Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Wes Wilson-Thesis
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Corporate Identity
Monday, April 12, 2010
The New York School-After Class
The New York School
International Typographic style
Typography was one of the main focuses of the Swiss style. Designers mainly utilized sans-serif fonts in order to achieve a mathematically sound design. The letters themselves were organized flush left and ragged-right. This arrangement provided designers a clean grid set up that also created interesting abstract shapes. Some new sans-serif typefaces were created during the Swiss style like Adrian Frutiger's univers that involved twenty-one different fonts inside the family. Helvetica is another important type to com,e out of this style ans it was created by Edouard Hoffman and Max Miedinger. Even with the high demand for sans-serif fonts German born Henry Zapf is a designer that reinvented the classic serif typeface with his inbtroduction of types like palatino or melior.
During the Swiss style designers were always concerned with getting their message across whatever it may have been. Typography in the international typographic style communicates the message with clarity by incorporating those aspects from mathematics and science. Mathematical spatial division arranges the letter forms in a way that makes it clear for the audience to understand the message. According to Ernest Keller design was all about clear communication and visual order and this was a major characteristic of the Swiss style. Designers involved with the international typographic movement understood and believed the concept that type in itself can fulfill all aspects design.
Why did mathematics and science become so heavily incorporated with design during this time, is there any hint to why designers started to incorporate these fields with graphic design?
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
After Class-American Kitsch
American Kitsch
American Kitsch can be described as tacky, cheap design. After all kitsch is German for bad in taste, and I would have to agree that the art coming from America during the 40’s through the end of the 60’s was tacky. Some of the influences that led to this art form were from the first youth movement that was happening in the States. James Dean was a huge movie star that brought forth this idea of casual clothes and everything casual. Shirts and jeans replaced leisure suits as the youth of America began to separate from the adults. This art period was all about organic curves and semi-geometric shapes being utilized in all aspects of design including poster designs, Diners, and even the Casino designs in Las Vegas capture the essence of American Kitsch. Most of the poster designs for advertisements and Hollywood would use these exaggerated facial expressions to capture the attention of the public eye. Hollywood had a lot to do with the development of this art style as designers would use Hollywood lighting techniques to help create dramatic lighting in their poster designs. American kitsch was often realistically rendered to add to the exaggerated mood of each composition. However cartoon caricatures were also used in advertisements giving the advertising world of this time the look of a comic book. These advertisements were also incredibly bright in color and often portrayed hand drawn qualities. The typography of this time was also know to be casual and hand drawn, we no longer see this passed obsession of sans-serif that was prevalent during the modern art period. American Kitsch is not a style that is taught in art schools but is often mimicked by graphic designers whenever they want to capture the essence of the 50’s, because after all American Kitsch is aalso n=known as 50’s art.
Why is this art form not talked about in our text books?