Diffusion of Style in a Global Culture 601 Abbas Mushtaq
Process material 13_14
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Archive Archivo 存档
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Diffusion of Style in a Global Culture 601 Abbas Mushtaq
Process material 13_14
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Archive Archivo 存档
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Selection of process documentation and investigation into globalisation and International Style.
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La selección de la documentación del proceso en la globalización y estilo internacional.
选择的过程文件和调查，全球化和国 际化风格。
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Concept of Project & Rationale.
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The Global Development of Graphic Design & Potential Collaborations:
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The Vignelli Canon _ Notes & Analysis
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Globalisation: A Definition & Overview
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The Democratic Lecture by Craig Oldham _ Notes & Analysis
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The Global Development of Graphic Design & Potential Collaborations:
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Swiss Modernism: The Origins & Growth
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Notes from Design Manchester ‘13
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HELVETICA (2007) Director: Gary Hustwit
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Contemporary International Style Practitioners
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Massimo Vignelli x Offset 2009
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An Interview with: Experimental Jetset
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An Overview & Introduction to Swiss Culture
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Marshall Mcluhan & the Global Village
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Dieter Rams: His Principles & Work
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Cultural Globalisation is Not Americanisation: Phillipe Legrain
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Reputation: Müller-Brockmann: Eye Magazine _ 1995
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New Graphic Design Neue Grafik Magazine
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Swiss Style & Main Proponents
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Concepto de Proyecto y Justificación
15/11/13
The debate I want to look into is whether there’s a growing need, or opportunity
概念项目和理由的。
for a New Post-Modernist International Style. Or whether it’s already taking place, what will it look like? This is most interesting for me, as last year too the thing I enjoyed most was just to analyse and study, be inspired from designs around the world and compile a list of characteristics. To create a more progressive style, which is relevant to my own practice. Taking into account a developing first world, cultures being closer than ever, designers like me talking to designers all across the world and there seems to be this kind of underlying current of agreement when it comes to objectives to design. We have inspiration everywhere around the world, it’s debatable whether this is a good or bad thing. Someone like Kata Moross, the London based designer/ ilustrator definitely doesn’t agree with this. Saying her design team aren’t even allowed to engage with design blogs, tumblr’s and Pinterest in the hope of finding their own voice. She said it’s a daily challenge to maintain your own style. It’s this which is also interesting, if it’s harder than ever to maintain your own style, and design in a style you’ve seen on the internet, or for social media in order to gain accceptance and assured likes. Then surely when everyone’s doing the same style of design an International Style of Design is developing? Also I want to look into and debate the idea of globalisation, and it’s effects on culture, design and trade. With countries starting to look more and more alike each other, more and more countries speaking English, I feel there’s a need, opportunity or perhaps already taking place an international design style and need for objectivity. In fact the idea of accounting for different languages is what drove the Swiss design scene to design objectively with photography and semiotics to account for 3 different languages that were around in Switzerland. it’s these logical links which I want to make and am interested by. As Vignelli said, he sees himself as a doctor curing the world of this visual disease. He’s a classical Swiss design icon, and these designers in the 50’s and 60’s were combatting decorative, and style without substance design and the avant-garde movements of the early 20th century. Again, i think design has moved in a cycle and we’ve had the era of post-modernism and again we have this kind of movement of anti-art and design which is combatting design and technology and objectivity, almost as a rebellion AGAIN. So I feel again, there’s this opportunity and perhaps build up of this International Style of Design MK. II. I know myself as a designer, I’ve become increasingly engaged with and swayed by this minimalist, crystal clear and objective form of design. There’s beauty in the simplicity, and in my own kind of way I feel positively affected by it because in a small way it feels like I’m rejecting all the clutter and noise around me. Like
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Concept of Project & Rationale.
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Concept of Project & Rationale.
Concepto de Proyecto y Justificación
概念项目和理由的。
Vignelli said, curing the visual disease around us. So I feel the two design scenes of the International Style prominence and perhaps now are definitely linked. I feel the Swiss and International Style of design’s legacy is perhaps stronger now than ever. Fonts like helvetica, are still the driving force behind branding and corporations striving to create a positive, all-encompassing image, and these in themselves are influencing globalisation and trade/communication between countries. Helvetica is everywhere now, and will be for the foreseeable future. I feel I already have a decent grasp of the development of Swiss and International Design, I know a lot about the visual style and the legacy they had across Europe with the visual style, objectivity and fonts like Helvetica and Futura basically changing the world in a way. I need to look deeper into globalisation in terms of cultures merging together and research deeper into visual styles from around the world which adhere to these design sensibilities of the International Style. I need to look deeper into the visual styles which were around in Europe which the Swiss design scene were adamant to combat and whether these align with design movements and styles people adhere too now and whether there’s synthesis there to reinforce the idea of design working in cycles. But each time being a progression of the previous cycles. I also need to research into prominent design countries and schools of thought in the 50s when the International Style developed and whether that style of design basically spread to the well-off’ or developed countries, and then compare to the rise of the developed countries now with a merging first world with countries such as India and China, and the Far East being predicted to be even stronger in GDP than the US soon.
Peter Saville mentioned at the Manchester Design Conference - what would a typeface look like which was universal? The whole world could read and understand it. It’s ambitious but would it be possible to merge a typeface which can be read as english but also as chinese letterforms? Would this be a sign of things to come? This is really interesting and could be the culmination of the written part into the physical work. I’m sure there’s already a lot of debate and material into the ‘future of graphic design style’ which is my really early idea about the end product and conclusion of the project so it’s good to see I’ve come full circle but with more material to back it!
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Design is One.
12/09/13
The Vignelli Canon Notes: Massimo vignelli
Los Vignelli Canon Notas: Massimo Vignelli
该维格纳利佳能附注： 马西莫·维格纳利
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Notes & Analysis.
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The Vignelli Canon Notes: Massimo vignelli
Los Vignelli Canon Notas: Massimo Vignelli
该维格纳利佳能附注： 马西莫·维格纳利
The hype about the miraculous electronic universe has abated among graphic
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designers. Clearing the way for the recognition that even the most ingenious software can never replace the principles of food design. The rules of graphic design have not changed since the the analog age. A viewpoint i share “ - lars muller Have the rules changed? Maybe graphic design isn’t as specialist as it used to be, thus the frequency and engagement with the craft of design is perhaps not as prevalent as it used to be?. I learnt about disciplined design from my swiss fellows, about white space from my american fellows, about wit from my english fellows. There are 3 aspects of design that are important to me _
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SEMANTIC
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SEMANTICS
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PRAGMATIC
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SYNTwACTIC
Meaning of what we design Including _ History of the subject Info on the company, product, market position, competition, destination and of course the final user. Extremely important. Design without semantics is shallow and meaningless. But unfortunately also ubiquitous. That is why it is so important that young designers train themselves to start the design process in the correct way - the only way that can most enrich their design.
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The Vignelli Canon Notes: Massimo vignelli
Los Vignelli Canon Notas: Massimo Vignelli
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SYNTACTIC
To design something that has a meaning it is not arbitrary.
该维格纳利佳能附注： 马西莫·维格纳利
“How often we see design that has no meaning: stripes and swashed of colour for no reason whatsoever. Well they are meaningless or incredibly vulgar or criminal when done on purpose... In Graphic Design pay huge attention to the structure, the grid, typeface, text, headlines, illustrations etc. Small details subconcsiously do work and have a positive effect on the end-user.
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PRAGMATICS
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TYPEFACES AND PT SIZES
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GRIDS AND COLUMNS AND ROWS
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TYPE AND IMAGE
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GRID AND DOCUMENT SIZE
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STOCK AND INTENTIONS
“Clarity of intent. Clarity of result.” - Paramount importance in design.” We love complexities. But hate complications! Design without discipline is anarchy. An exercise in irresponsibility. There is no doubt in my mind that the most important aspects in formation of a designer should be a deep understanding of design history. Without a knowledge of the past there is no understanding of the present - formulation of the future. History, theory and criticism. There are the real backbone of design! The more we can spend time on reviewing the past the better we can understand contemporary phenomena.
RESPONSIBILITY
Too often we see printed works produced in a lavish manner just to satisfy the ego of designers or clients. It is important that an economically appropriate solution is used and is one that takes in proper consideration all the facets of problem.
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The Democratic Lecture _ Craig Oldham
La Conferencia Democrática _ Craig Oldham
民主讲座_ 克雷格·奥尔德姆
No se ha de suponer que el diseño gráfico es un medio de expresión personal. Objectivity vs. Subjectivity
OLDHAM, 2012; p56
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The Democratic Lecture _ Craig Oldham
La Conferencia Democrática _ Craig Oldham
民主讲座_ 克雷格·奥尔德姆
Objectivity vs. Subjectivity
OLDHAM, 2012; p56
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Craig Oldham
OLDHAM, C (2012) ‘THE DEMOCRATIC LECTURE: CRAIG OLDHAM’ MANCHESTER, THE UNIFIED THEORY OF EVERYTHING
11/09/13
The Democratic Lecture _ Craig Oldham
La Conferencia Democrática _ Craig Oldham
民主讲座_ 克雷格·奥尔德姆
“Design exists to improve and to inform, and to be effective it has to be understood” If you live and create in isolation, more than likely you’re going to create thing that have no place within a real environment, and so they will fail, because they have no context other than inside your head. “A lot of students, even designers in the industry, feel that if they admit that they’ve been influenced that it somehow reduces their originality that somehow it’s not their idea, and theyve just copied someone... to merely copy is to take an existing interpretation and simply re-skin it. To steal an idea is to take something of value and make it yours, make it relevant to your practice and the problem you’re trying to solve. To make an artistic element yours, you have to interpret it your way with your own approach.”
Objectivity x Subjectivity within graphic design. Agree? Artist definitely not as important in Graphic Design when compared to specialisms such as Fine Art, but if everyone plays by these ‘rules’ then there wouldn’t be such as thing as a recognisable style and recognising a certain designers work is a sign of successful and iconic work - if they played by a set number of rules to solve a problem - these individual characteristics wouldn’t be there? Clinical graphic design in past / compared to now. More self-expression and ‘trend’ orientated design culture now compared to before computer and maybe a more global culture?
IMPORTANCE & SUCCESS OF
Over the past two decades, designers seem less and less interested in solely
ENJOYING RESEARCH
solving the problems of their clients. No they’re far too interesting for that. You can trace back the origins of that Swiss/modernist, highly typographic, highly clear, with an emphasis on function and content. Britain has a world famous, and world envied creative industry every nation wishes it was theirs... Although negativity is a bad thing for the mass-majority, like everything there’s a flip-side and if used correctly, negativity can yield positive results. Knowing when to look through a slightly negative eye can be a really useful thing to a designer. Style is yearning for recognition from the peer group. Your environment will inspire you. You will draw information from every aspect of life and fine the solution to a problem in a totally different place. Wood for the trees so to speak.
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020 1929
Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus School of Arts & Crafts. Groundbreaking for its multidisciplinary design practice and adhering to a social responsibility of design.
1929
Jan Tschichold publishes Die Neue Typografie “The New Typography”. Hugely influential foundation for the develoment of Swiss modernist language.
1929
Anton Stankowski moves to Switzerland and pioneers Constructive Graphic Art. Illustrating processes rather than objects, creating abstract and emotive shapes.
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Great deal of confusion and social, political and culturual issues and contradictions at hand in Swiss history.
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Hans Neuburg came into contact with constructive design through Stankowski. Launched and edited the magazine “Industriewerbund” (industrial advertising)
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Müller-brockmann joined up with newly established association of Swiss graphic designers. Increased importance and social role of design.
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Mass immigration takes place in Switzerland in the aftermath of the SecondWorld War. Further cultural diffusion and influence shapes Swiss design.
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First edition of hugely influential Neue Grafik released, comprising of contributions from Müller-Brockmann, Carlo Vivarelli, Hans Neuburg & Richard P. Lohse.
13/09/13
Swiss Modernism: Origins & Growth
Modernismo suiza: Orígenes y Crecimiento
瑞士现代主义： 起源与成长
Developed in Switzerland in the 50’s Emphasises cleanliness, objectivity and readability. Highly typographic Apparent hallmarks of the style are asymmetric layouts, heavy use of a grid, sans-serif typefaces such as Akzidenz Grotesk. Flush left, ragged right text. Swiss style sometimes referred to as the International Typographic style. maybe implying it’s influence across Europe, and possibly the world. Williman taught typography class set up by Hans Finler in 1932 and had close ties with the Bauhaus. Zurich School of Arts and Crafts / Now known as Zurich Museum and School of Design.
“So-called Swiss design is as much “Muller-Brockmann” as it is any other single personage. It is as much a matter of discipline as a matter of style. And though it is not as much in evidence today as it was when Müller-Brockmann switched from being an illustrator to a practicing graphic designer, (with emphasis on typographic rather than pictorial solutions).” Paul Rand, Thoughts on Design 1947
Hans Neuburg came into contact with CONSTRUCTIVE graphic design through stankowski and promoted functional graphic design for industry in the 30s. Neuburg launched and edited the magazine “Industriewerbund” (industrial advertising) in 1933. Swiss design movement gained momentum with more influx of German immigrants joining the new movement, Max Dalang being instrumental. AntiFascist resistance from 1936 onwards. Political scene in Switzerland and Germany in the 30s. Did the German immigrants play a substantial role as 1936 was at the height of the Nazi fascist regime, did they escape to Switzerland and merge this with Switzerlands functional design momentum?
HOLLIS, S (2006) ‘SWISS MODERNISM: ORIGINS & GROWTH’,
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Introduction To Swiss Culture
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An Introduction to :: Swiss Culture
Una introducción a :: Cultura suiza
简介:: 瑞士文化
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An Introduction to :: Swiss Culture
Una introducción a :: Cultura suiza
简介:: 瑞士文化
Treaty of Aarau, after 1712 began to stop bickering between Protestants and Catholics - Push towards spreading freedom and religion. Industrialisation of Switzerland began between 1700 and 1800 in the North and Eastern parts. Clock and watch making industries flourished in the west.At one point, and maybe still Switzerland was the most highly industrialised country in Europe Napoleon and the French invaded, mainly after the Alps in 1798. Didn’t manage it - Swiss as a neutral state was a pattern almost broken. Constitution in 1848 transformed Switzerland from loose confederation to a unitary federal state. Making Switzerland the oldest federal democracy in the word after the United States. Switzerland began making international railroads in the 1800’s to make it easy for neighbouring countries to import cheap grain from other countries than switzerland.
Railway development had major expansion in order to be able to export goods quickly and to help agricultural, chemical and machine industry. Maintained neutrality through the second World War. Nazi’s were intimidating and unhappy with the Swiss for their cultural diversity going against their racist and fascism philosophies It was not until 1971 that the Swiss allowed women to vote. Quite late! Although thriving in political, environmental and industrial areas maybe they were lagging behind a bit in terms of gender equality - all the celebrated Swiss designers are male too.
70% German.
13/09/13
An Introduction to :: Swiss Culture
Una introducción a :: Cultura suiza
Swiss Mentality :
Swiss mentality closely resembles Western mentality with strong foundations in
简介:: 瑞士文化
liberalism, freedom and tolerance, secularisation. Swiss among one of the first nations to adopt a democratic constitution and adapt it to everyday, modern life. Widespread resentment towards anything and anybody boasting with greatness. So much so that the Swiss / German phrase “li” is added to the end of nouns. “li” means little. Muesli. Guetzli. The Swiss share this love of compact and contained features with the Germans, although they say “le”. These cultural underlying themes can relate to the Swiss style of design, contained within a grid. No real ownership or expression, even boasting of style.
Small is beautiful.
Huge emphasis on perfection , precision and punctuality. Although this can sometimes convert into more negative traits such as impatience and pedantry. Where did these traits come from though?! This kind of tradition doesn’t just come from nowhere, somebody has to start it and set the precedent?
Living in the midst of a vulnerable ecosystem and widespread tourism, the Swiss have had to learn to co-operate with nature instead of destroying or exploiting it. The lack of raw materials and heavily dense population led to early industrialisation. Resultingly always a fine balance between nature and technology Environmentally conscious > Sustainable design No environmental pollution > No visual pollution
Alps 60%
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Less, but Better.
18/09.13
Dieter Rams: Principles & Work
Dieter Rams: Principios y Trabajo
迪特尔·拉姆斯： 原则和工作
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Good Design Is -
El buen diseño es -
好的设计是 -
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0 0 06. 08.
10.
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Dieter Rams: Principios y Trabajo
迪特尔·拉姆斯： 原则和工作
02. 04. 05. 07.
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Less, but Better.
18/09.13
Dieter Rams: Principles & Work
Dieter Rams: Principios y Trabajo
迪特尔·拉姆斯： 原则和工作
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Dieter Rams: Principles & Work
Dieter Rams: Princiwpios y Trabajo
迪特尔·拉姆斯： 原则和工作
Dieter Rams work is fascinating to me because it is as good an example I’ve ever
Could Apple be a rekindling of
seen of work which is simply timeless. It looks as good today as it did then and
modernist design as an antidote to
it’s baffling why the rest of the world doesn’t look this good and considered, it’s
todays filled and cluttered culture?
not as if there are any extra materials used in these products compared to other similar goods?
A lot of Jony Ive’s designed are clearly influenced by Braun and
Dieter Rams is German industrial designer closely associated with Braun, having
Dieter Ram’s designs, some predated
worked from the 50s right up until the 90s as the lead designer of many a
by 40 years or even more.
classic piece of design which has influenced countless industrial designers, most notably in todays world Jony Ive at Apple.
Beauty in the simplicity. Thought and subtletly in the products which
I also feel Rams’ principles and work is relavent as he’s an advocate of the Swiss
today we may take for granted with
style of design, objective, functional, undemanding and efficient. Not ruling over
concave buttons perfect for function
your life and being overbearing as a piece of design etc. It’s a ‘german’ attitude to have and fits with the Swiss design ideology. I feel studying his product design and his famous 10 principles they align to the Swiss style of graphic design greatly. Dieter Rams has gone on record to say Apple is the only product design company in todays world which he still believed does “good design” and abides by his principles too.
18/09.13
Dieter Rams: Principles & Work
Dieter Rams: Principios y Trabajo
迪特尔·拉姆斯： 原则和工作
Dieter Rams
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Reputation: Müller-Brockmann Eye Magazine _ 1995
Reputación: Müller-Brockmann Revista Ojo _ 1995
声望：穆勒 - 布罗克曼 眼科杂志_1995
Article and written transcript of discussion between Yvonne-SchwemerScheddin (YSS) & Jösef Muller-Brockmann (JMB) A particular moment in this discussion is when JMB implies symmetrical layout hints of fascism, hence the reason for his use of asymmetry. Exactly the kind of information I wanted to find out by delving deeper. Unavoidable conditions, opinions, political which slightly unknowingly created the iconic visual style we know today.
You are the protagonist of the Swiss School and stand for objective, radically
:YSS
minimalist geometric design. You invented the grid system for graphic design and were the first systematically to outline the history of visual communication. For Le Corbusier, order was the key to life. Georges Braque said, “I love the law that orders the creative.” For Berthold Brecht, order covered up a deficit. What does order mean to you?
Order was always wishful thinking for me. For 60 years I have produced disorder in files, correspondence and books. In my work, however, I have always aspired to a distinct arrangement of typographic and pictorial elements, the clear identification of priorities. The formal organisation of the surface by means of the grid, a knowledge of the rules that govern legibility (lines length, word and letter spacing and so on) and the meaningful use of colour are among the tools a designer must master in order to complete his or her task in a rational and economic matter.
:JMB
19/09/13
Reputación: Müller-Brockmann Revista Ojo _ 1995
YSS:
JMB:
声望：穆勒 - 布罗克曼 眼科杂志_1995
You were influenced by Carl Jung, but then lost interest. Why was that?
You were influenced by Carl Jung, but then lost interest. Why was that? As a young man I was intrigued not only by psychology but also by graphology. When I met people who interested me I would read their handwriting and was rarely wrong in my judgements. But this gift began to disturb me, especially in my dealings with clients, where it would unnecessarily prejudice discussion. So I abandoned it overnight. Later I paid the price for giving up these analyses when I took on partners and employees whose handwriting would have given me an early warning of trouble ahead.
YSS:
What is the source of your efforts to clarify everything and aspire to what is eternally valid? Is it a protest against death, or a fear of looking behind the picture to the unconscious?
JMB:
The unconscious is part of the support structure: everything that is stored there comes to light in the work process. What I try to achieve in my work is to communicate information about an idea, event or product as clearly as possible. Such a down-to-earth presentation is barely affected by present-day trends. But it is not so much a question of making a statement that will be valid for all time as of being able to communicate information to the recipient in a way that leaves him or her free to form a positive or negative opinion.
YSS:
Why is the measurable, the demonstrable, so fascinating?
YSS:
Why is the measurable, the demonstrable, so fascinating?
JMB:
he greatest works of art impress through their balance, their harmony, their proportions, all of which can be measured. That is one of the reasons why paintings, sculptures and buildings that are thousands of years old – by the Egyptians, Chinese, Assyrians and so on – are still fascinating to us today. Mondrian, on the other hand, did not use measurements and therefore took a long time to do a painting. However, few artists possess as much intelligence, sensibility and intuition as Mondrian.
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Reputation: Müller-Brockmann Eye Magazine _ 1995
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Reputation: Müller-Brockmann Eye Magazine _ 1995
Reputación: Müller-Brockmann Revista Ojo _ 1995
So you opted for clear-sighted reason, for reducing things to their essentials –
声望：穆勒 - 布罗克曼 眼科杂志_1995
:YSS
to serve a democratic purpose?
I have always known that my illustrations, drawings and paintings are
:JMB
entertainment. They were quite good, but harmless. I was also successful in using a mix of surrealistic illustration and factual information in exhibition designs in the 1940s and 1950s, but the lack of objectivity disturbed me. So for the “Landi 1964” [the Swiss regional exhibition], I eschewed all playfulness and subjectivity and arrived at an objective typographic-pictorial solution. I had to teach myself how to look critically at my work and make distinctions between what is creative, imitative or merely intellectually calculating. After four worthless years of war I wanted to have a positive, constructive role in society. I couldn’t improve textual-pictorial communication through my artistic work but I could do so through rational-objective typography and functional, unmanipulative photography. No one can exceed his or her limitations. Any time I tried I failed. My limitations are closely circumscribed – I have not come far – but I have kept my sense of humour because I have accepted them. Switzerland is a country of the norm. Genius flees this landscape, this Zurich Gemutlichkeit, the culture of the farmer and the burgher. It is no accident that geniuses such as Le Corbusier, Arthur Honegger or the bridge-builder Othmar H. Ammann first found recognition abroad.
The magazine Neue Grafik made the Swiss School known throughout the world. How did the publication come about?
:YSS
19/09/13
Reputación: Müller-Brockmann Revista Ojo _ 1995
JMB:
声望：穆勒 - 布罗克曼 眼科杂志_1995
I had the idea in 1955 of founding a periodical for rational and constructive graphic design to counter the excessively irrational, pseudo-artistic advertising I saw around me. I allowed the idea to develop and then asked Lohse, Neuberg and Vivarelli if they would like to collaborate. The magazine appeared from 1958 to 1965. I have always regarded a book as a design opportunity, nothing more. It was more like enjoying myself in my free time. I was motivated to write something on the history of visual communication by the insight that from the beginning man has used images as a defence against his inner and outer world, his fears of a threatening environment. At the time I knew of no book that dealt with this subject. Similarly I hadn’t found anything interesting written about the history of the poster.
YSS:
JMB:
How can you be so sure that objective communication of knowledge is uplifting?
I have never maintained that objective-informative advertising is uplifting. It clearly isn’t like that, but it does reflect an honest attempt to present unmanipulated information to the general public. Subjective interpretation leads to a falsification of the message.
YSS:
One doesn’t notice the grid in your traffic posters, though your sketches for them look like Concrete Art.
JMB:
The grid allows endless individual variations. The Italian Roberto Lanterio found rich, wide-ranging solutions using the grid, the Germans use it soberly, the Swedes fill it with imagination. Its applications are as varied as the designers themselves. For the naïve designer it is no more than an aid.
YSS:
JMB:
What is your opinion of contemporary decorative and digital typefaces?
Some set themselves the task of making typography so unreadable that it is almost like a picture puzzle. The illegibility is then sold as an artistic project. I wouldn’t read something like that unless I had to. The same rational criterion applies to wobbly forms and blurred contours: can I read this faster? Text is communication of content, a fact reflected in classical typefaces and legible typography.
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Reputation: Müller-Brockmann Eye Magazine _ 1995
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Reputation: Müller-Brockmann Eye Magazine _ 1995
Reputación: Müller-Brockmann Revista Ojo _ 1995
声望：穆勒 - 布罗克曼 眼科杂志_1995
These digital experiments are a quest for a new visual idiom.
:YSS
When Picasso invented a new way of painting he didn’t say, “I experimented.” He
:JMB
had worked it through. When you look at typefaces like these, they seem feeble, and what is feeble is never good. Everything in history that has been good has had power and expression. If there is only a hint of greatness, it cannot be built upon. But when young people lack knowledge and vision, and when they are fascinated by something they think is great because they lack terms of reference, then in their ignorance they find such experiments acceptable. It’s nice to try something out – that is positive – but it doesn’t mean I should ignore the negative aspects
his is perhaps the advent of the final inertia which was described a century ago
:YSS
by H.G. Wells in The Time Machine, or the death of creativity.
Creativity is innate in everyone. It is open to new techniques, instruments and social arrangements. You can only glimpse which new creative forms will be good enough to survive the passage of time, but what we have up to now are hopeless attempts. For instance, this “C” here [Lucas de Groot’s Move me] is not closed enough, has too much of an opening. The tension is dissipated. When I was asked to do the logo, headline face and layout for the German cultural magazine Transatlantik, I told Hans Magnus Enzensberger that I was not the right man. For me a periodical is too open a vehicle. The quality of the text varies and I have no idea what form it might take in the future. To draw a typeface is too difficult for me. I am not a genius, I am mediocre. People like Bodoni, Garamond, Caslon or Baskerville were type designers of genius. I don’t consider the Transatlantik type good. I must stand by this, though it’s uncomfortable. Others must know that what I leave is not good.
:JMB
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Reputación: Müller-Brockmann Revista Ojo _ 1995
声望：穆勒 - 布罗克曼 眼科杂志_1995
YSS:
What typeface would you choose if you were a young graphic designer today?
JMB:
Berthold’s Akzidenz Grotesk and the classical Roman types such as Garamond, Bodoni, Caslon and Baskerville. I have come to value Akzidenz Grotesk more than its successors Helvetica and Univers. It is more expressive and its formal foundations are more universal. The end of the “e”, for instant, is a diagonal which produces right angles. In the case of Helvetica and Univers the endings are straight, producing acute or obtuse angles, subjective angles.
YSS:
JMB:
What influence did Japan have on you when you taught there?
In Japan I saw Noh theatre for the first time and was instantly captivated. Every movement of the Noh actor is measured and bursting with tension. Nothing is left to chance, yet it is full of life and poetry. Japanese temples also had a profound effect on me. I discovered the secrets of Zen landscape architecture only a couple years ago when I spent two days out of four in Kyoto studying Zen gardens.
YSS:
JMB:
Why was Japan interested in the Swiss School?
At the end of the 1950s Japan’s interest in the west was enormous. Then came the 1960 World Design Conference in Tokyo, to which I was invited. I outlined my teaching method. The next day two school presidents invited me to come and teach in Tokyo and Osaka. I think at first the best-known Japanese designers and architects came to my Sunday classes out of curiosity. I told them to study their own history, which contains everything they need for good design: The Noh theatre, the temples, the gardens. Their Japanese teachers at the time spoke only of Europe.
YSS:
You live in and with your books, you browse in your library. Will future generations browse only in virtual data banks? Will they still communicate?
JMB:
The experience of holding a valuable book in your hands cannot be replaced by technology, no matter how perfect. To be able to capture interesting thought in elegant typography will always be an incomparable delight. But future generations will no doubt learn to use the opportunities the data banks provide in a positive way, in a communicative spirit, because communication is basic human need.
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Reputation: Müller-Brockmann Eye Magazine _ 1995
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Reputation: Müller-Brockmann Eye Magazine _ 1995
Reputación: Müller-Brockmann Revista Ojo _ 1995
声望：穆勒 - 布罗克曼 眼科杂志_1995
Reputación: Müller-Brockmann Revista Ojo _ 1995
声望：穆勒 - 布罗克曼 眼科杂志_1995
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Reputation: Müller-Brockmann Eye Magazine _ 1995
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Reputation: Müller-Brockmann Eye Magazine _ 1995
Reputación: Müller-Brockmann Revista Ojo _ 1995
声望：穆勒 - 布罗克曼 眼科杂志_1995
19/09/13
Reputación: Müller-Brockmann Revista Ojo _ 1995
声望：穆勒 - 布罗克曼 眼科杂志_1995
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Reputation: Müller-Brockmann Eye Magazine _ 1995
Vignelli x 044
Massimo Vignelli x Massimo Vignelli x Massimo Vignelli x
13/09/13
Massimo Vignelli x Offset 2009
Massimo Vignelli x Offset 2009
马西莫·维格纳利x 偏移2009
“I see graphic design as the organisation of information that is semantically correct, sytnactically consistent, and pragmatically understandable. I like it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all timeless.” Synatictically consistent - every detail should be coherent.
“It can be the most beautiful thing in the world, but if people do not get it. You’re wasting you’re time.” Intellectually elegant. Studied architecture in Venice. Started working at architects at 16. Working on whole spectrum of design, multidisciplinary! Similar to Swiss design schools and extensions of Bauhaus. For several years before the type Helvetica came about. We were cutting letters in order to get less kerning... Finally the greatest thing that happened was Helvetica had no shoulder so we didn’t have to cut no letters. Ever since that day we have been using Helvetica in great quantity, of course. At that time design was a rather young profession, people didn’t have that much trust in it. So we used to wear a white smock like a hospital. Immediately they gave much more respect to me! Scale is intangible, size is measurable, tangible. Scale is important not size. Columns is not a grid. Introduced the notion of a grid to the newspaper, every element becames modulae. Speeding up the preparation with modules and structure. The Herald + European Journal. Effortlessly switching between graphic and product. Important with plastic to keep consistent width and design. Not considering the cup with a cut at the top, coffee flows at the top. In America, people fill to the brim, didn’t consider that! unlike “civilised” countries in europe. “That’s all design is, trapping the light and reflecting the light. Making the edge sharp or round. Making the light act in a different way.” “In the new computer age the proliferation of typefaces and type manipulations represents a new level of visual pollution threatening our culture. Out of thousands of typefaces, all we need are a few basic ones, and trash the rest, So come and see A Few Basic Typefaces.” We don’t want to have a look. I think when we have a design it’s because our design is too weak, we are not interested in personal style, or any style per se as has been classified. We are interested in raising the standards of design acceptance.” Vignelli, 1981.
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The Global Development of Graphic Design & Potential Collaborations:
El desarrollo “Global” de Diseño y Fotografía Colaboraciones potenciales
With todays global culture - collaboration can easily take place all over the world, and does. And inspirational work can be seen from all over the world from any country in the world - last year I was researching into the Tokyo Design Conference of 1960 and this was the first time any European designers such as Müller-Brockman had ever been really exposed to contemporary Japanese design and it set off a whole chain of events - this isn’t like now! It’s interesting to see where this change in culture takes us, even being a design student myself I feel regional stereotypes and reputations aren’t as prevalent as they used to be, atleast to me. It’ll be interesting to see if these reputations were/are justified and if we’re going towards a global style, just one international style and language of design?
As touched on by John. The idea of collaboration in todays internet age is fascinating and has incredible potential. Skype, Facetime, e-mail - even language isn’t a barrier you can simply just translate text at the click of a button... But at the same time in terms of design style, we’re not working in isolation anymore - so what is the result of this in terms of design styles as representations of regions. The result could be styles overlapping and the whole world producing a similar overall visual language. Good or bad?
平面设计与潜在协作的“全球”的 发展
22/09/13
El desarrollo “Global” de Diseño y Fotografía Colaboraciones potenciales
JOHN WATTERS, 2012
Wherever we turn we view an example of Graphic Design, from a logo on a
平面设计与潜在协作的“全球”的 发展
coffee maker to a road sign whilst driving. I am not going into the differing areas and discussions of ‘what is’ Graphic Design, as this has been covered in many writings by others, and can become almost philosophical.
With the growing methodology and choices in forms of communication,we see everything from social networking, online advertising viral and tweeting. This ‘New World’ communication, brings information instantly (or almost instantly) from one area of the globe to another. We see floods and famines, celebrations and births, virtually as they happen. We sit in our armchairs and see political leaders toppled in real time, sporting events and pomp and circumstance as if looking through a window. Our window to this world.
Specifically in our profession as Creative practitioners, we see forums and sample boards from every country there is, viewing the work of Companies and individual practitioners from Argentina, to Paris and from the USA to Australia, and all stops between.
In my lengthy career I have dealt with projects within my own home country, France, Belgium, Spain, Holland, Germany, USA and South Africa and others I may have forgotten about. I have had the privilege of visiting my clients and having the benefit of one to one collaboration. This, brings with it a certain specific, the opportunity to develop from a purely business collaboration, to adding a social aspect, shaking hands, having coffee (or tea), dining together, all important in the ‘business relationship’. But, alas not vital, I now spend more time emailing and telephoning, and presenting work electronically, using Skype, ISUU and sending work as multi page pdf, Keynote or Powerpoint presentations. NOT what I prefer, but time constraints and budget constraints dictate in a lot of cases.
Again, in the distant past, I would prepare design work, arrange a meeting, say in Brussels, book a flight to Amsterdam, change flight and fly to Zaventem in Brussels, get a taxi to my client and present/discuss the project. In the evening I would invite the client for dinner and spend that time socializing and planning the furtherance, or any new projects. The costs incurred usually were added to the client bill, or inbuilt into the initial quote. With the ‘tightening’ of the global purse strings, a client would look to save as much as the could to make the project more cost effective and is some cases even viable at all?
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The Global Development of Graphic Design & Potential Collaborations:
19/09/13
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The Global Development of Graphic Design & Potential Collaborations:
El desarrollo “Global” de Diseño y Fotografía Colaboraciones potenciales
What we have experienced in trading from the very beginning of time, from the Silk Road in Asia, trading with China and from Rome to the Middle East. Competition has always been there, making goods and services competitive and networking to boot.
Evolution in trading, from sailing ships to Steam ships to commercial flight all made this ’trade’ truly competitive and ‘global’. For good or bad? That is a discussion for the Pub or political rallies, and not something we need (nor want) to get into in this.
As I mentioned earlier, Boards and forums giving designers a ‘stall’ within the global market place such as Coroflot, Bitique, Cargo etc. showcase the talents and styles of millions of our peers, within an instant. Blogs are created and followed in all languages and every ‘global’ minute...as we sleep someone is working and vice versa. This happens 24 hours of each day.
The World is no longer constrained by distance. But by timezones. With our usage of electronic communication, we can compete (in theory) anywhere on our homeworld (I use this word, bearing in mind that the potential is there for the distant future).
Using Skype and Apple’s ‘Facetime’ we can still visually communicate with clients, and all that we need to be aware of is the time in A and B, and when we need to be available to discuss our work, take a brief or simply catching up. There is still no requisite to NOT visit clients, but only potential cost aspects. This discussion is only to raise an awareness of the potential. Positive or negative?
Time travel. Now we are onboard with the potential of ‘global’ practice, we can consider the potential, of not only working with clients anywhere on the planet, but collaborating with any other designer we can create links with. Websites, blogging and Design boards put us within a keystroke of each other. Language? this is a slight challenge, but not impossible. How many times have we clicked onto a Google Chrome site and it requests us if we would like a translation? There are countless translation sites at a tap, that we can use to communicate
平面设计与潜在协作的“全球”的 发展
22/09/13
El desarrollo “Global” de Diseño y Fotografía Colaboraciones potenciales
平面设计与潜在协作的“全球”的 发展
in most languages. The smart phone apps that will give us the ‘Star Trek’ instant translation both written and orally produced is available if not now, but tomorrow.
Finding associates online (no not dating) to work together, is a potential, and like minds are now working in collaboration as we speak (or write in this case). There is no reason why we can not work on a project together. We now have screen sharing where we can work on the same project at the same time, making input and editing work, making suggestions, changes or enhancing our collaborative work. This, is based on a single collaboration, it could be group? I talk to students, and I see who’s work they look at online and I encourage them to make contact and chat about the reasons they appreciate the other’s work. This scenario can be taken further, by working together, if not on a commercial job, maybe on a project of your own.
Adobe have created the wonderful Virtual Museum or Showcase, we can all have a global Showcase of Global work by collaborating Graphic or other designers. A Gallery of Global Collaborative Design.
It has always been a practice that Design Studios, when busy, would put work to freelancers and control the work for their own clients, well, we still can, but we now have a whole world to choose from. However the only constraints we can be aware of are the ‘timezones’, but that too can be not a negative, but even a positive. If we choose to work with someone, say in San Diego, while we sleep, they can progress the project (within a working day). All that is necessary is time planning and building in the collaboration rates. This is always a two way street and under the true meaning of collaboration, you may be contacted by your colleague in San Diego to work for them. Is this a pipe dream, pie in the sky or unworkable?
This is a musing in respect to the shrinking of our planet and the instant communication between professionals across continents and cultures
One day sometime ago a merchant in Persia wondered if it was possible to sell his silk to the Chinese.
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The Global Development of Graphic Design & Potential Collaborations:
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Swiss Style & The Main Proponents
Swiss Style & Los proponentes principales
瑞士样式和 的主要支持者
WIM CROUWEL
JOSEF MÜLLER-BROCKMANN
KAREL MARTENS
MAX BILL
PAUL RAND
OTL AICHER
Swiss Style & Los proponentes principales
瑞士样式和 的主要支持者
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Swiss Style & The Main Proponents
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Swiss Style & The Main Proponents
Swiss Style & Los proponentes principales
Total Dutch Style. Total Grid Style
瑞士样式和 的主要支持者
WIM CROUWEL
Wim Crouwel employed a more abstract method of communication, employing use of space and assyemtry. Bespoke letterforms and typefaces created onto the grid, instead of using a pre-made typeface such as Akzidenz Bold. Crouwel’s work visually is a progression of the De Stijl movement, combined with Swiss design sensibility.
One of my personal favourite Swiss designers and obviously one of the best
JOSEF MÜLLER-BROCKMANN
known, often clients are for music festivals, theatre and film. Often top heavy or bottom heavy, with abstract forms with great subtlety adhering to golden ratio and spirals. As seen on the Beethoven poster. Even number of vertical columns, usually 4 or 8. use of white, knock out colours, often no more than 2 colours plus stock. Stock is important. Big emphasis on heading type, plus smaller size for copy and sub heading. Assymetric
Bold colour Printing onto found materials, kind of abstract experiments. Giving work “history”
Much more intricate grids, giving a system to draw over, and overprinting to create detailed illustrations and design systems
KAREL MARTENS
Swiss Style & Los proponentes principales
MAX BILL
Max Bill’s work is a little different to work by someone like Muller-Brockmann,
瑞士样式和 的主要支持者
there’s more interplay between shapes and type, it’s not top heavy or bottom heavy, and the hierarchy of information is quite vertical with the shapes interrelated with the type. The work’s quite rustic and a lot of it looks hand-rendered as if the shapes have been cut and collaged together. Parallel lines and use of 45 degree angles to block out, and hold imagery in. Often no more than 2 different pt sizes. Less noticeable reliance on a vertical grid as other Swiss designers
PAUL RAND
Heavy use of grid, corporate branding. Applying Swiss principles to American design. Combing Swiss International Style, for corporations such as IBM. Created iconic type and image layouts - with a uniquely distinguishable sense of humour.
OTL AICHER
One of the pioneers of semiotics, did iconography for 72 Olympics. Heavy use of grid, even using the grid to draw out human/body forms. Opened Ulm School of Design with Max Bill as a progression of Bauhaus, and one of the first to teach semiotic studies, revolutionised information and wayfinding systems in the world today.
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Swiss Style & The Main Proponents
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Design
‘13
07/11/13
Design Manchester ‘13: Notes from Q&A
Diseñar Manchester ‘13: Notas de Q & A
设计曼彻斯特’13： 从Q＆A注
Manchester
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Design Manchester ‘13: Notes from Q&A
Diseñar Manchester ‘13: Notas de Q & A
Unique quality to UK design. London in particular. It’s almost a crucible of
设计曼彻斯特’13： 从Q＆A注
:Peter Saville
multidisciplinary design. Most of the recognisable art of the UK is seen as “hip”. There’s no other singular place at this time that has the same mix. Paris, fashion. Milan, product. Germany, technology. Americans have the problem of being an enormous place. Designers think they can make lots of money if you come up with something dumb enough to please them all. None are more effected than China. China wants what we have in terms of a design scene. BMW’s, Mercedes etc. The time will come when they activate their own aesthetic. Armageddon!
:Nat Hunter
More Asian students coming in to the UK to study will eventually mean more
:Peter Saville
Asian tutors.
There was around 40% Asian students on my course. Not all of us were English,
:Kate Moross
we were from all over. People bring their own backgrounds and cultures with them and slowly they merge with ours, what’s seen as British suddenly over time becomes different. That’s exciting!
I think Asian tutors in our school can be amazing. I think it’s amazing when a man
:Peter Saville
picks up a brush and does calligraphy. I think it’s really interesting.”
I think Asian tutors in our school can be amazing. I think it’s amazing when a man
:Peter Saville
picks up a brush and does calligraphy. I think it’s really interesting.”
At one point in the future. The support for Chinese language in typeface production will have to increase. At the moment there’s only about 100,000 Chinese typefaces for the Asian demographic. Different cultures pose their own problems and unique traits. For example in some cultures the number 4 is unlucky. The things we find funny, they don’t.
:Colophon Type Foundry
07/11/13
Design Manchester ‘13: Notes from Q&A
Diseñar Manchester ‘13: Notas de Q & A
Peter Saville:
设计曼彻斯特’13： 从Q＆A注
It gives you new ways to see the world. New ways to be inspired. I remember the first time I saw a Zen garden. It’s interesting because over time English has become the default language across the world. What would a global font be like? What would a font be like that works in Roman english? But has International sensibilities?
Kate Moross:
I’ve always aspired to have a “style”. That’s not in terms of how it looks, but in the way it works. For example, my approach to it. Regurgitation of design drives me crazy! At work we aren’t on Pinterest, Tumblr and so on looking at other design. Developing your own style and approach is becoming more and more difficult. Maintaining it is a daily challenge.
Peter Saville:
There’s so many people doing things. There’s so many avenues.
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Design Manchester ‘13: Notes from Q&A
Diseñar Manchester ‘13: Notas de Q & A
设计曼彻斯特’13： 从Q＆A注
Marshall McLuhan is perhaps most famous for his term “Global Village” and
Excerpts from Benjamin Syme’s
almost prophetically predicted pretty much the world we live in now, but almost
writings on McLuhan’s “Global
50 years ago in the 60s and 70s.
Village” theory & Personal Notes & Analysis
He predicted electonical items would become an extension of ourselves and our central nervous system and the world would become almost one tribal community. The instant communication through telephones bringing the world closer together and feeling and witnessing other peoples perspectives - almost through their eyes. Predicting the world wide web almost 30 years before it’s creation. Although at first pretty much shunned by scholars, in the 60s his theories came to prominence hand-in-hand with counter culture and the paranoia about social control and media. / ‘‘As electrically contracted, the globe is no more than a village. Electric speed at bringing all social and political functions together in a sudden implosion has heightened human awareness of responsibility to an intense degree’ McLuhan, 1964 McLuhan believed technology would slowly replace printed matter and society would go from an idnvidual fragmented society towards a collective identity - A Global Village. Though the World Wide Web was invented almost thirty years after The Gutenberg Galaxy, and ten years after his death, McLuhan prophesied the web technology seen today as early as 1962:
Global Village
07/11/13
Design Manchester ‘13: Notes from Q&A
Diseñar Manchester ‘13: Notas de Q & A
设计曼彻斯特’13： 从Q＆A注
The next medium, whatever it is—it may be the extension of consciousness—will include television as its content, not as its environment, and will transform television into an art form. A computer as a research and communication instrument could enhance retrieval, obsolesce mass library organization, retrieve the individual’s encyclopedic function and flip into a private line to speedily tailored data of a saleable kind. (1962) “Before I consider whether any justification lies in McLuhan’s view I need to distinguish between two different meanings in the metaphor of the ‘village’. In one sense the village represents simply the notion of a small space in which people can communicate quickly and know of every event that takes place. As he writes: ‘“Time” has ceased, ‘space’ has vanished. We now live in a global village... a simultaneous happening’ (1967: p.63). McLuhan is suggesting that through our ‘extended senses’ we experience events, as far away as the other side of the world, as if we were there in the same physical space. Watching the television premiere of the Gulf War and seeing the pilot’s eye view of missiles reaching their targets, it would seem that McLuhan is right, but we do not experience the events around us solely through our ears and eyes. There is a large space between watching a war on the living room TV and watching a war on the living room floor. Our biological senses involve us in our situation whereas there is a sense of detachment in our ‘extended senses’ echoing the detachment of the afore-mentioned pilot. Through technology we bring the action closer to us, so the pilot can get a better shot, but it also enables us to stay at a safe physical distance, so our plane does not get shot down. Is there not a sense then that we are communicating through technologies that allow us to remain physically isolated?” - Benjamin Symes - 1995
Global Village
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