Form Follows Function
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Modernism
The modern artist is working with
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space and time and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating
By Jason Pollock
Modernism refers to a broad movement is western art which is why its difficult to define what Modernism is. Modernism encompasses a variety of different art movements such as: Symbolism, Futurism, Surrealism, Expressionism, Dadaism including many more. Some would even say that modernism isnt necersarily a style but a way of thinking. Many modenists believe that ‘form follows function’, this is the principle that when designing (for example, a building) that you would would design the building with the optimimum amont of space that you could, some modernist buildings would be very open plan and simplistic structural design. Simpllistic and refined design essential for a modernist design in any form, however, the use of colour was widly experimented with however for modernist design primary colours are the most widly used.
Form Follows Function
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Russian Constructivism
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Like New Objectivity, Constructivism
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is an attempt to liberate us from the subjectivity of our Expressionistic excesses.
Constructivism originated in russia in 1919 and it was the last inflluencial to stem from russia to date. Constructivism aimed to replace tradional art techniques and aimed to replace them with a focus on construction using new found modern tenciques. This helped to lead to the design on function objects and overall it helped lead some forms of design into mass production. Constucttiviststs desired the oppitunity to express the thrill of modern life. Constructivists often worked with industrail materials such as glass, stell, and plastic therefore using ‘real materials in real space’.
Form Follows Function
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Bauhaus
An eagerness to experiment, open-
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ness, creativity, a close link to industrial practice and inter-nationality
By Gropius
The aim of Bauhaus was to bring art back into contact with everyday life. Bauhaus was the most influencial art school of the 20th century. The bauhaus movement gave way to a stress on uniting art and indutrial design. Even artists as well know as W.Kandinsky went to Bauhaus school of art. One of the key ideas behind the Bauhaus movemnet was to prevent art’s loss of purpose in society. To combat this Bauhaus aimed to unite creativity and manufacting. Bauhaus teches to broden your horizions and take inspiration from the world around you.
Form Follows Function
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Piet Modrien
The emotion of beauty is always obscured
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by the appearance of the object. Therefore the object must be eliminated from the picture.
Towards his later years modrian reduced his shapes and pallette to an absolutly fundamental basis. Simplicity is key.
By key keeping this strict simplistic style, he represented two opposing forces of vertical and horizontal. I have included Piet Modrian into my work as I wanted to remind myself that even by keeping extreamly simplistic work you are able to connote a vast variety of ideas.
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Dada
For us, art is not an end in itself... but it is
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an oppitunity for the true perception and critism of the times we live in.
By Hugo Ball
Dadaism is the movement that I want to focus on most. Dadaism is a form of art that dipicts anarchy. Often Dadaism is used to show discust for social, political and cultural values. Dada is very musch used to show rebellions against the establishment. The irony of Dada is that it protests to be anit-art in a sort of fashion but many people sit and study its artworks. Dada and Punk music are very similar in the fact they both clashed against the establishment and aim to make a statement. A llot of Dada and Punk design can be very against the norm and as bold as possiable in orfer to fulfil its aims and this is my aim with my magazine.
Form Follows Function
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Post-Modernism
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I pursue no intentions, no directions; I have no program, no style and no mission
By Gerhard Richter
The best way to describe post modernism is to contrast it as a set of ideas against modenism - just like modernism you can not define postmodernism by one particular style. Postmodernism rejected the notion of the simplistic pure form and artists would pay no attention to tradiotal design lechniques or theories of composition. Rather than being to strict with designs post modernism would often use a variety of materials and would be more able the expression with the w http://postmoderntimes2000.blogspot.co.uk/ ork.
Form Follows Function
V. Westwood and Malcome Mclaren + The Sex Pistols Here I have chosen to look at some of Vivienne Westwoods early postmodernist punk designs. She created a number a rauchy and non raunchy designs in the aim of making a statment. I would like to use influences from some of these peices of work to create my own postmodernist stiking magazine cover. In these designs you can see a variety of color, peices that dont need to make sense, rips are tears and also a play on innocence. I think these examples and the punk genre as a whole is a whole is an excellent example of postmodernist expression.
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Industry Work
Here I have looked at a variety of magazines both inside and out. I love the experimentation and the roughness of the postmodernist magazines. The ability to experiment with different colours and shapes the bring a personal uniqueness to the design works well. I have found that it often more ‘alternative’ music magazines which express the postmodernist traits particually well as the bands themselves tend to offer there own spin on the design, However when it comes to content of a magazine, I think that a modernist trait becomes particually important. Especially to ensure that your work is legiable for a wide audience, Thereofore I think, when creating a magazine (especially in this intance) it would be better to design a Post-modernist front cover to attract an audience with an modernist inside to ensure the work is legiable for all forms of audiences and by using the two forms together creating a better and substancial design.
Ray Gun was an alternative rock magazine in America, the Ray Gun designers after experimented with a very postmodernist style which for this magazine works extramly welll. One thing that is obvious with there postmodernist magazine covers is that the type does need to always be legiable - especiallly with an established name or brand.
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Magazine designs typefaces
NVL NVL
NVL
Impact - this was the inital font I looked at using for my masthead on the magazine, this was mainly because it was bold and easily stiking and appealing. However I soon thought about making my font fit the work and impact didnt do this job. Therefore I looked on Dafont for a font which would worked better in a postmodernist setting.
CF Punk Attitude - I downloaded this font of dafont and i think its excellent for the postmodernist setting that I will be using it in due to its ransom note rough feel. I like how this font looks like it has been torn straight from a news paper, Hoeber my only worry with this font would be that all tthe letters would be to uniformed for a masthead.
Punks Not Dead - I downloaded this font of dafont however although it still holds the newspaper feel I think that this particular font has a much more childlike feel rather than the rough postmodern style that I am after.
Although my downloaded fonts are all great and would work for my masthead I think that for the NVL logo it would be better to create a personalised version. Therefore I went to the shop a bought a series of newspapers. Orignally I create the full type ‘NEW VISUAL LANGUAGE’ however as my development progressed I decided to only use NVL and and these were my favourite 3 letter shapes.
Once I had these shapes i then took them into Photoshop to create this final design which I think works really well for my theme. I think that keeping the text all black with the added rough edges keeps the type legabile but also ties it in with my ripped theme.
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scans For my postmodern magaazine cover I decided to create a series of experimental paint designs to help with creating my covers. My aim with this peices is not to use ‘the whole’’ design for select sections and potential patterns to create a design that suites the style that I want to achieve. I think this will work well providing that I manage to get the right photography to work with the designs.
Googles Help When Initally designing my magazine these are some of the images that I used - one or two may be slightly edited as I stuggles to find the originals. These examples helped me to plan my photoshoots and also visualised what my finals would look like.
Photography
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Here are some of the photographs that I used in my work. However my model has asked that my unedited images of here remain off this document as they clearly show her uncovered body. If i had left myself with more time I would have liked to found myself a studio and prepared the shoot. However due to unforseen circumstances my girlfreind stepped in at the last moment to help me finish my project.
This was my first inital experiment for my magazine cover, early on i decided I wanted to create a postmodern cover. This inital experiment was from one of workshop weeks where i completed a screen printing session, however after i ran the image through illustator i soon decided that this was not the route i wanted to follow.
I want to ensure that all elemants of the magazine work together so I tried to intoduced drop shadows and stokes to the masthead to ensure that all the charcters of the typeface were easily legiable against my complex background.
I created a number of experimental paint splatters, here i tried to use the mod roundall and tried to make it more rebellious by tying in in with punk and rebellions. I think that this concept works very well for a rebellious post moden theme However needs more work.
These next few images are all different experiments where i try to make the design work as a whole and encorperate a magazine theme to it. Although the designs at this stage dont work I hope to encorapte them into a style does.
Here, I decided that this design didnt look enough like a magazine and therefore began adding subtiles and tried to ensure the mast head stood out from the rest of the image.
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Although I started to begin to desiger quite a rebellious postmodernist punk theme I tired to see what monchrome effects would have on my image.
So far this is my favourite experiment. This design encorates the rauchy punk image and experimental work as well. Just like I included in the last design I have used a ripped paper to make the masthead stand out - this is included by the sex pistols album cover where they rip over the queens eyes to use in their design.
Again I wanted to experiment with what shades and contrasts and see how they would effect my overall design. I am beginning to like the bright orange and yellows as I think they encorage the punk postmodern theme.
Here I have started to experiment more with the colours of the postmodern theme using different patterns to encourage my theme.
Here was my first experimentation with the human body I like this concept as early on in V. Westwood and M. McLaren careers they did some very ‘explicit’ work including bondage and changing very inncoent work such as disney into porn for Tshirt designs. Therefore I think that this design works but needs more work on the experimental side.
Here I altered the contast to make the design more rebellious. As with a lot of punks they try to make themselves very bright and there able to stand out ina crowd. I think this works exceptionally well for a post modern style.
Although this particular image is from google I am using it to experiment with until I find someone is comfortable enough to model a shoot similar for me. Some of these exeriments work better than others but im trying to see which colours work best for now.
Here I took away the masthead to focus on the background and help develop the magazine as a whole. In previously images I have liked select sections with colour and others without, however, with this image I dont think it works particually well.
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I think that this image works the best so far. the high contrast and variety of the the shades of red yellow and orage work particually well.
By this stage I was stuggling to find a model so wanted to see if this concept of my masthead with a rip as the bannner with a ransom note styled type would work therefore found an image of a posing face on google to see what my outcome would be and I think that it woks quite well.
Here i applied my masthead to the image and by this stage had decided to place the barcode on the reverse cover. I think that this image works well however I didnt like the masthead.
Alhtough the previous image was oaky I wanted to focus on my rebeliious stiking lady on the fron cover. There fore I continued to work on this cover. Here I think that using a premade font for my masthead isnt rough enough for the design. Therefore I went to the shops and bought some magazines.
Here I decided to expeiment with the masthead, changing some of its aspects to see what works best. I think for a magazine using NVL as the main title works better and it allows you more space to play with - similar to NME magazine.
This is the result of my ripped up magazines. i decided to just use this for my title as smaller types world be illegiable. I think that this works really well and ties in with the post modern theme.
Here I experimented with the the position of the masthead but think that the previous design works a lot better. The rip of the masthead looks far to uniform and a diagonal tear looks more random.
Here I began to feel exhausted with my previous idea. Therefore I created a brand new document and started from scratch aiming to develop a new idea a learn from some mistakes.
Here i decided that I wanted to aplly my style to other images as I thought why not eximent with other images to see if I can create a front cover for both my research document and my fianl magazine.
I looked at how applying specific patterns would effect the shape of the person I was editing. again singling out sections of colours for the final design.
Again I tried to create another image continuing with my house style.
I then inverted on of the layers to identify how one layer may effect the entire image. However in this instance it hasnt worked as you are unable to make out clearly what the background image is.
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I kept the image and began to start expeimenting with applying the masthead with different fonts and subtitles. I quite like the ‘Form Follows Functioon’ being bold as it makes it much more legiable.
Here I again changed my image to try and see how making the background bright it would incluence the forground colours. This is so far one of my favourite designs as to me it reminds me of the jungle and how even though we are human we still have our animal instincts. I think this works really well for the theme i am trying to recreate.
Although I like the subtile being bold I do not like theis next ransom note styled font as i think it looks very childish and not at all postmodern.
I have included this image as this is my final peice for using borrowed imagery. Out of all my expeiments so far this is my favourite one as I think it is a very stiking in a bold postmodernist fashion. I am hoping to be able to find a model confident enough to help me create my finished design.
Here I took the idea of making the form follows function bold and applied it to my favourite design so for. I think my applying the drop shadow to the font it has increased the subtitles place in the visual hierarchy of the design.
The background imagery of this peice is of my girlfriend. She stepped in as a model when I was unable to find someone else. I like this image works well, however, it is not as stiking and bold as I would want it to be.
Here I tried to alter the contrast and brightness of the image to make it more stiking, however so far my attempts have failed to create a bold and powerful postmoderist design.
Again here i used my own photography to try and recreate the designs I have already created within the sketchbook. I think this design works well especially after I altered the contrast and the brighness to ceate the orange tones I was aiming for.
Unlike in other designs that I have created, in this series of designs I really like the splash of colour that my images have, and in this particular image I was more contrast within the image.
After stuggling to find a model for a number of weeks, I finally managed to convince my girlfirend to help me with the shoot. However with a limited amount of time I was unable to hire a studio. However by zooming in on the photo I think it works very well.
I have chosen this to pretty much be my final peice soley for my research magazine. I love how the contrast makes the bold patterns stand out and how the rip of the masthead cuts through the eyes just like in the sex pistols album cover. However it, for me, still isnt quite the creation I was hoping for. If I was to create this again I would aim for more time on the photography as I think that this would encourage my postmodernist theme.
Here I tired to recreate identically my orignal image as best I could - I like this design however I do not thinkk it works quite as well as the orinial peice. This is due to the photo having bad lighting and also as the clothing my girlfriend is wearing is not the tame tonal quality.
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I quite like this design, by taking the image and covering the chest area rather than the stomach I think it gives more of a sense of the explict quality taken away. I think this works very well for conveying my theme.
I then went back and selected one of my other favourite photographs and again went and made the image brighter and altered the contrast to ensure the colours were as powerful as possible.
For this design I took the photograph into photoshop and altered the brightness and contrast of the image to make the image bolder and more stiking which I think makes it look much better than the original.
Here I again edited the expsoure and curves of the image to try and experiment with the colours of the image. I also took the image into colour mixer and increased the red value of the peice to see the effect that this had. My only issue with the last five designs is that my subtitles has become partially illegiable so I intend to fix that before my final peice.
Just to take it one step further I then proceeded to edit the exposure and colours of the image to make certain aspects of the image much bolder. and therefore more stiking. I also like how the ‘FRAGILE’ tape stands out and again makes the image bolder.
This is my final visual language magazine front cover I have applied a slight drop shadow and stoke to the subtitles and complete the small finishing touches.
Final Designs
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