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: d e t r ta le! s ll Bib a it g’s e t r er u e o b h nb a d W te r a e h u Gu o y e v Ha a? Dad New York & Jazz: A trip to Art Deco Exp e Psy rienc ing che you del M ic r in ak ner in self g wit In h fo Be au tif ul
JMC 200: Visual Communications December 16, 2014
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Team:
Aliaksandra Shatsila Georgi Dobrev
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Monika Karanikolova Roberto Herranz Rozafa Maliqi
Dear readers, Greetings and a warm welcome to the first issue of “Final Arts”! We are excited to present you with the product of our hard work. Our magazine explores diverse topics in the field of visual communications. There is something for everyone: from the Gutenberg’s Bible to Dada and Psychedelic. Read about the Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible, the first printed book in the West with movable metal type, that led to the increase in literacy among the common people. Take a journey back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries with Art Nouveau and enjoy the evolving elegant designs that united flowing, natural forms. Find out about the inspiration behind Art Deco movement – “the last splendidly self-indulgent decorative style.” Learn about Dada and Suprematism - two radically obscure movements in visual communications history that, despite being short-lived, greatly affected how art is perceived today and paved the way for conceptual art and design. Discover Russian Constructivism and the most famous representatives of the style - El Lissitzky, Stenberg Brothers and Alexander Rodchenko. With its ambiguity and enigma, its combination of all hysterical, obscure and provoking, psychedelic will answer all of your questions and will do you the favor of immersing you into the realm of sense pleasures. We are happy to have you as readers of “Final Arts” and hope you will find reading our magazine enjoyable. With warmest thanks, Aliaksandra, Georgi, Monika, Roberto and Rozafa – the editors.
TABLE OF CONTENTS The Gutenberg Bible 4 Victorian Arts&Crafts 6 Art Nouveau 8 Art Deco 10 Dada 12 Suprematism 14 Russian Constructivism 16 Psychedelic 18 The Swiss Style 20 Infographics 22
Gutenberg’s Bible Gutenberg’s Bible is the first printed book in the West with moveable metal type in 1454-55. It is also known as the 42-line Bible, because of its design. Prior to that point of time books were hand written or printed from engraved wooden blocks, these processes would take months or even years to complete. By inventing the printing press Johann Gutenberg gave us the ability to enjoy free access to so many books today. He started this new way of quick and relatively easier way of producing books and reproducing copies. You can check out this game that shows accurately how printing was done on Gutenberg’s printing machine. After the printing, on whole pages or around the text of the book were drawn images. This process is called illumination. You can see the illuminations on these two pages of the Bible. The blue color was present very often in the illuminated pages and this color was gained from a lapis lazuli stone, one of a kind. Ornamentation like this one can be seen only in the more expensive copies of books. The original is held in Staatsbibliotek PreussischerKulturbesitz in Berlin. In contrast with Gutenberg’s generation, today we enjoy not only books, but also e-books. Nonetheless, he is not forgotten. Something interesting I stumbled upon when browsing for more information about Gutenberg
was an online e-book library dedicated to him. It is called Project Gutenberg and consists of over 46,000 free e-books. You can find books in a wide range of categories there. If you want to know more about Gutenberg’s invention you can check out this documentary- The Machine That Made Us and coming back to 21-st century I’m sure you’ll be able to get a new experience next time you enter the library or when you pass by some bookstore. Having in mind through what development has passed the production of books, we are blessed today with such an easy access to so many books. All of them are here, just because once Gutenberg created the key that enabled us to open the door of endless knowledge.
by Monika Karanikolova
VICTORIAN ARTS & CRAFTS By Roberto Herranz
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ccording with the Victorian and Albert Museum (United Kingdom), the Arts and Crafts Movement began in Britain around 1880 and quickly spread to America, Europe and Japan. It was inspired by the ideas of John Ruskin and John Ruskin
William Morris, it advocated a revival of traditional handicrafts, a return to a simpler way of life and an improvement in the design of ordinary domestic objects. Personally, I have chosen this style because I think it reflects so well the culture and the society of the late 19th century. I find this style so elegant and sofisticated also.sit, tem William Morris
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especially love the different patterns, full of flowers, plants, natural live... I also love the differents drawing of women wearing dresses because even though there are a lot only in black and white, you don not really need the colors to believe the picture is almost real. They took care a lot of the details of the
drawings, of the different lines and strokes... I also love this style because it is so elegant. The Victorian Era were years of suits and hats in the men and incredible dresses in the women. All that elegance and polite social behaviour is really well expressed in the pictures.
Art Nouveau Art Nouveau or “new art” is a style that is known for its appreciation of beauty coming from the woman and nature. This style came to life during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, because the new generation of designers across Europe believed that people had enough of the Industrial Revolution and it is time that they spread beauty around. The philosophy behind the style promoted art as a way of life. That is why Art Nouveau spread in all kinds of spheres in design- art, furniture, jewelry, silverware, fabrics. Although, the style was short-lived, it is now considered as important transition between the era of technological innovation and Modernism. Since artists wanted to escape from the previously done styles they were getting inspiration from organic and geometric forms, combined in elegant designs that featured flowing, natural forms. Art Nouveau also drew attention with the posters for the Moulin Rouge cabaret in Paris, France. They were famine and had the style of Art Nouveau, which a few decades later had influence on the Art Deco style that followed.
Picture dating from 1920. Dancers performing the famous can-can dance, which originated in Moulin Rouge’s cabaret in Paris.
Alfons Mucha’s four seasons poster. Creative way to visualize winter, spring, summer and autumn (from left to right). We see the main objects of his work- women, nature and the arches surrounding them and the floral motives.
Alfons Maria Mucha was born in Czechoslovakia and moved to Paris. He is from the artists that enriched that style. He was a painter and decorative artist. Mucha was assigned to make a poster for Sarah Bernhardt, famous dance of the time, in 1894 and this gave him a kick start in his career. Since Sarah Bernhardt was so impressed by his work, she wanted him to make not only posters for her shows, but also her costumes and stages. His career was at his peak around 1900. His art influenced significantly the style of the time and elements like the arabesque hair and the aureole surrounding the female profile were and still are copied. I find his work amazing, because of the beauty in it. His posters are depicting females and nature with curved lines, very common for Art Nouveau style. His art work is very distinctive and what is unique and recognizable is that he uses mild colors, nothing that would shock you. The pictures show just pure beauty and perfection. by Monika Karanikolova
ART DECO By Roberto Herranz
As the Art Deco New York Society says in its webpage, Art Deco was the last splendidly self-indulgent decorative style, one described lightheartedly by Brian J. R. Blench in the Spring issue of the Art Deco Society of New York’s news-
letter in 1985 as “for luxury and leisure, for comfort and conviviality. It is an exciting style and should, like the archetypal drink of the period, the cocktail, be enjoyed while it is still laughing at you.” I love this style because is the art movement of jazz, cities, elegant night clubs and also the one of the Golden Hollywood Era, of course.
Boston University Exhibition, 2009
Yeehaw Industries, 2006
HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT DADA?
S Poster for Hayward Gallery, 1978
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well, dada hasn’t heard about you (either).
TH I
By Rozafa Maliqi
fact dadaism introduced ANARCHY and despite the movechaos IN ART. it stood against that this dered everything and anything: ment consi anticulture, war, itself to be d a big traditional art, art, it ha the devalues of the era. impact in f new Dada’s purpose was to velopment o be scandalous and shock styles. the general public by attacking the very definition of art. spoke to me sophy. ‘The fountain’ by because of its philo ls for what Marcel duchamp, it aimed to expose labe ncepts. which is now they are: limiting co tter considered one to a dadaist, it didn’t ma was beautiful of the most whether something influential or meaningful in a ay, artworks of straightforward w ovokes or the twentieth as long as a work pr , it was doing its century, was “offends” the public at the time job. eedom to (1917) rejected it gave unlimited fr d designers because by writers, artists, an society’s alike: es, to standards, a signed from poster collag ve poems, and urinal wasn’t meaningless repetiti eryday objects considered ‘art.’ the treatment of ev n be used. as material that ca this informal and portant avant-garde movement i think this was an im f visual happened in various places of step in the history o cause it the world at the same time. most communications be notably in switzerland, germany, ic designer’s broadened a graph france, and united states, during to choosptions when it comes o and a little bit after world war hich to ing the means with w one. sage.
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By Rozafa Maliqi
Elements basic shapes: triangles, rectangles lines, circles; & basic colors: black, white, red, yellow, blue, green, orange.
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By moving away Malevich believed from realistic that reality is not obrepresentations of the world around jective, thus he considered constructivist us, suprematism wanted to act as goals to unite people a mirror for under a humanist people. philosophy futile. Despite that difference, the geometric forms used in A suprematism contin piece ue to influence posters and designs. of art done in this style will inspire Suprematism was active in Russia an individual to throughout the years look inside of 1913 - 1922. themselves in order to interpret it.
-K b - P iev . 18 ar olis , Ru 79 - M tist. h a ssia d. 1 va n 93 Pa os n E t c -g mp 5 an intin ow ar de ire - “ d A g, Sch of No rchi Scu ool im rea mor tect lptu of de age lity, e ‘l ure. re, se s, ’ n ike rt! no o i ne ”* th de ss * ing ali es Suprematist ideas rg sti o . b y r continue to influence ut c sto t r a modern day communication hea t designs. **
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Art Movement
Kazimir Malevich has described the movement as “the supremacy of pure feeling or perception...” as opposed to a realistic visual representation of objects.*
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Black Square, 1915, Malevich
This movement impressed me because of the simplicity with which it was trying to convey a profound message.
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SUPREMATISM
*Source of quote: MoMA.org The Last Futurist Lab, 2012
Suprematist Batman Malevich Exhibition, Poster, 2010 2014
by Aliaksandra sh atsila
“We hold that the fundamental features of the present age is the triumph of the constructive method.... Every organized work whether it be a house, a poem, or a picture - is an object directed toward a particular end, which is calculated not to turn people away from life, but to summon them to make their contribution toward life’s organization.”
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Stenberg Brothers Constructivist Soviet artists and design“The Man with a ers attempted to put their talents to use Movie Camera” for the new communist state. Their gen(1929) eral slogan was “Art into Life” and their goal was, as Vladimir Tatlin put it, “to unite purely artistic forms with utilitarian intentions.” They were inspired by ideas from Cubism, Suprematism and FuturAlexander ism, but at the heart of Constructivism Rodchenko, was an entirely new approach to making Dobrolet (1923 objects, one which sought to abolish the traditional artistic concern with composition, and replace it with “construction.” I have The seed of Constructivism was a desire a particuto express the experience of modern life lar interest in its dynamism, its new and disorientating Constructivist art qualities of space and time. But also cruand ideas for several cial was the desire to develop a new form reasons. Firstly, I am from a of art more appropriate to the democratpost-communist country, and conic and modernizing goals of the Russian Revolution. Constructivists were to be structivism and its relation to the USSR and communism is a part of its history. constructors of a new society Secondly, the Constructivists worked on public cultural workers on a par festivals and street designs for the post-October revolu with scientists in their tion Bolshevik government. What I found out is that the search for solutions most famous of these were in Vitebsk – my hometown. There Mato modern levich’s UNOVIS Group painted propaganda plaques and buildings (the problems. best known being El Lissitzky’s poster Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919)). Then, my favorite poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was heavily involved in the creation of constructivist posters by ‘ROSTA Windows’, a Bolshevik public information campaign of around 1920. Inspired by his declaration ‘the streets our brushes, the squares our palettes’, artists and designers participated in public life during the Civil War.
El Lissitzky “Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge” (1919)
Alexander Rodchenko “Books” (1924)
References: “Constructivism Movement” http://www.theartstory.org/movement-constructivism.htm
c i l e d che
By Georgi Dobrev
y s P
experienc
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was a reaction medium for Psychedelic art design is artist achieves by attempt- the widespread issues over a branch of design that ing to depict the inner women’s rights, the social derives its name from the role of authority, inspiration of “psyhuman sexualichedelic experity as well as the ences” in a state of experimentation “mind revealing”. with drugs of psyThose experiencchoactive nature. es, in most if not Its immediate all cases, refer to popularity spread the altered state of to include dress consciousness after design, music, the consumption of language, and some psychedelic Psychodelic experiences - an illusional paradise even philosophy drugs such as LSD, of colliding dimentions world of a person. The viand literature. psilocybin mushrooms, cannabis and many others. sual art is initiated during a 1960s counterculture According to the British movement and continued psychologist Humphry to gain popularity during Osmond the word, along the African-American Civil with the style of design, Rights movement and the relates to the Vietnam War. In some “mind manifesting” an cases, psychedelic design
“First you will see a spot. The spot will become a crack. This is the crack between the nothing, and out of this nothing will come your unborn soul.”(caption from the movie Altered States) Whether you appreciate the obtrusive nature of the psychedelic art or disgust yourself by your contact with it, psychedelia has embraced people’s culture for well over 50 years. In fact the time frame of this style’s existence is just as illusory as the very nature of psychedelic style. Its origin dates back not to the first visual representation of the radiating multi-color circles but to the times of the irst drug consumption, of the first daydream and nightmare, of the very start of the human belief in God. It associates irrelevance in an altered consciousness. Psychodelia is the anarchic realm, the mind bond-braking with reality, the escape from the existent human oppression through the flow of illogical thoughts.
Sonatine, Christian Ward
What I find fascinating is the charisma of the style, its enigma. Art as people perceive it nowadays is expected to link to some real-life analogy, rebel against a commonly held belief or depict that other viewpoint people associate themselves with. While psychedelic design could possibly combine
Psychedelic fish all that, it surely goes two to three steps further. It doesn’t simply challenge authority like Dada, it diminishes it from reality. It wouldn’t only stick to the gracious eclectic elegance of Victorian style, but will further its reception to all your human senses – sight,
smell and taste. It won’t align to the urges of Constructivism design, but will illuminate them wordlessly.
Logo of Psyhedelic e-magazine
Field, Tree, Sun; Psycholedil landscape
Bubbly Sun; Technique used: micro pen on bristol board
Liquid Friends; Nikos Gyftakis
Rederences: “Psychedelic 60s.” Graphic Design History. Northwest College Graphic Design, 04 May 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2014.
Psychedelic Pop Art; Nicky Barkla
By Georgi Dobrev
Swiss Style
International Typographic Style or Swiss style is commonly associated with the graphic design developed in Switzerland in 1950s, following the end of World War II. The style puts primary emphasis on the official layout, objectiveness and readability. It also relies on sans-serif and gridded typefaces believed to express the spirit of a futuristic progressive age, while also serving the need of society, informing them through its visual design in the most convenient of ways. At the time of its
expression
Helvetica
One of the first Swiss International Style posters.
ways. At the time of its original release, Ernest Keller, an Applied Arts professor at the Zurich School insisted that “a solution to the design problem should emerge from its content.” The most famous of all typefaces that emerged as a result, Helvetica, conveyed the sense of comfort and easiness to acquire as common by people’s consciousness. The following manifestation of the style derived from its combination of both an “espresso feeling” of comfort and office-like sense of universality.
Helvetica was probably the greatest product to come out of the Swiss Style’s effort to bring uniformity to the typeface realm. Its initial purpose to bring rationality, smoothness and color neutrality are all features that have kept it intact till modern days. My fondness of that style comes from its widespread use for the most part of the 20th century and its multi-purpose. You will rarely see a design so elegant and yet so natural in its visual communication. It
One of the many Helvetica trannsformations - Hlevetica Neue 75 Bold
communication. It transcends the stigma that one typeface is unable to serve as an informant code and a comforting quick-read simultaneously. A person is literally engulfed by the style. He goes shopping to the mall surrounded by Helvetica, he eats food labeled on the package by Helvetica, he travels with the subway which title screams “Helveticaaa!!” A person doesn’t read Helvetica – he absorbs it.
Giselle psoter created by Armin Hofmann, one of his many artworks associated with the Swiss Typographic style
References: Hollis, Richard. “Swiss Graphic Design.” Google Books
Infographics: Making Information Beautiful By Aliaksandra Shatsila It all started as a social media experiment and then suddenly so many infographics have gone viral that it is practically impossible to ignore them. No matter what you are searching for online, whether employment statistics or endangered animals, you are sure to find an infographic for it. Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and clearly. They can improve cognition by utilizing graphics to enhance the human visual system’s ability to see patterns and trends. The process of creating infographics can be referred to as data visualization or information design. Infographics has been condemned by some artists , like Neville Brody, who believe that presenting information with images is “beguilling and seductive.”When infographics first exploded on the Internet, designers got a bit carried away. Everyone started competing with each other over who could come up with the most vibrant, creative and elaborate piece possible. While the infographics produced as a result
A chart depicting the environmental footprint of each country. The visual apeal is reached through showing the actual footprint, composed of circles, which symbolize the contribution of a single country.
of this ill-directed movement proved effective for link baiting and viral purposes, they did not fulfill their real purpose. They had become more about form than function and the data was lost somewhere between the striking typography, the over-the-top artwork and the obscure representations. Data had become secondary even though infographics, by definition, are one half information and one half graphics. However, I believe that in our world infographics is the most efficient way of presenting information. Firstly, as we are heading into the new decade, we want to read less and see more. Secondly, it is all about the properties of our brain. We receive input from all five of their senses (sight, touch, hearing, smell, taste), but significantly more information comes from vision than any of the other four. Fifty percent of the
human brain is dedicated to visual functions, and images are processed faster than text. The brain processes pictures all at once, but processes text in a linear fashion, meaning it takes much longer to obtain information from text. Thus, infographics spice up “boring” data and augment our perception of information by turning historically lengthy and tedious bulks of data in to something that’s much more interesting: a visual. This is one of the things you don’t notice, but when you think about it, you realize how influential it is. Despite the criticism they get, infographics are an effective tool of helping us make sense of information of any kind and complexity.
With so many different variations, it can sometimes get confusing for some of us to know exactly what we want to order at a café. A nice way of telling the difference between different types of coffee to help make a choice.
Thsi infographic encapsulates millions of years of evolutionand numerous periods. Instead of making us read loads of text about the evolution of the Earth and living creatures, the designer created one big gorgeous time spiral with great attention to detail.
A visual showing the circles of hell according to Dante’s “Inferno”- each layer depicts who gets there, what they are sinful for and what punishment they get.
References: “Infographics: How to Strike the Elusive Balance between Data and Visualization” Pictures courtesy of The Daily Egg (http://blog.crazyegg.com)