New Visual Language (Research/Development) by Jon Lawrence

new visual language. research/development. research and development document for new visual language magazine brief.

01 modernism. Modernism, in terms of design, defines the period between the end of the first world war and the beginning of post-modernism at the start of the 1970s.

The modernists were intrigued by emerging technologies of the period, which was driven by a strong belief in functionality or function over form.

It was born out of the ending of the first world war, the design world felt that after the chaos of the conflict, that design and technology needed reshaping. They had a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;less is moreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; approach to designing which was heavily seen in the work of the design school - bauhaus.

This less is more approach to design was typified by type designers such as Wim Crouwel and Max Miedinger of the Haas Type Foundry who designed fonts like Helvetica and New Alphabet.

ABCD EFGHIJ KLMNO PQRST UVWX YZ

02 postmodernism. Post-modernism began to become a common trend around the beginning of the 1970s. It coincided with a rebellious generation that wanted to question the world and what it essentially stood for.

Certainly in terms of graphic design, it was the birth of deconstructive design and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;grungeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; graphics. Publications such as David Carsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Raygun magazine are a prime example of post-modernist graphic design. They wanted to break away from

the grid systems that were a major feature of the modernist period. There was much less of an emphasis on legibility and intricacy, but much more so on noise and fragmentation.

The desire to rebel and question the system that was in place made it more of a political movement as well as just a shift of emphasis from a design point of view.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67342956899808099/

03 Lance Wyman. Lance Wyman, is an American graphic designer specializing in logos for international organisations, city networks and high profile events. Over the past five decades he has helped to, in his words: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;define the field of environmental graphics.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; His brand identity for the Mexico Olympics in 1968 (bottom image) is one of his most celebrated works and demonstrates his style as a modernist designer. His simplistic, often mono coloured logos are timeless. Although some were designed in

the 1970s meaning they were typical of modernist design at the time, they still work as well today and still manage to look contemporary and current. The designs on the left for Channel 5 and Challenger Sales are prime examples of his style. Incorporating geometry with soft curves, he manages to create a logo which works on any platform at any size. I intend to use the same kind of approach when designing my masthead for the magazine.

http://www.lancewyman.com/

wim Wim Crouwel is regarded as one of the most influential designers of the twentieth century. Crouwel was fully committed to a new modernity in order to produce the typefaces for which he is best known. His work represents the emerging technological advances of his era such as the computer. His was born in Groningen, a small city in northern Holland, as the son of a block-maker, within the printing trade. It was perhaps this upbringing which pointed him in the direction which is life has taken him. In 1951 he moved to

the capital, Amsterdam, where he initially pursued a career in exhibition design. He later studied under Charles Jongejans at the Academy for Applied Arts. It was here where he was exposed to modernist graphic design. He developed a strong identity for himself and his designs were instantly recognisable. The love of the grid structure lead him to form relationships with like-minded Swiss designers such as Gerard Ifert, Karl Gerstner and Josef M端ller-Brockmann.

In addition to his typefaces (Gridnik, New Alphabet and Fodor to name a few), Crouwel also produced many posters and overall identity of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. It is this thoroughness and use of the grid which I wish to emulate in designing my magazine, should I decide to go ahead with a modernist design as opposed to a post-modernist nature.

crouwel.

http://veerle.duoh.com/design/article/wim_crouwel_a_graphic_odyssey

Josef

05 “I would advise young people to look at everything they encounter in a critical light … Then I would urge them at all times to be self-critical.” http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/reputations-josef-muller-brockmann

Josef Müller-Brockmann is probably the most famous of the Swiss modernist designers of the twentieth century. He was heavily influenced by the art and design movements of Constructivism, De Stijl, Suprematism and the Bauhaus. Like Crouwel, MüllerBrockmann’s work was dictated by the grid system. He began his career as an apprentice to Walter Diggelman, a designer and advertising advisor. In 1936 he established his own Zurich based studio which specialised in graphics, exhibition

design and photography. By the beginning of the 1950s he was the leading practitioner of Swiss Style, which ‘sought a universal graphic expression through a grid-based design purged of extraneous illustration and subjective feeling.’ Müller-Brockmann has published a series of books: ‘The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems’, ‘History of Visual Communication’, ‘History of the Poster’ and perhaps his most renowned, ‘Grid Systems in Graphic Design’.

These books give an insight into how Josef Müller-Brockmann viewed modernist design, and has inspired and instructed many contemporary designers to follow in his footsteps and theories. As I stated with Crouwel, I fully intend to use the grid system as much as possible throughout my magazine and this research and development document.

Müller-

Brockmann

http://www.draplin.com/2011/07/we_contribute_to_the_new_megafaun_record.html

06 Aaron Draplin. Aaron Draplin is a contemporary graphic artist and designer who works in a very classical modernist way. Based out of Oregon, United States, his work consists of logos, magazines, and album covers to list a few. Working in a similar style to Lance Wyman, Draplin’s identity work is vast, often using thick bold lines and geometric shapes to form logo forms and limited colour pallets per design, his work is very much in a modernist, simplistic fashion.

The image on the left page is a logo/identity design for Megafaun, a group producing music out of the United States. The fat lines form a letter ‘M’ but could also be perceived as a mountain range oweing to the mountainous region from which the group are from. The three peaks also represent the three members of the group.

Draplin’s work on Snowboard Magazine is also of particular interest to me as it directly relates to my current project. The masthead represents the peaks and troughs of the mountains.

jacquelin Jacqueline Casey is one of the best celebrated female modernist graphic designers of the twentieth century. Her style was strongly influenced by the Swiss designers Karl Gerstner, Armin Hofmann and the aforementioned Josef Müller-Brockmann. Despite this, Casey once stated that the person who introduced her to the familiar grid structure that she used throughout her practising career was Thérèse Moll - a young Swiss designer who had been an assistant in Karl Gerstner’s Basel office.

‘She introduced the office to European typography …This use of proportions in designing publications series became a useful tool for developing MIT’s image.’ It was this European approach that Casey used in designing and developing visual MIT’s image. Casey’s work typically uses typography as a key feature, for example in the images on the right page which show the main message of the poster presented via large bold text.

Word play was another of Casey’s trademarks. Whilst keeping to the tried and tested Swiss design methodology, she designed ‘Russia, USA Peace, 1985’ which is a poster commissioned by the Shoshin Society) which commemorated the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

“Jacqueline Casey’s posters used wit, invention and the grid to reach the essence of each subject.” http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/woman-at-the-edge-of-technology

ne casey

http://blog.iso50.com/?s=jacqueline+casey https://www.pinterest.com/dsbkny22/jacqueline-casey/ http://www.aisleone.net/2008/design/jacqueline-s-casey/

http://janesaddiction.org/gallery/articles/raygun-sweet-janes-november-1997/

davidcarson

08 David Carson is perhaps one of graphic design’s best known names. His publication Raygun magazine is where his style of work really became recognisable and gained notoriety amongst the design world for its deconstructivist style.

Living in southern California and being heavily involved in it’s surfing sub culture, Carson began experimenting with graphic design in the 1980s. It was this surfing interest that gave him his platform to produce work on. Being one of the world’s top ten surfers gave him enough coverage and leverage to get his work seen. Transworld Skateboarding, Beach Culture, How Magazine were three of the publications he worked on in relation to this profession and sub-culture.

However, it wasn’t until Raygun that his game changing work was produced. The birth of ‘grunge typography’ took Carson’s work into the limelight. By ‘Squishing, smashing, slanting and enchanting the words on a layout, Carson made the point, over and over, that letters on a page are art.’ Legibility came second to the aesthetics of the type of the page. To Carson, what the words were saying was not as important as how they appeared on the page. A view he demonstrated infamously when he printed an entire interview with musician Brian Ferry in Zapf Dingbats in a 1994 issue of Ray Gun magazine. David Carson is probably the best example of post-modernist graphic design. The desire to break the mould of what graphic design previously stood for comes screaming out when looking at Carson’s work.

09 Neville Brody. Neville Brody, like David Carson is one of the most renowned designers of his generation. Working in and around the same period as Carson, Brody is very much a post-modernist designer. He started off at Fetish Records, designing the album art for a number of groups including Cabaret Voltaire. It was on these that he began to experiment with deconstructivism and the new art of grunge typography. This then fed into his work on The Face magazine which he was the typographer, graphic designer,

and art director for in the mid 1980s. He then went onto design other publications such as ‘City Limits’ and ‘Arena’ magazine. His distinctive typographical style meant that his designs were instantaneously recognisable. It is this distinction that makes him one of the most successful post modernist graphic designers out there. Despite the ‘grunge’ style, his magazine covers are still of interest and relevance for me even though I am most likely going ahead with a modernist style masthead and layout.

http://newmanology.tumblr.com/post/26556562184/arena-1988-on-the-cover-michael-caine-art

N A

S T

Jan Tschichold, German designer and typographer who worked in pre second world war Germany. He was born as the son of a painter and calligrapher which most certainly lead into Tschichold’s career path. In his early career he worked closely with Paul Renner who created the Futura typeface. As the Nazi party seized control in the region, Tschichold fled to Switzerland where he continued his practise.

When he set about writing Die Neue Typographie, his aim was to create a standardized set of rules relating to the then modern typefaces. ‘He condemned all typefaces except for sans-serif types, advocated standardized sizes of paper and set forth guidelines for establishing a typographic hierarchy when using type in design.’

His view on type is that new typography and sans serif fonts were the way forward.

C S

C I H

Wherever Jan Tschichold’s work has taken him, he has left behind a legacy and style that many have taken influence from and been inspired by, such as Peter Saville.

D L

O H

http://dezignrogue.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/jan-tschichold-and-new-typography.html

11 studio dumbar. Studio Dumbar is a contemporary Dutch based graphic design agency. They descrine their work as: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;visual branding, online brandingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. With clients all over the world, their work attracts global attention. This is perhaps due to its unique style. Often working in a modernist grid like structure ut with post-modern typefaces and deconstructive backgrounds.

The image on the right hand page demonstrates this style that Studio Dumbar have adopted. The text itself is laid out in a modernist grid structure, whilst the bold colours, hand drawn font and slanted lines give the poster an unmistakable post-modernist feel. The poster itself is one of a series produced for the European

I feel that the combination of modern and post-modern ideas works well throughout their projects and influences from both periods are present in all of the work they produce.

http://studiodumbar.com/work/european-design-festival

12 Classic Magazine Design. This mood board is a collection of a few classic and very successful magazine cover layouts and masthead designs. Some of which are very modernist in their style, such as Time and Whitelines, whereas publications like The Face, demonstrate a more post-modern approach.

https://www.notjustalabel.com/press-item/dazed-and-confused

Of the designs shown on these two pages, the ones that most appeal to me in terms of style are WhiteLines, Dazed & Confused and I-D Magazine, their simplistic layout with not many words cluttering the page appeals to my way of working. Also the limited colour pallets are also something which I like about them, and is something I wish to replicate in the design of my magazine.

http://www.handinglove.co.uk/the-face-magazine/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquire_(magazine)

https://snowboarderinthecity.wordpress.com/tag/whitelines/

http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20061023,00.html

http://www.celebuzz.com/2013-08-05/selena-gomez-gets-edgy-for-i-d-magazine/

Masthead Design. A good masthead design is absolutely key in producing a successful magazine. The example I have found to represent this is the French monthly magazine ‘Le Magazine du Monde’. The large gothic ‘M’ in the top left of the cover is consistent throughout every issue, changing colours to complement the single cover image (usually a portrait of whoever is featured in the magazine).

13 http://www.lemonde.fr/m-le-mag/

The next step for me is to look into designing some of my own masthead designs for my ‘New Visual Language’ magazine. These will initially be sketched for time purposes, then a couple of the more successful sketches drawn up on Adobe Illustrator and applied to a few different background/cover images.

Masthead Sketches.

Masthead Illustrations.

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new visual language

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Masthead Design. After sketching out a few designs and transferring them onto a digital format via Adobe Illustrator, I chose one to develop further and have ended up with the monogram design on the right. The are two variations, one with â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;nvlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; type and one without. I believe that both work equally well and I am pleased with the simplicity of the outcome. The page on the right shows the development process of the finalised design.

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nvl.

Cover Designs.

20 The design process for the covers started with the design of my monogram style masthead. I decided the top left placement of it to be the best in terms of layout and composition. I began with using free stock photos as the background for my cover as I initially decided that the work I produced for my previous projects was not suited to a magazine cover, certainly not in the modernist style that I wanted. I experimented with a number of different photographs that I thought would work well as cover

photos. Of the designs presented on the previous few pages, I mostly liked the typewriter image and the brick wall image. The typewriter as it relates to graphic design in a way that the other images do not achieve. The brick image I liked as it relates to my city in flux project: when I printed my posters off, I took them to Manchesterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Northern quarter and pinned them up onto red brick walls very similar in style to the brick image used here. I then progress to inserting a opaque layer into the centre of

the cover to make the sub heading and type easier to read, I liked the effect it gave to the image behind too and how it gave the page more of a grid like structure and appearance. After much deliberation however, I decided that it might be detrimental to my work and a shame if I did not use some of my own work on the cover. (The experiments fro this part are on the following pages).

Cover Designs.

Final Cover Design.

Front

Rear

Inner Pages.