FORM.
FOLLOWS.
FUNCTION. Research Document
NEW VISUAL LANGUAGE
modernism post modernism modernist movements post modernist movements existing covers existing mast heads the grid system mast head design cover design 2
CONTENTS PAGE
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MODERNISM
From the 19th century to the early 1960’s, modernism became the term used for the success of art movements which dominated Western cultures. As part of research I have learnt about the movement provided a new learning platform for art culture.
The idea of the ‘modern’ movement in Graphic design meant the exploration of colour, non-traditional materials becoming used in art experimentation and photography became a new method for artists to depreciate and reinterpret their own artworks within modernism.
The movement associates Modern arts with the idea of Surrealism and Futurism. Some other key words to take into account and research into would include, Marxism, Fauvism,Cubism Dadaism, Constructivism and Existentialism.
Artists’ such as Wassily Kandinsky were involved in this movement and his work is a prime example of how the era created new opportunities to break the rules and express yourself through your work. New outputs were to be the next explored.
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KANDINSKY
Wassily Kandinsky was one of the influential artist’s of the modernism era. He was a Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting one of the first purely abstract works. He worked at the Bauhaus (1922–1933) and taught a basic design class for beginners and the course on advanced theory within the school. His work is included on these two pages as examples of how the work he created was involved in the Modernism movement.
I find his work to abstract in exact demonstration to how the movement introduced new insight into artworks throughout design. With the works of Wassily Kandinsky, the colours used are very defiant of the Modernist era. I love the layouts of the images and how that are not set in their ways, how he can develop the images and how they’re also then non linear. The images also feel very abstract and strangely distorted.
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MODERNISM
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MIGUEL COVARRUBIUS
The piece to the left is a piece by Miguel Covarrubius and named The Tree of Modern Art- Planted 60 years ago. It appeared before Alfred Barr’s “Diagram of Stylistic Evolution from 1890 until 1935” and uses the names of schools and movements of art. One might question, why a tree as the metaphor, but the tree expresses continuity and change design movements have faced. Designed by Covarrubius, it was for Vanity Fair in 1933 and was explaining the art movements.
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POST-MODERNISM
Of all movements in art and design history, postmodernism is perhaps the most controversial. This era allows the idea of modernism to expand and develop through the unstable mix of theoretical and theatrical exhibition. The movement provided thrill and multifaceted styles that ranged from the colourful to the ruinous.
As we approach the 80’s,post modernism took a new turn. This included the designer decade. With vivid colours, exaggeration galore prints and theatrically infused design, everything was a style statement. Surfaces were made to be over the top, fun and combined subversive statements with commercial appeal.
The 1960s and 1970s saw experimentation with architectural styles from the past. This tendency was attacked by hostile critics as a retreat, as pastiche or as merely ironic. The era contained such a dramatic turn that when it first came in, it was something everyone wanted to be doing in work.
This era showed the likes of Terry Jones. His work is pictured and shows the true vibrancy and how the colours and gloss were put to use and created statements. He was the founder of i-D magazine and this is an absolutely perfect example of post modernist design and culture in the art.
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TERRY JONES
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MODERNIST MOVEMENTS
Impressionism was a 19th century art movement that was originally formed by a group of Paris-based artists. They are well known for independent exhibitions that were prominent in the 1870’s and 1880’s. In the era, the key elements to the work of the artist’ was that they captured their images with smaller amounts of detail but with the use of coloration pigments of soft tones. The work situated to the right is an oil painting by Monet and demonstrates how the artist has captured the hint of detail and pigmentation in his work.
Monet Lavacourt Under Snow about 1878-81
‘Impressionist’ was not at first a term thought of positively. It was originally used as an insult towards the work of a group of painters in Paris, 1874 at an exhibition. Some of the initial artist’s involved with the movement were the likes of Monet, Renoir, Pissarro and Degas whereas the development of the movement was pushed further by Manet. This painting to the right, is also the works of Monet and captures true Impressionism in the art form. His colourations in this image are bold however, this image also contains detail which is a surprise in this era.
Monet The Water-Lily Pond 1899
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IMPRESSIONISM
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MODERNIST MOVEMENTS
Henri Matisse, 1906
Fauvism was originally founded by Henri Matisse and André Derain in the early Twentieth Century. It’s aim was to move modern art onwards and to create balanced, visually strong and independent art. Artist’s that were involved in the movement included Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Seurat and Paul Cézanne.
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Fauvism’s major goal in the modern art era was to separate colour from it’s descriptive purpose and allow it to just exist on a canvas. This made an independent element instead of a work of art with description of pigmentation. Colour could then project a mood without having to be true to it’s expected state.
FAUVISM
Van Gogh- Starry Night, 1889
Another concern with Fauvist’s is that the overall balance of compositions were being affected by creation of overcrowding in imagery. The Fauves’ simplified forms and saturated colours drew attention to the flatness of the compositions within the pictorial space and gave a visual impression of strong and unified visual language.
Fauvism valued individual expression above every other concern and goal. To them, it was about how the artist connected with his work and how his emotional response to nature and his intuition were more important than any academic theory. All components that made Fauvism were employed in the service of this goal.
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MODERNIST MOVEMENTS
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FAUVISM
Henri Matisse, 1904 Luxe, calme et voluptĂŠ
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How does Cubism work? The artist’s aim was to show new and interesting viewpoints at the same time through suggested three dimensional forms with emphasised two dimensional flatness. It marked a break through in European tradition that had been dominated from the Renaissance onwards.
How did it all begin? Cubism was one of the influential visual art styles of the early 20th century. It was founded by artist’s Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque around 1907. Picasso’s painting ‘Demoiselles D’Avignon’ was the first work to include Cubist style.
Inspirations? Paul Cézanne was a heavily influential artist of the Cubist era and we can see this in his work as it explores a wide set of views through a painted image. Picasso was inspired by highly stylised, non-naturalistic works that distributed the norm however, with a brand new angle to gaze upon.
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CUBISM
GEORGES BRAQUE
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CUBISM
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PICASSO, 1924
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MODERNIST MOVEMENTS
Pablo Picasso- Seated Nude 1909-10
Analytical cubism arrived from 1908 to 1912 and is a lot more severe to the eye. The works are planes and the lines created in muted tones of blacks,greys and ochres.
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ANALYTICAL VS. SYNTHETIC CUBISM
Pablo Picasso Head of a Man 1913
Synthetic cubism dated from around 1912 to 1914 and characterised simpler shapes with brighter colours. Collaged elements like newspapers and real objects are included.
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MODERNIST MOVEMENTS
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DADAISM
Dadaism was a movement of Hugo Ball: “For us, art is the Avant-garde in the early not an end in itself but it is an opportunity for the 20th century. It emerged true perception and criticism during the brutality of World of the times we live in”War I (1914–18). written in 1916. For many artists during the Dada movement, the war opened up a new era and deterioration of most social structures that led to violence, corrupt national politics and conformity of culture. For the majority of the artist’s, the aesthetic of their work was pulled away and put to a more secondary importance to the ideas that they were conveying.
Dadaists embraced and critiqued modernity. They did this by infusing their work with references to technologies, films, newspapers and adverts. These were to define the art life of Dadaists.
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MODERNIST MOVEMENTS
Raoul Hausmann, 1923-24
Francis Picabia. Dada Movement. 1919
The magazine Der Dada articulated many of the group’s political and artistic convictions. It served as a venue for it’s members first experiments with typography and collage. It appeared in June 1919. Hausmann and Baader, received permission from Dada founder Tristan Tzara to use the name.
Francis Picabia was a French painter, writer, illustrator, designer and editor, who was successively involved with Dadaism. If Dada, as claimed, was a noisy alarm that woke up modern art from merely aesthetic slumber, then this drawing shows us how the alarm was sounded. It historically plots the flow and the current of modern arts.
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DADAISM
Kurt Schwitters, Merzbild, 1919
Kurt Schwitters, UndBild 1919
Kurt Schwitters was classed as one of the most engaging artist’s of art of the 20th century. His art is invariably grouped with Dada and allows a perfect example of the movement. Schwitters was intrinsically a Dada but due to personal clashes, would not allow himself to commit to the ‘membership’ of Dadaism.
“He’s one of those personalities whose inner structure was always Dada by nature. He would still have been Dada even if the Dada call had not been sounded.” This was written about Schwitters by the founder of Dadaism Tristan Tzara and his understandings were made from that of Schwitter’s works.
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ART MOVEMENTS
The Bauhaus was founded by Walter Gropius in 1919. It’s main focus was to try and re-imagine the material world to reflect the unity of all the arts. Gropius explained this vision for a union of art in the Proclamation of the Bauhaus, which described a utopian craft guild combining architecture, sculpture, painting into single creative expression. The Bauhaus featured a craft filled curriculum that would soon turn out artists capable of creating artworks for new systems of living.
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BAUHAUS
Lesson 1.
The main lesson was that despite the need for artistic flair, focus on readability and narrative first. The Bauhaus School made sure that all pieces of work produced should embody principle.
Lesson 2.
The next lesson was that there was always a connection between colour and shape. The lesson was that colours and shapes could hold deeper connections than we realise and therefore we should establish them before acting. Consider the combinations carefully.
Form should always reflect a design’s function to enchance it’s capabilites.
Utility must be completely put first.
Use the design to reinforce the message alternatively to relying soley on the design. 27
Post-modernism refers to a collection of ideas and cultural trends than an actual artistic movement. Critics and theorists have offered differing views on when Post-modernism truly began however, the idea they grounded was that it is simply a groundless concept concocted by academics, like that of the Bauhaus.
Theorists from the Bauhaus seek to overcome all that was prevalent during the Modern movements and they view the key ideas and values of this era as equality , freedom and naturalism. Deconstructive Post-modernists argue that such values are baseless as they rest on certain confident assumptions about the way the world is, however there is nothing in the world knowable or even understandable.
Constructive Post-modernism is a more proactive theoretical approach which does not reject modernism but rather seeks to revive it’s ideas and values. It is in many respects a call to return aesthetic beliefs alongside science and ethics that were understood to be united, so that artists did not consciously differentiate between what is aesthetically pleasing and spiritually profound.
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POST-MODERNISM
René Magritte
RENÉ MAGRITTE
The Treachery of Images 1928-29 is a painting by René Magritte. The picture shows a pipe. Below it, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.”, or “This is not a pipe.”
“The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it’s just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture “This is a pipe”, I’d have been lying!” His statement means that the image itself is not a pipe, it is merely a painting of a pipe, therefore the description ‘this is not a pipe’ would be correct.
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POST-MODERNIST MOVEMENTS
Artist Jamie Reid designed artwork for the Sex Pistols album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, which includes the song “Anarchy in the U.K.” His artistic style helped define the artistic look of the English punk rock scene of the late 1970’s.
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PUNK
Reid launched Suburban Press that specialised in producing material for anarchists, women’s groups and others. With Suburban, he developed his style of cutting up graphics and elements, fusing them together for a look not unlike a ransom note. He then worked with Sex Pistols on their album cover.
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PUNK MOVEMENT
As the founding editor of Punk Magazine late 1975, his work became representation of the punk era. Punk stopped publication in 1979 and John became a designer for the Video Games magazine and K-Power. His work with cartoon and illustration in the past allowed his work for Punk to be clean cut and fresh faced image for the publication. Holmstrom used the Punk to enthuse his work and allow the magazine to thrive. The designer became popular in the Punk era and took his designs further with the other companies. These are a few of his designs for publication ‘PUNK’ to demonstrate how punk is visualised.
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JOHN HOLMSTROM
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POST-MODERNIST MOVEMENTS
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DE STILJ
De Stilj was another Avant- Garde movement, emerging in response to the horrors of World War I in a attempt to remake society in the war’s aftermath. Art was viewed as a mean of social and spiritual redemption. Members of the De Stilj embraced the new vision and it’s truly transforming potential. The era saw the introduction of the rectangular geometry in the work and experimented with bold colour and grid work for layout work. Works were formed by the founders of the movement, Theo van Doesburg/Piet Mondrian, and allowed the progression of their innovative ideas for design. De Stijl’s influence was felt most in architecture, helping International Style of the 1920s and 1930s.
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EXISTING COVERS
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DG
DG is a design based publication and works as a platform for other artists to be inspired by a variety of works within the ever growing design industry. The covers shown on these pages, I selected for their use of space within the cover page and filled image. When doing my own work I want to make one piece a definite article.
This will be done by creating the cover as a significant image rather than smaller images and this will be inspired by previous research alongside development and some experimentation with layout grid design thumbnails and preparation physical sketch-work to build upon. I will then experiment with my work.
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EXISTING COVERS
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VANITY FAIR
Vanity Fair is an American publication. It is a popular cultures and current affairs magazine. The covers are very much set in a layout of a large main image and typography to suit that image in colour and font. If the image shows a ‘classier’ Origin or particularly well thought of act in the photo the font seems to be of a more archaic nature. I have looked at this magazine as it could influence my layout and how I present my front cover.
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For years the Sunday Times has been publishing their magazines within their newspapers. The covers, new and old, show diversity and personality within the publication write up however, also sticks to a similar pattern for layout and grid technique. Each cover can be seen to have a main image filling the space, followed by a clear, well thought through mast head to the top of the cover page centrally. This is set throughout covers.
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EXISTING COVERS
With this technique the article titles, image and mast head all form a strong image and minimalistic look however striking in use of photographic media. I will look into how I can use my work’s typography, design and photography to provide complimentary attires to one another through my layouts and grid work. The image I am looking for is both post modern and modern as I want to achieve a classy, glossy look.
THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE
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EXISTING COVERS
The existing covers for the publication ‘Total Film Magazine’ allow another side to be shown in the creation and layout of a magazine. These all share the same set up and grid system and show how it can be individually a different topic and genre yet the layout behind the scenes of design can be of the same system. For a perfect example, with this layout the cover contains it’s masthead to the top centre again like the others.
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TOTAL FILM
However, the overall cover is crowded with typography that fits with genre and photography, such as red and white with grey. This is what I need to look at when creating my masthead as I would like my typography of it to fit with the image I am trying to portray. I want to be able to use the masthead to master my clean cut image that I want to achieve without it clashing with my work and not allowing it to flow as a publication piece.
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EXISTING MASTHEADS
MASTHEAD The title of a magazine at the head of the first or the editorial page.
TITLE Although the masthead allows the name of the publication to be known, it also is part of the style of the magazine and how it appeals to the people read it. The typography element, as Bauhaus made clear, is important for readability.
IMAGE The overall image the masthead creates is important towards how the publication is received visually. The sharp font and tidy typography for ELLE, for instance, allows the name of the magazine to be known at the same time as creating a clean cut imagery to create standard. The overall image of the masthead is giving credit and acknowledgement to the publication and defining it.
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ELLE
ELLE In this case, the cover is working to incorporate the images into the masthead design. However, the images are still placement central with the masthead at the central top ,bold and powering, to the rest of the pages’ layout. ELLE’s masthead is clear, sharp and readable to eye. All of the elements will be looked at and developed into my own work with an amount of experiments through visuals and sketches.
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EXISTING MASTHEADS
As discussed in my initial research for Post-modernism, i-D was founded by Terry Jones and looked upon as a fashion based publication. The overall look for the magazine is colourful and bold in imagery. The covers shown on this page are prime examples of the design work put into the covers. The masthead in this image is delicate to rest of the image and works perfectly with the colour of the photography. The colours are chosen to match or blend with the images chosen for the cover and allow the publication to stand alone with it’s name known.
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i-D
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THE GRID SYSTEM
“The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice.�
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JOSEF MĂœLLER-BROCKMANN
DON’T
break
the grid
A grid is a frame work of design to sustain a visual hierarchy. It is a structure of horizontal and vertical straight lines that form a fixture for a layout for a graphic designer to design in.
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EXPERIMENTATION
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MAST HEAD DESIGN
new visual new visual language language Avenir Next , 50pt, Regular
Helvetica, 50pt, Regular
new visual language
new visual language
Stone Sans Sem ITC TT, 50pt, Semi
Bangla MN, 44pt, Regular
The sketches situated to the left of this page are my initial, simplicity ideas towards my mast head and the beginning of my work towards creating it. The ideas I am mainly inspired by are the mast head used for the publication ‘The Sunday Times Magazine’ and the i-D magazine. I want to create both of the feels that these publications have towards them. My idea of creating a classy and sophisticated style of magazine must be reflected by my cover and especially my mast head designing exploration. These were then below elaborated on and placed into illustrator to create new images and ideas for the mast head to which these were some of the many outcomes I could use.
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THUMBNAIL LAYOUTS
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MAST HEAD DESIGN
These mast heads and sketches have been made to process through digital editing and are for the development of my mast head design and covers. I think this page is just little insights into my ideas and thoughts behind how I want my magazine to look.
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EXPERIMENTATION
After these were created I looked at working with the abbreviated form of name for the magazine and how I could try and incorporate this into my work. I want to also look at using shapes in my mast head to create diversity in how my magazine looks rather than just have the typography. I experimented with previous sketches to create a masthead design.
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MAST HEAD DESIGN
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EXPERIMENTATION
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MAST HEAD DESIGN
For my mast head I wanted to use basic colours as well as create a minimalistic look for the publication. I started by creating the type and putting this alongside the strong shaping of the circular logo. I wanted to also have a clean cut feel to my imagery. The colourations in this mast head allow you to swap and change depending on the publication front cover and how I use my photography from my projects to create that perfect front cover for publication.
The general idea for this mast head came from inspiration from the i-D cover and how depending on the subject focus of the image behind the masthead, the colouration of the mast head would change. I want to now work on selecting the perfect images from my project photography to work with the colour selections shown in the following mast head designs. This should be rather simple as the idea behind this pigmentation was to create a simple coloured canvas.
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EXPERIMENTATION
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COVER DESIGN
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EXPERIMENTATION
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COVER & PAGE DESIGN
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EXPERIMENTATION
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COVER & PAGE REDESIGN
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FORM. FOLLOWS. FUNCTION
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