New Visual Language
Research and Development By Jake Neal
Modernism Modernism is a term used to embrace a diverse range of art movements and ideas that sparked in the early 20th century during the war, people were tramatised and ready for change. Modernism doesn’t tend to think about the past, more about the present we live in. All forms of creative expression such as art, film, liturature, music, graphic design, architecture, poetry and critical thinking inspire it. Artists such as Escher and Dali began to look at the world differently and other artists followed, these were called impressionists. Here also began other styles where people started at the world in a new modern way. Constuctivism, Futurism, Cubism, Dadaism and Expressionism are a few examples of the newborn styles. A strong part of modernism was the inspiration of architecture and technology from the use of glass, steel and concrete. This led them to believe that they could design a better less-divided society from interpreting this in their work.
They decided function should always dictate form and that the creativity and inteligence for radical thinking of mankind should be praised. Some people would argue that modernism is the individual most influential movement of the 21st century, shaping the future of design and had a profound influence on the practice of photography,graphic design and typography. Soon, the movement became a powerful link between art and industrial production, moving away from art nouveau and enabling the production of well-made artefacts and mass consumption and marketing. It encouraged the move towards bold geometric shapes instead, eliminating the use and decoration of asymmetrical leyouts. Modernism is in strong favour of sans serif typeface often without capital letters. It tends to follow an order, grid or rule and is often combined with typo-photo and abstract based colours and compositions.
Post-Modernism Post-Modernism evolved during the mid 1960’s in critical response to the sterility and rule-deďŹ ned style of modernism. Post modernism believed that less is more is in fact incorrect and that this results in boring outcomes. Post modernisms believed in using a variety of styles and cultures, such as collages, repetition and anarchy, breaking the rules of what modernists believed in. They forced modernists to ask questions. Imagery no longer needed to be related, they rejected the idea of the grid system and other boundaries. They are free to combine any style of art. Post modernism encourages the experimentation of typography and distorting images and lettering. They tend to aim for dramatic design and heightened colour and often attempt to recycle the past to create something new or whimsical.
The rise of mass media was very influential in the taking off of post-modernism. The world made connections globally like never before. Post-modernism cinema began on television showcasing delight, liberation and dynamic surprises, causing the public to challenge and question why things are the way they are. An example of post-modern art would be the work of Jamie Reid’s cover for the Sex Pistols ‘God Save the Queen’ single in 1977. It portrays a touch of the punk movement in the late seventies, with anonymous randomly placed text, manipulated imagery and livid colour. The post-modernism movement has taught artists to forget the rules traditionally made and to move freely across all disciplines from art, film and music.
Modernism
Modernism emerged during the first half of the twentieth centuary and was inspired by the development of art, architecture, and design. It tends to follow a set of rules and guides with a cutting edge, fresh outcome. It has a simple and formal approach and shows the care and disaplinary of the artist.
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Post-Modernism is quite the same but with less rules and more adventure. Post-modernism evolved in the sixties in response to sterility of modernism and again influenced by the same factors. It has a much more rebelious approach. It is playful and doesn’t have to use imagery in relation to the subject. Post-modernism can contain a mixture of styles and often looks chaotic.
Post-Modernism
1890 1880
1870
-Impressionism
-Post-Impressionism -Symbolism
-Art Nouveau
-Expressionism -Favism
Modernism
1900
At the beginning of the Modernism era was Post-Impressionism, which was spurred on from the movement, Impressionism quite a few years before the 1900’s. Post-Impressionism was the movement of emphasism on geometric forms, manipulation of form and colour for expression and the use of unnatural and random colour. It encouraged a lot of new movements up until the 1900’s. Symbolism came around the same time, which involved some faint tendencies from the romatic tradition which was to stir reaction in favour of imagination, dreams and spirituality. After this Art Nouveau sprouted and created new perceptions and boundries leading to the movements next to come. Expressionism is expressing the meaning of ‘living’ and emotional feelings rather than the physical existance, usually distorting reality for to show emotions. In the same year Favism came about and focused on painting and colour over the representation of realistic values kept by impressionism.
Time-Line
Cubism is an image which is divided into small multifaced surfaces, showing various veiwpoints, no logical idea of depth, background and foreground intersect and overlap and objects are simplified into shapes such as spheres and cones. The same year both Futurism and Precisionism came out, Futurism is a movement focused on the idea of the future, emphasizing the era’s concept of speed, technology, youth, transport, violence and industrialization. They practised with a variety of media and styles ranged from interior design to painting. They embraced the excitement of the world to come. Dadaists beleived that the logic and meaning of bourgeois capitlist society had led to war. according to it’s people, dada was anti-war not art. it was a movement to represent the opposite. dada ignored the tradional aesthetics of art and culture and intended to offend rather than appeal to sensibilities, to revolutionise design. Bahaus relates more with Suprematism, It began in the school of art & architecture in germany. bahaus revolutionised art processes by combining tradional arts with crafts. they beleived design could improve society. In the last few years of the Modernism era came out surrealism, it emerged from the era of dada, cubism, freud and communist beleifs, aiming to connect the conscious with the unconcious to create a hyper-reality. this created an unrealistic and often illusional effect.
-De stijl -Bahaus
-Cubism -Futurism -Precisionism
1907
-Suprematism -Dada
1915
1917
-Constructivism -Art Deco -Harlem Renaiance -Surrealism
1920
1960
1955
-Kinetic Art
1945 -Post-Abstract Art -Contempory Art
-Photorealism -Minimalism -Hard Edge Painting -Psychedelic Art
-Post-Minimalism -Conceptual Art
To start the Post Modernism era off we have Post Abstract Art, an American movement influenced by surrealism. Used spontaneous emphasism and automatic or subconscious creations. Almost 15 years later a burst of new movements spring out, one being the famous 60’s Psychedelic Art and Minimalism. Psychedelic Art saw designers beginning to get fed up with the strict rules of design, especially in typography. This became more prominant in the 80s, when designers began to attempt a new era of type. They expressed this through various sized lettering, kerning & boldness, and removing unison. Design became distressed and boundries were broken.
Post-Modernism
1965
Time-Line
Punk Artwork was created in attempt to shock or create a sense of empathy or disgust. This involved charateristics such as cutout letters from magazines assosiated with ransom notes, a collaging effect or distressed look It showed a sense of rebelion and was strongly influenced and associated with the music industry and towards the end of Postmodernism didn’t really see much action, which just involved Neo-Expressionism and Memphis. Memphis, is a group which was an architecture and italian design group that designed post-modern furniture and materials. Their convensional colours, shapes, texures and patterns were often described at the time as strange and misunderstood. They drew inspiration from the art deco and pop art periods, including the fifties kitsch and futuristic themes.
-Punk Art -Installation Art -Performance Art
1970
-Neo-Expressionism
1980
-Memphis
1981
Suprematism
Constructivism A movement originating from Russia which focused on architecture and modern technicalities and materials. Work was created in order to carry a fundamental analysis of their surroundings and other art, and the artists rejected the idea of autonomous art. Constructivism was a strong influence to destijl and bahaus.
Bahaus The Bahaus movement actually began in a German art school. The tutor decided to engage his students in attempting to create a new unity between art and industry, rejecting any division between constructional and decorative techniques. The school began to commit themselves to architecture, encourgaging the exploration of new ideas connected with the de stijl and constructivism. Bahaus beleived typography to be the main and strongest form of communication and so began to look at new modern type. They beleived craft and industry could be combined and so the school specialized in many workshops such as metal working, weaving, pottery, cabinet making, and wall painting. They beleived in the importance of mass production and so designed with it in mind. Bahaus focused on the study of materials, colour theory and formal relationships to develop in to more specialized skills. Max Bill, Wassily Kandinsky, Otto Lindig and Herbert Bayor were artists closely associated with this movement.
Surrealism
Pop Art
Installation Art
Punk Punk was a subversive street culture movement that began in London, UK, in the mid seventies. The style embraced music, fashion and art and potrayed a sense of rebelion and agressive visuals.The idea was to express their indivual freedom and anti-establishment views. They often has strong political veiws which influenced their characterists such as anti-capitalism, environmentalism, animal rights and anarchism. Art of the punk era can be recognised through their messy collage techniques, chaotic bold typography, - often in the anonymous style with various pasted cut out letters, and shocking slogans. Some artists approached work with a minimalistic, iconoclastic and underground aesthetics. They played a part in reviving stencil art and often their work was in black and white, enabling easy photocopying of zines for mass production. A strong example of this movement would be the Sex Pistols, with their anarchic music, style of fashion by Vivienne Westwood, and album and poster art by Jamie Reid.
Psychedelic Art
The Grid System The grid system is a technique which emerged in the modernism period and is still used today. It was made popular by the International Typographic Style movement and is used almost like a resource for design. “ 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. â€? Josef MĂźller-Brockmann
The grid system is a two dimensional grid with intersecting horizontal and vertical lines, usually straight linear. It is used to act as a guide to organise graphic content, whether for easthetics or in relation to the page or shape. It also enables text to be placed in columns to allow it to be more
readable and managable. They are used across an array of media from web to publications or even poster design. It gives consistancy to layout. This will be very useful for my magazine as it will allow me to ensure each page has unison and give it a prossional formal look.
El Lissitzky
Kazimir Malevich
Andy Warhol
Keith Haring
Mastheads Research and Anaylisys After taking a moment to look at existing magazine mastheads, I collected a selection of which caught my eye the most. I have found that I particullary like ones which are very ‘customised’. What I mean by that is typography that has been adapted to the lettering or ones which are specifically designed. There are numerous magazines that abbriveiate there typography to provide more freedom to what they can do with their magazine, such as NME and GQ. Also I’ve noticed on quite a few mastheads that they have they’re main image above the title to stick out to the audience. The Computer Arts magazine has a more unique look as it uses a circle to display its title, makes it look more approachable and user friendly. I like how with the Total Film magazine they use the space of the typography itself, the block capital letters see to it that it will be seen and with the positioning of it across the entire page gives the centre image more depth and could use that to their advantage, trying not to draw too much focus away from the typography. I think my two favourites would be NME and Total Film as they are nice and bold, yet keep their branding simply enough to easily fit, what they want on there without causing too much confliction between other sections of the magazine. The abbrieviated words create something that is easy to read, recognisable and a symbol. My masthead title is ‘New Visual Language’, I feel this would be better shortened as it give me more freedom of placing the letters together and doesn’t use too much space or text.
Mastheads Intial Ideas
Mastheads Development and Final
Front Cover Research and Analysis
Front Cover Initial Ideas
Front Cover Development
Front Cover Final
Contents Page Research
Contents Page Initial Ideas
Contents Page Development and Final
Page Layout Research
Page Layout Initial Ideas