Research and Development
What is Modernism? Modernism - a term used in the aftermath of the 1st world war and the Russian revolution. A period where the artistic avant-grade dreamed of a new world free from conflict, greed and social inequality. The modernist movement was around from late 19th century to early 20th century, however the term modernism was used in graphic design itself since around the 1925-1930. As time moved on and economic conditions improved designers had to reassess their work, adapting it to mass markets. Initially before this time modernism was only largely experimental but then moved from blue prints to the real world. When it comes to Modernism, in a nutshell it is a time in our history when tradition began to change. Modernism attemtpted to change the outlook on science, art, culture, ethics, philosophy and psychology. It dived in to a world of new and hidden meaning in the human experience and had to evolve new ideas. Modernsim welcomed and believed in myths, ethnic origins and the ‘Grand Theory’, which believed explanations through science, history and culture can explain everything. Modernism had greater faith in social and cultural unity, it also however believed in social class and ethnic/national values hierarchoes as a basis for unity. Modernism was a self-centred movement; it made great
self achievment through individualism, and unified identity. It took faith in things like politics, mass culture, consumption and marketing. It was serious about intention and purpose, attempting to embrace totality, and the clear difference between organic and inorganic. It was highly censored in sexual reference, and held a sense of clear generic boundaries and wholeness, immediately found in art but also found within music and literature.
Modernism made use of the past by the employment of reprise, incoorporation, rewriting, recapulation, revision and parody. This period was a time when people and family demanded more, they wanted a boost. It took ‘the nuclear family’ as a central unit of social order and a model of the middle class. This is when designers began to understand the media and audience positioning. The idea was that they could heal those hurt from war with new and intruiging concepts of art and design, a dream of banishing all conflict with the use of design. It believed in the idea of ‘depth over surface’, which is having belief in pieces to have further meaning, value and content as to what is immediately seen by the viewer. Gone were the days of hand made products. the demand for design meant products needed to be made at a much quicker rate than ever before. This movement experienced an early industry of technology, this meant
the use of technology was one of the main features in advertisements being produced. The designers then of course had to adapt to the higher demand, meaning production had to come on a much quicker scale. There were many styles throughout this movement, creating great influence to places like France, Germany and Italy. Style began to become simplstic, there was no finer details, just a focus for its purpose. The theory was that design would automatically look good and appeal to its audience so didnt require the little detailing. This later led to the theory of ‘function over form’ meaning that the objects/pieces function is more important than how it looks. The shapes used in work were simple, straight lines, curves and in some cases simplified geometric shapes were often used to create new layouts and patterns. The amount of colour used was very minimalistic, with only primary colours being used. As a designer in the modernist movement you were most likely to reject the use of decorative motifs and embellishments, and focus rather on the materials and colours used. Another big rejection of the time was the use of ‘nature’ as inspiration, this aspect was heavily used in art nouveau (1880 - 1910). The modernism movement is still well recognised today, aspects of its impact on design are commonly used in 21st century work.
Modernism Timeline Of Trends
Impressionism/Post Impressionism 1880s: more inclined to emphasize geometric forms, to distort form/color for expressive effect, and to use unnatural and arbitrary color.
Synthetism late 1880s : emphasized two-dimensional flat surface patterns.
Symbolism 1880s: continuation of some mystical tendencies in the Romantic tradition. These movements invited a reaction in favor of spirituality, the imagination, and dreams.
F a u v i s m 1900 – 1920 emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism.
Art Nouveau 1890 is a global approach to decoration and architecture. It emphasized the persuasion of artistic beauty through nature.
Abstract Art 1907 means to withdraw part of something in order to consider it separately. In abstract art ‘something’ is one or more of the visual elements of a subject: its line, shape, tone, pattern, texture, or form.
Expressionism 1900 - express the meaning of “being alive” and emotional experience rather than physical reality. The tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect.
Futurism - 1909 They glorified industrialization, technology, and transport along with the speed, noise and energy of urban life. The Futurists adopted the visual vocabulary of Cubism to express their ideas. Futurist paintings appear more dynamic than their Cubist counterparts.
Cubism 1907 – 1914 objects are broken up into small areas, show different viewpoints, the background and object interpenetrate one another. Natural forms into cylinders, spheres, and cones.
Suprematism - 1915 by the Russian artist Kazimir Malevich. It was a geometric style of abstract painting derived from elements of Cubism and Futurism.
Precisionism 1910 Influenced by Cubism and Futurism, its main themes included industrialization and the modernization of the American landscape, depicted in precise, sharply defined, geometrical forms.
Constructivism used geometric like Suprematism. glimpse of a me modernity accor the ideals of the Revolution. Howe was not an art that w understood by the p and it was e repressed and by Socialist
- 1913 language A Utopian echanized rding to e October ever, this was easily proletariat eventually replaced Realism.
Dada - 1916 believed that the ‘reason’ and ‘logic’ of bourgeois capitalist society had led people into war. Dada was not art, it was “anti-art.” For everything that art stood for, Dada was to represent the opposite. Where art was concerned with traditional aesthetics, Dada ignored aesthetics. If art was to appeal to sensibilities, Dada was intended to offend. Through their rejection of traditional culture and aesthetics. The Dadaists hoped to destroy traditional culture and aesthetics.
Bauhaus 1920s - 1940’s school of art and architecture in Germany. The Bauhaus revolutionized art training by combining pure arts with the study of crafts. Design did not merely reflect society, it could actually help to improve it.
De Stijl - 1917 was a Dutch ‘style’ of pure abstraction. Basically a grid of lines and primary colors which were configured in a series of compositions.
Surrealism 1920s -1940’s aimed to fuse the conscious with the unconscious to create a ‘super-reality’. Emphasis was on spontaneous, automatic or subconscious creation.
Harlem Renaissance 1920s -1940’s Challenged white paternalism and racism, African-American artists and intellectuals rejected imitating the styles of Europeans and white Americans and instead celebrated black dignity and creativity. Asserting their freedom on their own terms, celebrating the black culture that had emerged out of slavery.
Kurt Schwitters Kurt Schwitters was a German painter, sculptor, typographer and writer, born in Hanover. He Studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Hanover 1908-9 and at Dresden Academy 1909-14. He was influenced by Expressionism and Cubism 1917-18. Schwitters was a significant figure in European Dadaism who invented the concept of Merz in 1918 – ‘the combination, for artistic purposes of all conceivable materials’. Whether those materials were string, cotton wool, labels, bus tickets and bits of broken wood or a pram wheel, Schwitters considered them to be equal with paint. He is best known for his pioneering use of found objects and everyday materials in abstract collage, installation, poetry and performance. Schwitters’s time in Britain was quite extraordinary and continues to reverberate today, with the influence he has exerted over artists such as Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi and Damien Hirst. Schwitters was far ahead of his time and strongly influenced the art of assemblage of the neo-dadaist artists.
Armin Hofmann Armin Hofmann, born June 29, 1920 was a Swiss graphic designer and educator. Armin Hofmann is recognized for his immeasurable influence on generations of designers, teaching the power and elegance of simplicity and clarity through a timeless aesthetic, always informed by context. By the age of 27 Armin Hofmann had already completed an apprenticeship in lithography and had begun teaching typography at the Basel School of Design. He taught for several years at the Basel School of Design and he was not there long before he replaced Emil Ruder as the head of the school. The Swiss International Style, and Hofmann, thought that one of the most efficient forms of communications was the poster and Hofmann spent much of his career designing posters, particularly for the Basel Stadt Theater. Hoffman’s work showed new techniques of photo-montage, photo-typesetting, experimental composition in general and of course heavily favoured sans-serif typography. His poster designs, always seemed to emphasize an economical and efficient use of colour and typefaces. This was in reaction to what Hofmann called the “trivialization of colour.” Without ‘The International Style’, also known asthe Swiss Style of design, contemporary graphic design would be almost unrecognisable. The readability and cleanliness of the style as well as its asymmetric layouts, use of a grids and sans-serif typefaces have helped define how we design today.
Max Bill Max Bill (22 December 1908 – 9 December 1994) was a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer, born in Winterthur. After an apprenticeship as a silversmith during 1924-1927, Bill took up studies at the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1927 to 1929, after which he moved to Zurich, where he worked as an architect, painter, graphic artist and sculpturist and later also as a product designer. Bill’s versatile work was dominated by painting, beginning initially with landscapes and portraits until taking on his own independent character, from around 1931 onwards, with the use of consistent geometric-constructive abstraction.. After working on designs for modern buildings being constructed, he built his own house and studio (1932–3) in Zurich-Höngg. From 1937 onwards he was a prime mover behind the Allianz group of Swiss artists. Bill is widely considered the single most decisive influence on Swiss graphic design beginning in the 1950s with his theoretical writing and progressive work. His connection to the days of the Modern Movement gave him special authority. As an industrial designer, his work is characterized by a clarity of design and precise proportions. Max Bill’s name is primarily associated with the terms “Concrete Art” and “Environmental Design”.
Hans Neuburg Hans Neuburg was born in 1904 In Grulich, AustriaHungary (Today it is known as Czechoslovakia). He studied at Orell Füssli Art Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1928, Neuburg became copywriter/designer for the Max Dalang advertising agency in Basel and Zürich. From 19321936 he became advertising manager for the Jean Haecki Import in Basle and was the editor for “Industriewerbung” magazine. He started his own design studio in Zürich in 1936, specializing in advertising and exhibition design. His clients included Mustermesse Basle and the International Red Cross. He designed several exhibitions such as the Swiss National Expo (1939), the Swiss contribution to the Prague World Fair (1945) and the Brussels Expo (1958). He was also co-founder and coeditor (1958-1965) of “Neue Graphik” magazine with Richard Paul Lohse, Joseph Müller-Brockmann and Carlo Vivarelli. In 1962 he became director of the Gewerbe museum in Winterhur and taught at the Hochschule fur Gestaltung in Ulm (1963) and the Carlton University in Ottawa.
Ernst Keller Ernst Keller (1891 – 1968) was seen as the father of the Swiss Style. He was a graphic designer, lettering artist and teacher. From 1918 he taught at the Zurich Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Art), where he developed a professional course in design and typography. As a teacher he was the most important single influence on the development of the Swiss style. The economically drawn images and inventive lettering of his posters designed in the 1920s and 30s made an important contribution to Modernism. He is famous for his posters for the Kunstgewerbemuseum Zurich, for several charity organizations, for heraldic logos (for example the canton of Glarus) and after his retirement for his work as a sculpturer.
Josef Muller-Brockmann Josef Müller-Brockmann, (May 9, 1914, in Rapperswil – August 30, 1996), was a Swiss graphic designer and teacher. He studied architecture, design and history of art at both the University and Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich. In 1936 he opened his Zurich studio specialising in graphic design, exhibition design and photography. From 1951 he produced concert posters for the Tonhalle in Zurich. In 1958 he became a founding editor of New Graphic Design. Müller-Brockman was the author of the 1961 publications The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems and Grid Systems in Graphic Design, where he advocates the use of the grid. As with most graphic designers that can be classified as part of the Swiss International Style, Joseph Müller-Brockmann was influenced by the ideas of several different design and art movements including Constructivism, De Stijl, Suprematism and the Bauhaus. He is perhaps the most well-known Swiss designer and his name is probably the most easily recognized when talking about the period. His most decisive work was done for the Zurich Town Hall as poster advertisements for its theater productions. He published several books, including The Graphic Artist and His Problems and Grid Systems in Graphic Design. These books provide an in-depth analysis of his work practices and philosophies, and provide an excellent foundation for young graphic designers wishing to learn more about the profession. He spent most of his life working and teaching, even into the early 1990s when he toured the US and Canada speaking about his work.
De Stijl Magazine De Stijl, Dutch for “The Style” was published from 19171920 as a document to the Dutch-founded artistic movement which ran from 1917-1930. Published by Theo van Doesburg, “De Stijl” is considered an essential document of the time. Like most such publications, De Stijl Magazine had a tiny circulation, but its ambitions were huge. The aim was to transform the world. Assuredly the abstract paintings, angular furniture and pared down buildings that De Stijl advocated did not make mankind less selfishly individualistic, but they did eventually alter the look of the modern environment. You can now find every issue of the “De Stijl” in PDF format online.
Akzidenz-Grotesk Typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk was released by H.Berthold AG type foundry in 1896, one of the largest and most successful type foundries in the world for most of the modern typographic era. Its transition from foundry type to cold type was successful, bringing about the dissolution of traditional typeset in the digital type era. Akzidenz was used as a text font in Europe, especially Switzerland. It was the forerunner of Helvetica, and it was one of the first sans-serif typeface to be widely used. The Akzidenz-Grotesk typeface became the most frequently used in The New Typography, and almost the norm in later Swiss graphic design. It was liked for its clarity and precision, designers mainly used it in its lowercase form.
What is Postmodernism? When I think of modernism, I think of cutting edge, new, fresh, and original… But when I think of post-modernism, I think of all these things, but with an added element of irony and deeper meaning such as a radical political statement, deconstruction of historical benchmarks, or socio-economic commentary, not that modernism can’t contain these things, but I believe it’s more pronounced in post-modernism. Postmodernism is a broad term used to describe movements in a wide range of disciplines, including art, philosophy, critical theory, and music. It was first thought of when Charles Jencks criticised the function of modernism. Many view it as a response to the preceding modernist movement, but where modernism simply reacts against classical concepts, particularly in the arts and literature, things that are postmodern take this reaction to its extreme. Some see it not as a separate movement, but simply as a continuation of the modernist struggle.
avant garde’s, passion for the new. It began in the 1960’s and challengd the seriousness of modernism by the use of play and irony, it shattered established ideas about style and brought radical freedom to art and design. Throughout the movement work was produced as a hybrid mixture of organic, inorganic, human, machine and electronic. However it was skeptical of progress due to anti - technology. It embraced paradox and contradiction, leading to fragmentation and decenteredness. The postmodernism movement had suspicion of the modernism movement and rejected master narratives and instead deconstructed history. It recycled culture, which challeneged originality, and eventually turned old ideas and styles into reworked new meanings and ideas. Another thing that postmodernism challenged was the typical producer and audience relationships. This caused for demassified culture , creating niche products and marketing, which also produced smaller group identities.
Postmodernism is “post” because it denies the existence of any ultimate principles, and it lacks the optimism of there being a scientific, philosophical, or religious truth which will explain everything for everybody - a characterisitic of the so-called “modern” mind. Postmodernism was a movement that rejected the modernist,
The postmodern movement started with architecture taking the first reaction against modernism’s bland and flat characteristic buildings. The idea of changing the aspects of modernisms style was to create a balance between form and function, instead of just focusing on function over form. This is how
postmodernism gained its individuality and how rule breaking and bending became acceptable. The idea behind having a design structure that had no limits meant that designers could be as free as they wanted to be. All ruling from modernism were forgotten allowing the designers personality to seep through into there work. All the elements of shape, line and colour were still very much the same, however they were used in different compositions to create designs that were much more playful, bright and exciting. This new type of design meant things werent flat anymore. Design was free and colours were wild, as long as the desing stood out then it didnt matter what colour combinations were used. Design also began to appear quite comical, all seriousness from modernism was gone, designers did what they could to stand out and break the rules. The form and conventional shapes were also gone too. Buildings began to have more funk and shape about them, the use of rectangles was no longer the norm. The use of retro and bold thick black lines were used wherever possible so that when colour was used it would stand out from the black lines. Rules were broken so much that products began to become ‘form over function’, they were unusable or hard to use. They looked good but werent ergonomic or user friendly meaning products were for show.
Postmodernism Timeline Of Trends
Abstract Expressionism (AB EX) 1945 - 1960 American movement (originating in NY: The New York School ) influenced by surrealism, with its emphasis on spontaneous, automatic or subconscious creation.
Photorealism - mid1960s Photorealism evolved from Pop Art and as a counter to Abstract Expressionism, as well as Minimalism. Photograph to canvas is done using projection or the grid.
Pop Art 1960s A reaction to Ab Ex, themes and techniques drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. Images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art..
Earth/Land Art - late 1960s Landscape is the creation, exist in the open, located well away from civilization, left to change and erode under natural conditions.
Post-painterly Abstraction As painting continued to move in different directions, powered by the spirit of innovation of the time, the term “post-painterly abstraction”, was gradually supplanted by minimalism.
Hard Edge Painting 1960s abrupt transitions are found between color areas. A reaction to the more painterly or gestural forms of Abstract expressionism, adopted a knowingly impersonal paint application and delineated areas of color with particular sharpness and clarity.
Minimalism 1960s – reaction against Ab Ex and a bridge to Postmodern art. The work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. “Less is More” . Sharp contrast to the energyfilled and highly subjective, emotionally charged paintings.
Lyrical Abstraction 1960s Characterized by intuitive loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, process and occasional imagery. It led the way away from minimalism and to a new freer expressionism.
Geometric Abstraction: is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in nonillusionistic space and combined into nonobjective compositions.
Color Field Paintin Large flat, solid colo across a canvas; areas of unbroken and a flat pictur Less emphasis on brushstrokes and favor of an overall co of form and
ng 1960s: or spread creating n surface re plane. n gesture, action in onsistency process.
Post-Minimalism - late 1960s refers less to a particular movement than an artistic tendency. Post minimalist artworks are usually everyday objects, use simple materials, and sometimes take on a “pure�, formalist aesthetic.
Conceptual Art 1970s: the concept or idea in the work takes precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns.
Process Art - mid1960s: emphasizes the process by which it was made, rather than on its form/composition/ end product.
Performance Art 1970s: the artist(s) creates a live performance, often using a variety of media.
Installation Art 1970s: site-specific, three-dimensional works designed to transform the perception of a space.
Neo-Expressionism 1980s a reaction against the conceptual and minimalist art of the 1970s. A returned to portraying recognizable objects, such as the body, in a rough and violently emotional way using vivid colors and banal color harmonies.
Neville Brody Neville Brody, was born 23 April 1957 in London, he is an English graphic designer, typographer and art director. He studied design in Britian during the 1970s. He spent three years studying at the London College of Printing where his work, which was quite experimental in nature, was met with quite unfavorable criticism because the school generally taught traditional printing methods. He gained a fair amount of attention as an art director for The Face magazine, where he worked from 1980 to 1993. The magazine was very popular in the 1980s, it was called a “fashion bible� and set many of the trends of design which enjoyed success during the same time period. He is also as well known for designing record covers for artists such as Cabaret Voltaire and Depeche Mode. In 1994 he formed Neville Brody Studio, now Research Studios, which has enjoyed much success and has since expanded to include offices in London, Paris, Berlin and Barcelona. He is a founding member of the London based type foundry Fontworks and has designed over 20 different typefaces during his career. He was also a major contributor to FUSE, which was a publication about the practice of experimental typography and was an avid user of the computer as a design tool during its developmental stages. He is the new Head of the Communication Art & Design department at the Royal College of Art.
Jamie Reid Jamie Reid (born 1947) is an influential British artist and anarchist, He was raised in a politically active family, Reid attended Croydon College in London, where he studied art and met fellow classmate Malcolm McLaren, the future manager of the punk rock band, the Sex Pistols. His work, features letters cut from newspaper headlines and displayed in the style of a ransom note, came close to defining the image of punk rock, particularly in the UK. His best known works include the Sex Pistols album Never Mind the Bollocks and Here’s the Sex Pistols. Following the Pistols’ end in 1978 and the demise of the British punk scene, Reid continued to work as an artist, infusing his work with his political leanings. He’s worked with various artists to protest nuclear weapons, racism and a fairer criminal justice system. For much of the 1980s and ‘90s, Reid worked with the world music group Afro Celt Sound System.
Paula Scher Paula Scher (born October 6, 1948, Virginia) is an American graphic designer, painter and art educator in design. Scher began her career creating album covers for both Atlantic and CBS records. She left CBS to work on her own in 1982 where she went on to develop a typographic solution based on Art deco and Russian constructivism, which incorporated outmoded typefaces into her work. The Russian constructivism provided Scher with inspiration for her typography; she didn’t copy the early constructivist style but used its vocabulary formin her work. In 1984 she co-founded Koppel & Scher with editorial designer Terry Koppel. During the six years of their partnership, she produced identities, packaging, book jackets, and advertising, including the famous Swatch poster made in 1985. In 1991, after the studio suffered from the recession and Koppel took the position of Creative Director at Esquire magazine, Scher began consulting and joined Pentagram as a partner in the New York office. In 1992, she became a design educator, teaching at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York. During Bank,
her career she has created memorable identities Coca-Cola, the Metropolitan Opera, the Museum of
and other work Modern Art and
for the
clients such as Citi New York Philharmo.
David Carson Currently calling New York his base of operations, Carson was born in Corpus Christi, Texas and spent much of his early life in southern California where he was a high school teacher before becoming a designer. Ingrained within the surfing sub-culture of southern California, Carson started experimenting with graphic design during the mid 1980s. Not only a designer, in 1989 he has qualified as the 9th best surfer in the world. His interest in the world of surfing gave him the opportunities to experiment with design, working on several different publications related to the profession. Transworld Skateboarding, Beach Culture, How Magazine and RayGun were among the primary publications on which he worked. However, it was RayGun where he gained perhaps the most recognition and was able to share his design style, characterized by “dirty” type which adheres to none of the standard practices of typography and is often illegible, with the widest audience. He is best known by his innovative magazine design, and use of experimental typography. He was the art director for the magazine Ray Gun, in which he employed much of the typographic and layout style for which he is known famously for. In particular, his widely imitated aesthetic defined the so-called “grunge typography” era. After the success of RayGun, and press from the New York Times and Newsweek, he formed his own studio. David Carson Design was founded in 1995 and is still home to Carson and his work.
Chip Kidd Chip Kidd (born 1964), American author, editor, and graphic designer. He is one of the most prolific book cover designers in American design history. Educated at Penn State, he started designing covers for Knopf in 1986, where he was responsible for 75 book covers a year. He is still employed at Knopf, an imprint of Random House, where he is an art director. He also oversees the production of comic book covers for Pantheon, another subsidy of Random House. His interest in comic books, graphic novels and pop culture have been a large influence on his work. He has published two books, Cheese Monkeys and The Learners, both of which he designed himself. The typography within the book is used to subtly, and sometimes blatantly, make points along side the narrative contained within. His highly productive career has allowed him to work with many celebrities and authors, including Frank Miller, Dean Koontz, John Updike and David Sedaris. His book covers continue to influence designers and pop culture and many of them are widely imitated.
Barbara Kruger Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an North American conceptual artist. Much of her work consists of black-and-white photographs overlaid with declarative captions—in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed. The phrases in her works often include pronouns such as “you”, “your”, “I”, “we”, and “they”, addressing cultural constructions of power, identity, and sexuality. While she has studied at design at the Parsons School of Design, Syracuse University and the School of Visual Arts and spent 12 years working as a magazine designer for Condé Nast, Barbara Kruger bridges the gap between fine art and design in her personal work. Her time spent as a designer and art director for magazines like Mademoiselle, House and Garden, and Aperture certainly influenced her signature style of combining found magazine imagery with simple, to the point typography. Setting much of her text in Futura Bold Oblique and with topics like consumerism, feminism and classicism it is hard to not have some kind of reaction to the stark statements of her work. She has been a pioneer of guerrilla art, producing some of her original works on shopping bags, t-shirts, bus benches and billboards. She has had exhibitions in many galleries around the world and currently resides and works in both Los Angeles and New York.
Ray Gun Magazine Ray Gun, was an alternative music and lifestyle magazine that debuted in 1992. The contents of Ray Gun’s pages were not related to graphic design, however the magazine proved to be an exploration of typography, layout and visual storytelling that would shift the approach of many graphic designers. David Carson was hired as art director of the magazine by publisher Marvin Scott Jarrett. The magazine lasted 7 years and over 70 issues were published. During the time of Ray Gun being produed Carson became well known and attracted new admirers to his work. In this period, he was featured in publications such as The New York Times (May 1994) and Newsweek (1996). Carson’s style of typographic experimentation influenced the development of the deconstruction style of design and a whole new generation of designers. The experiments by Carson and other Ray Gun designers were chaotic, abstract and distinctive, but sometimes illegible. The magazine’s radical subject matter often related to music and pop culture icons and the magazine became a reliable source for the prediction of up-and-coming stars.
Helvetica Typeface In 1957 Helvetica or Neue Haas Grotesk was designed to replace Akzidenz Grotesk as the Swiss Style typeface. It was designed by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann. This font was a redesigned version with wider spacing and was made available for machine typesetting. The aim of the new design was to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage. It was initially suggested that the type be called ‘Helvetia’ which is the original Latin name for Switzerland. This was ignored by Eduard Hoffmann as he decided it wouldn’t be appropriate to name a type after a country. He then decided on ‘Helvetica’ as this meant ‘Swiss’ as opposed to ‘Switzerland’. It is considered by many to be the Swiss styles greatest legacy, and is among the most widely used sans-serif fonts.
The Difference Between Akzidenz-Grotesk and Helvetica
Magazine Front Cover Experiments & Masthead Development
Existing Covers
I decided to look into some exisitng postmodern magazine covers to gain inspiration for when creating my own covers, I really like the use of bright colours and unclear imagery on these few covers I looked at. I enjoy the sense of mystery and unknown meaning behind them.
Street Graphic Covers
Cabinet Of Curiosity Covers
Earth Artifact Covers
Existing Mastheads
Before creating my own masthead I looked at some exisiting ones from around the postmodernist movement, I looked at a range of black and white to all colour to gain an idea for my own masthead. I personally like the basic text and simple shape mastheads.
Making A Masthead
Selecting A Front Cover
Experimenting With Mastheads
Research Into Existing Layouts & Creating Personal Layouts
The grid system is designed to help designers lay out a page, it is built up of vertical lines. The grid was designed by Josef Muller Brockmann who published a book called grid sytems in Graphic Design in 1961.
The Grid System
The grid was religeously obeyed by those who used it in the modernism period. When using a grid to design it allows the proportions of a page to be correct, it allows the designer to ensure measurements are consistant when placing text, images and other objects. The rules of the grid are still used very much so today , however designers in the postmodernist movement began to break the rules in the 1970’s. I will now go onto looking into exisiting layouts and creating my own.
Contents Page Layouts
Modernism Page Layouts
Postmodernism Page Layouts
Street Graphics Page Layouts
Cabinet of Curiosity Page Layouts
Earth Artifact Page Layouts
Manifesto Page Layouts
Typography Page Layouts
FInal Magazine Front Cover
Final Magazine Back Cover
Final Magazine - Pages
Backup Magazine Front Cover
Backup Magazine Back Cover
Backup Magazine - Pages
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove.� Jessica Kenyon U1355511