Before Class-Chapter 12

Chapter 12 is all about the genesis of the twentieth century. At the turn of the century artist and writers alike began to go against traditional ideas in search of new techniques and new design ideas. Much like art nouveau, the genesis of the 20th century goes against classical motifs and pushes the boundaries of design. One of the more influential artists of the time was Frank Lloyd Wright and his new take on architecture. He pushed away from the organic, curvilinear style of Art Nouveau and  focused his attention on rectilinear design patterns with an emphasis on spatial organization. This type of style influenced a group of people known as "the four" that came out of the Glasgow school of art. These Scottish artist were named Charles Rennie Mackintosh, J. Herbert McNair, and two sisters Magaret and Frances Macdonald. These four designers continued to use geometric shapes in a unique combination with floral patterns that organized the compositions in a unique manner were negative space became one of the main focuses of the design process. The same type of geometric organization and flowing organic designs that "the four" embraced influences most of the designers in the early 20th century. For example an art director by the name of  Talwin Morris made contact with "the four" taking the style of their work and pushing it further into the world of mass communication, thus making the style even more prevalently seen during the time period. 

Most of the artist after this time continued to play around with the unity of geometric organization, and organic lines until a German designer named Peter Behrens played a unique however large role in creating a type of style for the 20th century. Behrens was also known as "the first industrial designer" due to his designs for street lamps and teapots. One of his main objectives as an artist was to reform typography with a huge emphasis on using sans-serif as a way to accomplish clean organization of his layouts. Behrens is known as being the first person to use sans-serif type in a book as running text. This led to sans-serifs being used throughout most of the 20th century. The type allowed for designers to achieve great contrast by using only one type family by changing the weight of the type itself. During this time Behrens becomes involved with other German designers and is involved with this group called Deustche Werkbund, which means German Association of Craftsmen. This association brought the ideas of technology and art together. By doing so the design world which just recently moved away from mechanical design to handcrafted products, reverted to machines once again. However unlike the industrial revolution the artists that used machines in the 20th century, artists like Behrens, combined the quality of handmade crafts with the precision of mechanical devices.

The most interesting aspect of this time period is that it took until the 20th century to utilize the sans-serif type.

I am curious as to what machines were being used to create some of the prints made by Behren and his fellow German designers?