New Graphic Design by Jayne Kay

DESIGN DISCUSSION WITH APRIL GREIMAN

ROY LITCHETENSTEIN A RETROSPECTIVE NEW GRAPHIC DESIGN

The Postmodern Issue MAY 2013

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Inside NGD 8 April Greiman | design discussion 6 barbara kruger 14 el lissitzky 12 Lichtenstien | a retrospective 10 post modern Experiments 20 jasper johns 16 more experiments

April’s work in particular is often identified for its 3D, spatial qualities that provide a unique experience to the viewer. Challenging every convention in the industry, even the term ‘graphic design,’ which she feels is too limiting, April prefers to be called a ‘trans-media artist.’ http://idsgn.org/posts/design-discussions-april-greiman-on-technology/ New Graphic Design | May 2013

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IT’S NEW.

MUST SEE 2013.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove.”

David Bowie Is The V&A presents the first international retrospective of the extraordinary career of David Bowie, one of the world’s most influential performers. The exhibition brings together more than 300 objects, including handwritten lyrics, spectacular costumes, photography, music videos and instruments. Until 28 Jul Light Show Light Show brings together sculptures and installations to explore the phenomenal nature of light. Individual artworks examine various aspects of light such as colour, duration, shadows, natural and artificial illumination and projection. Until 6 May Lichtenstein American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein is famed for his works based on comic strips and advertising imagery shaded with his hallmark Ben-Day dots. Bringing together 125 of the artist’s paintings and sculptures, Tate Modern is staging the first major exhibition devoted to Lichtenstein in more than 20 years. Until 27 May Poster Art 150 A pioneering patron of poster art, London Underground has developed a worldwide reputation for commissioning striking poster designs. This exhibition brings together 150 of the most iconic designs since the Tube’s first graphic poster commission in 1908. Until 1 Oct

New Graphic Design | May 2013

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NGD DIGITAL MAY EDITION

DESIGN DISCUSSION WITH APRIL GREIMAN

ROY LITCHETENSTEIN A RETROSPECTIVE NEW GRAPHIC DESIGN

The Postmodern Issue MAY 2013

new graphic design magazine available on ipad

Editor’s Note Jayne Kay | 29th April 2013 This is my final first year project and I have chosen to focus my “form follows function” magazine on the post modern era, looking at Pop Art as a visual art movement, how Barbara Kruger’s numerous works suspend the viewer between the fascination of the image, April Griemans’ three dimensional approach to space and much more post modern quirkiness!

This is my first go at putting a magazine together keeping in mind the brief of “form follows function” needs to have no unnecessary content.

During the construction of this magazine I have had to contend with grid layouts, image sizing and text kerning, some bits were difficult and some easy.

However, I am proud of what I have put together in three weeks and this has made me question whether Editorial Design is the right design path for me. I am happy that I have found a skill that I enjoy, and now I have an aim for a future goal in magazine design.

Features Lichtenstein a retrospective - From Tate Modern bringing together 125 of the artist’s paintings and sculptures, Tate Modern is staging the first major exhibition devoted to Lichtenstein in more than 20 years.

Experiment Work - A look different takes on the post modern and pop art movements and how the artists from that era influence work today.

Exclusive Design Discussion with April Grieman - regarded as one of the most influential designers of the digital age.

For the purpose of this university project all words are not my own, if not it is stated with a link to the website or source it has come from.

New Graphic Design | May 2013

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Barbara kruger.

Kruger was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1945. After attending Syracuse University, the School of Visual Arts, and studying art and design with Diane Arbus at Parson’s School of Design in New York, Kruger obtained a design job at Condé Nast Publications. Working for “Mademoiselle” magazine, she was quickly promoted to head designer. Later, she worked as a graphic designer, art director, and picture editor in the art departments at “House and Garden,” “Aperture,” and other publications.

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I’d always been a news junkie, always read lots of newspapers and watched the Sunday morning news shows on TV and felt strongly about issues of power, control, sexuality and race.”

The juxtaposition of word and image in Barbara Kruger’s highly recognizable work is derived from twelve years as a designer and photo editor for Conde Nast publications. Short, pithy captionlike copy is scattered over fragmented and enlarged photographs appropriated from various media. Usually declarative or accusatory in tone, these phrases posit an opposition between the pronouns “you” and “we,” which satirically refer to “men” and “women.” These humorous works suspend the viewer between the fascination of the image and the indictment of the text while reminding us that language and its use within culture to construct and maintina proverbs, jobs, jokes, myths, and history reinforce the interests and perspective of those who control it.

“Belief is tricky because left to it’s own devices it can court a kind of surety, an unquestioning allegiance that fears doubt and destroys difference.” - Barbara Kruger New Graphic Design | March 2013

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New Graphic Design | March 2013

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April Greiman.

Greiman added a California sensibility. She approached the space as a three dimensional space within the typographic, photographic and other formal elements playfully juxtapose, overlay, tilt and recade in a dynamic balance. Often she’ll add gesture strokes and shadows to her work.

As a director of Californian Institute of the Arts Greiman fully explored this three dimensional collage technique.

She would often use the condensed version of Helvetica, usually letter spread and in italic.

She was one of the first to embrace the mac even before postscript fonts. Professional type that had smooth edges) were available.

Greiman is regarded as one of the most influential designers of the digital age. She has been called a pioneer in this regard, making it acceptable for a graphic designer to explore their craft using a computer.

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“there was a line around the block, waiting behind me to try the Mac! I was immediately hooked, so I bought one.”

By experimenting with typography and image placement, in direct contrast to the rigid swiss grids of the past, New Wave postmodernists challenged the notion of modernist ordering systems and asked designers to experiment with the artistic possibilities that lay beyond the grid.

She is a thinker and artist, whose trans media projects, innovative ideas and projects, and hybrid-based approach, have been influential worldwide over the last 30 years.

Her explorations of image, word and colour as objects in time and space are grounded in her singular fusion of art and technology. Greiman has been instrumental in the acceptance and use of advanced technology in the arts and the design process since the early 1980s.

“I see everything as an object in space…when web design came into the realm of possibilities… I was already looking at it as spatial media”

U.S. postage stamp commemorating the Nineteenth Amendment. http://idsgn.org/posts/design-discussions-april-greiman-on-technology/ New Graphic Design | March 2013

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post modern experiments “Pop Art looks out into the world. It doesn’t look like a painting of something, it looks like the thing itself.”

- Roy Lichtenstein

Pop art has become the main focus in my research and experiments, what attracts me most is the colours, they are so vivid, it’s like going into a sweet store and glancing up at the dozens and dozens of multicoloured sweet treats. Its fun and playful, I like how it doesn’t always need to be serious or perfected.

These are some of my experiments I did whilst researching into post modern artists, the style of my work is heavily influenced by April Greiman, I love the colour and collage involved in her designs, I especially like the Identity, business cards, hang tags, and postcards she designed for Vertigo.

New Graphic Design | March 2013

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roy Lichtenstien.

Tate Modern: Exhibition 21 February – 27 May 2013 £14, concessions available Open until 20.00 on Sundays, with last ticket sale at19.00.

Lichtenstein: A Retrospective is the first fullscale retrospective of this important artist in over twenty years. Co-organised by The Art Institute of Chicago and Tate Modern, this momentous show brings together 125 of his most definitive paintings and sculptures and reassesses his enduring legacy.

Lichtenstein is renowned for his works based on comic strips and advertising imagery, coloured with his signature hand-painted Benday dots. The exhibition showcases such key paintings as Look Mickey 1961 lent from the National Gallery Art, Washington and his monumental Artist’s Studio series of 1973–4. Other noteworthy highlights include Whaam! 1963 – a signature work in Tate’s collection – and Drowning Girl 1963 on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The artist’s rich and expansive practice is represented by a wide range of materials, including paintings on Rowlux and steel, as well sculptures in ceramic and brass and a selection of previously unseen drawings, collages and works on paper.

“Pop Art looks out into the world.

It doesn’t look like a painting of something, it looks like the thing itself.”

“I’m interested in what would normally be considered the worst aspects of commercial art. I think it’s the tension between what seems to be so rigid and cliched and the fact that art really can’t be this way.” - Roy Lichtenstein New Graphic Design | March 2013

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el lissitzky “The image is not a painting, but a structure around which we must circle, looking at it from all sides, peering down from above, investigating from below.

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He was a Russian painter, typographer, architect and designer. Born in Polshinok and grew up in Vitebsk. He began by illustrating Jewish books for children, at first in a style influenced by Chagall and popular prints.

He designed books and periodicals with radical innovations in typography and photomontage.

His development of the ideas behind the Suprematist art movement were very influential in the development of the Bauhaus and the Constructivist art movements. His stylistic characteristics and experimentation with production techniques developed in the 1920s and 30s have been an influence on graphic designers since.

He moved around in the 1920s and spent time in both Germany as a cultural representative of Russia and, after he was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis, Switzerland in a Swiss sanatorium. But this never stopped him from working as he continued to produce propaganda posters, books, buildings and exhibitions for the Soviet Union. In 1932 Stalin demanded that artists conform to much stricter guidelines or be blacklisted, Lissitzky managed to retain his position as head of exhibitions. In 1941 his tuberculosis overcame him and caused his death.

New Graphic Design | March 2013

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The function of pictorial representation was a large component of Lissitzky’s work, he closely based his ideas on the constructivist ideology. Constructivism was held together by three principles; tectonics- which, “represented the unification of communist ideology,” texture- which, “meant the nature of materials and how they are used in industrial production,” and the principle of construction- symbolizing “the creative process and the search for laws of visual organization.” (Meggs 289) Lissitzky actually did not refer to himself as an artist, designer or typographer, but as a constructor, as if he were an information architect. www.ashleyellen.com /wrintings-on-design/ el-lissitzky

More experiments These are some further postmodern style designs. On the facing page shows one of the most unique of my set, the photograph is an image I ripped out of Wonderland magazine. http://www.wonderlandmagazine.com

Chanelle Calica is the queen bee of rap, I wanted to include her face in my work to diverse from some of the colourful pop art styles I had been doing, I like it because this image because it looks fierce, it has attitude. I had a couple of brightly coloured plastic flowers and I wanted to make what looked like an Indian headpiece out of flowers, this was going to make my work brighter until I decided otherwise during my experimentation in Photoshop. I was pleased with the outcome of this design and took it further to experiment with more colour, I came up with a set of four Andy Warhol style designs using the design in four different colours. I like how it differs from his work by using photography instead of cartoon painted faces.

New Graphic Design | March 2013

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April Greiman.

DEsign Discussion April’s work in particular is often identified for its 3D, spatial qualities that provide a unique experience to the viewer. Challenging every convention in the industry, even the term ‘graphic design,’ which she feels is too limiting, April prefers to be called a ‘trans-media artist.’

You were one of the first designers to touch a computer, first Mac in 1984, but I wondered how that happened. At the time computers were expensive and relatively underground. How did you get your hands on one? What made you decide to invest in something like that?

“I went to the first TED conference in 1984 with one of the founders of TED, Harry Marks. After the conference, Harry Marks said, ‘we are going to Macy’s department store. I want you to see this little computer.’ I said ‘no way.’ I’d tried an Amiga prior to the Mac and it was fun, but a little too dopey for me. But Harry was a bit of a mentor to me. He basically invented the technology and software that launched motion graphics. He dragged me to Macy’s and the next thing I knew, there was a line around the block, waiting behind me to try the Mac! I was immediately hooked, so I bought one.”

A lot of experienced designers disapprove of students learning with computers rather than the hands-on methods they learned in school. Do you think young designers are missing out?

“I tend to pretty much exclusively work with digital tools. If I’m doing color palettes for buildings and architects I have a huge library of color chips and different systems, so testing colors is still a hands-on thing. That’s the only ‘analog’ work for us, really.”

Have your design views changed in light of new technologies or trends?

“Not really, the body of ideas is ever expanding, but there are some core things that remain. I see everything as an object in space and have always been interested, since the Basel school days, in creating visual and spatial hierarchies. So for me when web design came into the realm of possibilities, I loved it because I didn’t look at it as a page. I was already looking at it as spatial media that you would journey through space to access information from. What a great thing.”

New Graphic Design | March 2013

Full interview online: http://idsgn. org/posts/design-discussions-aprilgreiman-on-technology/

“I see everything as an object in space…when web design came into the realm of possibilities…

I was already looking at it as spatial media” 18

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April Greiman - Design Discussion

Keep in mind, designers like us are not designing the software.

We’re not writing code. We’re just using the code.”

Do you feel like websites have a long way to go to embrace that kind of spatial quality?

“Well that’s the thing about HTML, you can just copy all that code and paste it into your desktop and then just add your own images, it all looks very templative. There are very few, I think, inventive and unique websites.”

It seems like such a new medium, it has so much further to go and there’s a lot to explore.

“Part of it is you know you can make websites in Photoshop or in Illustrator, so everybody is doing that. But, to a certain extent, they are primitive technologies; in terms of the potential of what can be done. It’s just repeating tasks and cut-and-paste and not really thinking. We are sort of subscribing then, to what engineers of the software have thought about this medium of communication. Because, keep in mind, designers like us are not designing the software.

We’re not writing code. We’re just using the code.”

That’s an interesting point. Some of the technology that guides us may also be holding us back…

“It’s always been a problem that people who actually invented, produced or designed creative tools come from more of a technical background. Let’s say you were a student, learning Photoshop or After Effects. You go take a class to learn it and they would show you 95% of the things you’ll never use in that program. It’s because the people who are designing it are not the ones designing with it. They are not solving the kinds of problems we are. So you kind of have to wade through and get stuck in somebody else’s quicksand of engineering and technology.”

Continue reading part two: April Greiman on trans-media— reflections on a long and influential career in our industry. Included is advice for young designers, the state of things today and the shape of things to come - online.

New Graphic Design | March 2013

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“To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.

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Jasper Johns was born in 1930 in Augusta, Georgia, and raised in South Carolina. He began drawing as a young child, and from the age of five knew he wanted to be an artist. Together with Rauschenberg and several Abstract Expressionist painters of the previous generation, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Barnett Newman, Johns is one of most significant and influential American painters of the twentieth century. Johns’ early mature work, of the mid- to late 1950s, invented a new style that helped to engender a number of subsequent art movements, among them Pop, Minimal, and Conceptual art.

The modern art community was searching for new ideas to succeed the pure emotionality of the Abstract Expressionists. Johns’ paintings of targets, maps, invited both the wrath and praise of critics. Johns’ early work combined a serious concern for the craft of painting with an everyday, almost absurd, subject matter. The meaning of the painting could be found in the painting process itself. Over the past fifty years Johns has created a body of rich and complex work. His rigorous attention to the themes of popular imagery and abstraction has set the standards for American art.

Jasper Johns New Graphic Design | March 2013

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