Wes Wilson-Thesis

Wes Wilson used his backgrounds in botany and philosophy to develop interesting political posters with organic forms and type that filled the whole composition, reminiscent of victorian design. This type of design began the new era of psychedelic posters.

Corporate Identity

This style of design began around the 50's because after the last World War, corporation began to flourish. With all these business's popping up around the nation and in other nations around the world, leaders of these corporations were looking to achieve some sort of identity. Naturally the design world is what helped create corporate identities by focusing on clarity and interesting visual contrast.  "Good design is good business", this quote is exactly the attitude that leaders of many corporations had about designing a mark, or a logo for their business's. Each designer that is mentioned during this period in corporate design creates a personal imprint that is seen throughout all of their designs. Mainly designers were put up to the task of creating a simple image that would also suggest what the company was about by using common everyday symbols in each design. for example Giovanni Pintori was the graphic designer for the Olivetti corporation. This corporation was looking for a technological type of image so Pintori used a collage of numbers with the corporations name creating a simple yet effective design for Olivetti. 

The Columbia Broadcasting System(CBS) was another corporation that was led by someone that understood the need for design when it came to being successful . William Golden was the art director at CBS and was the creator of the famous CBS eye. This image is still used today by CBS because of its simplicity and effectiveness as a corporations mark. Golden was involved with pushing the concept that artists/designers are responsible for ensuring that a message is clearly communicated to the audience. Later on CBS hired a man by the name of Georg Olden who had the daunting task of having to incorporate simple effective design for television. He understood that the limitations were grand, black and white pictures were all that could be used and the image itself would only be on screen for a few seconds so Olden focused on creating images that the audience could quickly comprehend the image. He made sure to achieve the essence of each program by using simple signs and images that the audience could easily relate to. Olden was unique because he marks the first African American designer that was given a corporate job even though it was during a time when the civil rights movement was not in place. 

Overall corporate identities were created so that when a logo was seen the audience would immediately connect the design with the business itself. Corporate identity was not just using a certain symbol or logo, it was about the entire image of the business. The audience began to identify with color schemes, layouts and specific typefaces that would reming the viewer of a certain business. All of these aspects were put together to create a solid corporate image making their business easily recognizable when looking at advertisements. From packaging to the architecture of corporate buildings this period in design still exist today as new corporations arise and old ones search to renew their image. Designers that contributed to corporate imagery understood that sometimes the logo would have to adapt to whatever the advertisement called for. The American designer Rand created the simple IBM logo by using a slab serif typeface unified by horizontal lines. However when it came to the "Eye, Bee, M" advertisement Rand understood that he had to manipulate the original logo in order for that specific advertisement to be successful. Understanding the audience is the biggest aspect in corporate design.

How risky is it for a corporation to abandon a long existing logo in order to re-identify itself?

Are there any examples of recent, drastic logo changes?

The New York School-After Class

After the presentation on the New York school it became more apparent what the school promoted when it came to design concepts. This whole idea of combining visually innovative shapes with communicative text gave way to interesting editorial layouts. Today in class also cleared up the style of typography that was used during this period. For example the whole concept of typographic expressionism, that involved type that would symbolize the meaning of the actual word. I found it interesting how the designers from this time would use photo negatives as a cheap and efficient way to organize and create interesting layouts.

The New York School

The New York school is the first sign of America having its own original design style. Even though most concepts were borrowed from european designers, American designers added new forms and concepts to their designs. This step towards a original american modern design style came from the unique circumstances of the culture found in America. The country was full of capitalistic values and a diverse ethnic group of civilians. Paul Rand is just one of many influential designers that helped create a image for American modern design. He used freely invented shapes that were both expressive and symbolic, and he used these shape to successfully communicate an idea. He set up the guidelines for this revamped modern style by using unexpected playfulness keeping each design visually dynamic. His contribution towards influencing future designers came from his book entitled "Thought of Design" which gave eighty examples of his work. Rand also set up this concept of engaging the audience by using universal symbols to portray a idea. Visual contrast became a must in design during this period, leading to eye catching designs.

During the mid-20th century a Yale began its graphic design school. Albers and Eisenman were the main players involved with heading up this school. They both held this fascination with type and typography, making it a huge aspect of the schools teachings. The school included a faculty of famous designers and would often have guest speakers that were famous designers include Jan Tschichold. This led to top designers coming from the Graphic Design school at Yale. 

One major aspect of design in America is found in the editorial magazines. During the 50's the three major magazines were Vogue, Fortune, and Harpers Bazaar. This period of editorials gave way for new concepts, including the rise of women designers. Pineles was the first woman to be admitted to the New York directors club. Leo Leonni is a design that was known for his innovative use of photography while working for Fortune. Many designers during the period were influenced by a designer by the name of Brodovitch, including Storch who work for Bazaar magazine. He was known for unifying typography with photographs. Henry Wolf was known for utilizing white space and large photographs. The end of the editorial boom was due to the publics need for more information and less visually appealing magazines because of the war going on in Vietnam. 

After the decline of this market designers had to change their design approach in order to satisfy the publics demand for more text filled magazines. Graphic designers would start to focus on controlled layouts and standard grids. They also turned to formal typography in order to create a design that is easy to read. Bernbach was a major influence on this new approach towards editorial design, and he create visual and verbal syntax. This meant that both words and images would work together in order to convey an idea/concept.

International Typographic style

The international typographic style or better known as Swiss style, is a period that involved viewing design under a new light. Scientific reasoning became a new way to solve design problems and mathematics became the new tool to help organize a layout or used to set up grids. Both of the fields, science and mathematics played the main role in guiding design features of this period. Asymmetrical organization and mathematically constructed grids are not the only aspects of this movement, the international typographic style also gave way for more innovative designs free from commercial advertisements or propaganda. This freedom was due to the fact that Switzerland stayed neutral throughout WWII so designers were able to create without having to abide by any guidelines or strict rules.

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?

After Class-American Kitsch

American Kitsch can be simply explained by the definition of "Kitsch" which in German means in bad taste. This art style can be seen as tacky, and pointless this is why the style is not taught at art schools. Kitsch is highly involved in hollywood throughout the 1940's-60's, illustrations and designs involved exaggerated, organic lines. This style of art is synonymous with comic strip advertisements and the idea of a 50's diner. Along with these organic forms the kitsch style involved exaggerated facial expressions and dramatic poses used in every composition. Most of this style was influenced by the casual revolution which involved James Dean. The casual motif is found in Kitsch particularly in the typography which was mostly hand drawn. 

Besides Norman Rockwell who else was well known during the American Kitsch period?

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?

Art Deco

Art deco grasps its inspiration from other art period such as art nouveau and the art and crafts movement. Art deco focuses on all aspect of design including jewelry, architecture, furniture, fashion, magazines, books and posters. All of which share the basic style of Art deco. This movement was developed in between the two world wars and incorporates geometric and linear forms. Much like pictorial modernism, art deco involves this concept of simplified forms and the idea that less is more. The artist involved during this time like the French designer Cassandre would distort reality while using space to create an effective simplified composition. The art deco style is also know to represent what was happening during the time period. Depictions of women smoking and war posters are seen because this is what was going on during the time. Typography is a huge part of Art deco as the sans serif font slowly became the font of modernism, art deco designers would create interesting arrangements of type creating a unique composition. Jan Tschichold manipulated weight and placement of type to add to his image. The best way to go about simply defining Art deco is to say it is a form of art that includes a simplistic view on reality. For example in art deco, instead of drawing a human eye designers would replace it with a simple dot. Art deco is modernism and involves the idea of new form, and materials being used.

My only question is why Art Deco stopped being the popular form of art…what events led designers to step away from this form of art?

Pictorial Modernism

Pictorial modernism is very much focused on the advertisement side of design. This art form was discovered and used throughout the early decades of the 20^th century. One of the first groups that began this form of pictorial modernism was the Beggarstaff advertising company founded by James Pryde and William Nicholson. This style of advertising is best described as being simple forms. Plakastil was the first movement of pictorial modernism and is considered to be what started the new art form. The flat colors and simple design is what pictorial modernism was all about. Bernhard was the German designer made famous for his priester advertisement that simply used two matches underneath the bold face type. In Switzerland there was another form called sachplakate which borrowed some ideas from plakastil but also developed its own style know as Basel realism. This form of realism was a new way of advertising that involved a intense style of realism made from lithographic prints. War posters had a lot to do with this era because it fell in between the two world wars. One of the most famous propaganda poster designers was Ludwig Hohlwein. He was Hitlers personal designer, and truly capture the essence of this art form by using this concept of less is more to create simplified compositions.

How come in pictorial modernism we don’t see these geometric shapes that were involved in the influences of modernism such as cubism and futurism…etc.?

Influences of Modern Art

Modern art can be described as just that…modern. It was a style of art that pushed itself away from traditional forms and motifs. In general Modern art can be looked at through the numerous styles that were discovered during the period. These new techniques and styles evolved from the radical social, political, and cultural change that occurred during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, and Expressionism all are new styles that are discovered and make up this period of art. Cubism steps away from traditional art and pushed for more geometric planes to be used. Pablo Picasso is known as the founder of this style. Picasso had a huge fascination with objects from African tribal art because of this use of geometric forms. Cubism can also be described as being a depiction of an object that is drawn simultaneously from all angles, creating the unique distortion of reality that gave cubism it’s fame. Futurism was meant to capture the mood of speed and noise. The influence for this style came from war, the age of machines, speed, and anything involving modern life. Artist that pursued this style would use typography to help capture emotion, for example they would use italics to emphasize speed and bold face type to symbolize power and violence. Dadaism is another one of these modern art forms that broke through during the early 20^th century. It was a reaction towards what happened in WWI and sought complete freedom from traditional art or any guidelines. Mainly used to protest war, Dadaist would often use collages and photomontages to portray the artist’s ideals. Also Dadaism brought this concept of using type as characters, creatively using letters to tell a visual story. Surrealism developed around the unconscious mind, and dreams. Anything that goes against realism can be seen as surrealism. The last important style to emerge out of this time period is expressionism. Expressionism is meant to capture emotion. This was done by using contrasting colors and using loose, expressive lines to create an image/feeling. Overall this period of art pushed for artist’s to be more creative and to think outside the box.

My one question about this period is whether or not these artists ever got immediate attention, or if the modern art was seen as garbage during the early stages?