Nouveau

1917 – De Stijl

1919 – Bauhaus

1925-50s – Art Deco

Jan Tchihold

1930s & 40s – Swiss Modern (1^st Generation)

1950s & 60s – 2^nd Generation of Designers

1940s & 50s New York School        -  Paul Rand

-       Alvin Lusting

-       Saul Bass

-       Bradley Thompson

-       Alexei Brodovich

-       Herb Blueblin

1957 – Helvetica

1960s – Pop design – Milton Glaser

            - Phototype setting   

1960s & 70s – Psychedelia – Seymour Schwast

                                                - Victor Moscoso

                                                - Wess Wilson

                                                - Rich Griffin

                                                - Peter Max

1970s – Digital type

            - Margaret Tatcher   – rebelled through punk rock and anarchy

                                                -Jamie Reed

                                                - Neville Brody

                                                - Peter Seville

                                                - Barney Bubbles

                                                - Malcolm Garret

1984 – invention of the Macintosh 

1980s – Post Modernism     - Wolfganag Weinhart

                                                - April Greiman

                                                - Barbra Kruger

                                                - William Longhauser

                                                - Deborah Sassman

                                                - Takmo Bu

                                                - Kazumasa Nagai

1990s – Grunge        – David Carson

                                  - Art Chantry

1994 – the invention of the World Wide Web

1998 – Google

2000s – Stefan Sagmeister

           - Paula Scher

2001 – Wikipedia

2005 – Youtube

List of Post Modern Designers         - John Koi

                                                            - Tibor Kalman

                                                            - Allen Wang

                                                            - James Huff

                                                            - Michael Mabry

                                                            - Jay Vigan

                                                            - Allen Chan

                                                            - Mark Fox

                                                            - Glenn Parsons

                                                            - Bridget de Socio

Dada (& Surrealism)

DADA

Dada was considered to be the highest art, described by Dadaists that it “ will be the art which has been visibly shattered by the explosions of last week, which is forever trying to collect itself”.

The founder was Hugo Ball. Also helping him found this movement was Tristan Tzara and Jean Hans Arp. They met and they sought spontaneity through childhood and care.  They used a number of magazines to promote their art. This is a direct attachment to graphic design. Jean Hans Arp applied the law of chance to his artworks, and later on his fellow Dadaists adopted his law. 

Club Dada 1918-20

Der Dada   1918-20

Max Ernst      -The Elephant Celebes

-Murdering Airplane (1920)

Kurt Schwitters, another Dadaist, introduced machine made words not arrange in any traditional rules instead of hand drawn images. He also used narrow range typeface instead of the normal typeface used at the time. He later on invented the Merz, Schwitters published a periodical called Merz between 1923–32, in which each issue was devoted to a central theme. Merz 5 1923, for instance, was a portfolio of prints by Hans Arp, Merz 8/9, 1924, was edited and typeset by El Lissitzky, Merz 14/15, 1925, was a typographical children's story entitled The Scarecrow by Schwitters, Kätte Steinitz and Theo van Doesburg. The last edition, Merz 24, 1932, was a complete transcription of the final draft of the Ursonate, with typography by Jan Tschichold. It was at this time that graphic design emerged as part of the modern industrial society.

Photomontage was used also in the dada movement, to construct rather than to paint. The Russian Constructivists introduced this into their designs also, roughly at the same time as it started getting popular with Dada.

Gustav Klimt - Lenin walking over the world

Some characteristics of Dada graphic design as illustrated in this poster are dynamic diagonals and sans serif typefaces. They used black, white and red, and their design influenced the Bauhaus and the Constructivists.

Hannah Hoch Collage (1919) – used fragments of images taken from pop culture and incorporated them into the Dada artworks.

Hannah Hoch – Pretty Maiden (1920)

Above we see Jon Heartfield’s parody poster in favour of the industry. Written at the bottom is  ‘Iron makes a country strong, butter and lard make people fat’. He created many pro Communist posters and in the 60’s he created anti-Vietnam posters.

John Heartfield - War and corpses

George Grosz – Dusk

George Grosz – Eclipse of the Sun

Dada ended in 1922, and was considered the forerunner of Surrealism.

Surrealism

This art movement challenged the rational and was attracted towards the imagination potential in dreams. Main artists in this movement were Juan Miro, Jean Hans Arp, Man Ray and Salvador Dalí.

This movement did not include much graphic design so will not be included.

links:
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2140091
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/arts-culture/dada-115169154/

http://www.askart.com/AskART/interest/Modernism_2.aspx?id=75

Futurism

So what were the characteristics of graphic design by now?

An  Layout,

the Elimination of decoration, and the move towards more bold and geometric forms.

In Germany, Peter Behrens created 4 new typefaces, Behrens Antique, Behrens Schrift, Behrens Medieval, and Behrens Cursiv. His assistants at AEG were Walter Groupius, Mies Van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier. Other designers at the time were Lucian Bernhart (Germany) and the Beggarstaff Brothers (Great Britian).

Also, surfacing at the time were the Plakastil, the object posters. These were posters with no verbal elaboration, only the image portraying the object’s use or message.

Opel – Hans Rudy Erdt.

Panther - Ludwig Hohlwein.

Then came Futurism in 1909, which emphasized the technology and dynamic aspects of modern lives. It rejected harmony and order, preferring instead to portray speed and movement into the design. Looking at the early futurism posters, we can see confusion and agitation; in the beginning they even tried to translate sounds into images and design.

The city rises – 1910

The leader was Filippo Tumaso Mariutti. Helping him to start this movement were Umberto Boccini, Carlo Carna, Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini. They challenged the idea that type had to follow any convention, so they experimented vastly with new forms. This was a way of making a statement, to emphasize the force of the words, and, being a new style it caught the reader’s attention more and more.

Umberto Boccini        – the street enters the house 1911

-       unique forms of continuity and space 1913

Giacomo Balla            - Swift paths of movement 1913

Gino Severini            - Still life with Lacerba 1913

One of the characteristics of Futurism was simultaneity and repeated notifs. The posters were dynamic and the lines of force were very strong in the picture. They also included elements of collage into their designs. They also included typographical collages in their posters.

Marinetti – Futurist Manifesto cover 1915

Marinetti’s revolution stated that futurist designs should have different typefaces of different shapes and sizes on the same page, with three or four colours of ink, with use of italics and nomal type. Keep in mind that at the time the only colours to be depicted in posters were monotonic colours, or single colours. Also the type was consistent throughout the whole design. So this was seen as quite radical. But he was inspired a lot by Cubism, and by the fascination to depict sound and movement into design.

Marinetti – Zang Tumb Tumb (1914)

Marinetti’s cover of 8 Anime in una Bomba

Here Marinetti was after the destruction of harmony and peacefulness on the page and in favour of  ‘flux and reflux, leaps and bursts that run through the page’.  We can see the words are overlaid and set in different directions, giving us the notion of speed and movement.

links:
https://designopendata.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/24969324-design-literacy-understanding-graphic-design.pdf
http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=4461
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-futurism.htm