Modernism & Post Modernism Research & Development
Modernism
Post-Modernism
Modernism was an approach to graphic design that tried to revitalise the way that people and audiences viewed life, art, politics and science. Modernism rejected the art and style of past that was expresive and colourful often decorative and containing meaning, and believed that the design of an object should be based on its purpose, hence ‘form follows function’ Modernists provided a new form of art that they believed was more appropriate to the present time and focused more on the materials used within the works. Up until then art had been judged on its ability to represent it’s subject in the most realistic way possible. Modernism was about rejecting these judgements and creating pieces that were more abstract, they believed they could transform society, creating compositions which exist outside of visual reality, and reflecting changes taking place in science, technology and philosophy. In graphic design this transtated to clean crisp posters saying only what they needed to, readable fonts like helvetica and a simple colour pallete was used, with no unnecasary decoration or over advertise in their work.
Postmodernism is all about playing around with the idea that art is nonsense and doesn’t have an obvious meaning anymore, with this in mind they began to experiment with things like layout, type, imagee, point size, collage, paint and any other media that takes their fancy, the aim was to make art more interesting and to see where it led. At first many designers thought postmodern design was nonsense, believing it didnt have any set structure or ideas behind it. But soon it began to change the way people viewed design, and designers began to realise that they needed to engage with their audiences, they refused to sit back and let their designs do the talking. Designers began to hold their positions as designers by making it clear that their work was created by a person, and that the person, or the designer, wanted some credit and recognition, he wanted it to be known that he was there, his presence felt in the work, instead of hiding behind neat lines and grid systems that made modernist artist seem invisable because the work was always looking this way , there was no unique quality to it, making it stand out.
Impresionism In order to understand graphic design movement I think it’s important to look at what happened prior to design, starting with Impressionism. Impressionism was a french art movement that began in 1860’s .Impressionism was all about breaking away from the usual conventions of art. Up un till Impressionism happened there was a n emphasis on the fact that art was painting, and to be a good painter your painting had to look exactly like it’s subject, almost so that the painting didnt look like a painting, it lookesd ilike the real thing .Impresionists capture their paintings with Edouard Manet - A bar at the folies bergere lots of colour, theses are mainly bright colours and less detail, focusing more on how light reflects and how colour works.
Claude Monet -Le bassin aux nymphéas
Camille Pissarro - Entrance to the vilage
Edouard Manet - le dejeuner sur l’herbe
Claude Monet- Impressionist sunrise
Camille Pissarro - Hermitage at pontoise
Alfred Sisley - The First Day of Spring
Alfred Sisley - Flood at Port Marley
Edgar Degas - La famille bellelli
Key artists: Edouard Manet Claude Monet Alfred Sisley Camille Pissarro Edgar degas
Post - Impressionism Post im pressionism also begun in france. most of these artists began as impressionist artists but began to change the way they paint in order to become more free in their styles, they felt less confined to using the light and colour in a natural way and they began to explore other ways of making the colour and the light stand out. heavy outlines and blocks of colour began to appear, as did bold patterns and swirls, this less natural aproach was what seperated impressionism from post impressionism. however it is important to note that both of these movements still use real life subjects, things or people that Paul Gauguin - tahitian women on the beach they can see in front of them, these may transfer differently in the paintings with the use of lage brush strokes and vivid colours but they are still evident in real life. This sense of freedom and bending the rules is what lead to poster design, artists began to paint with unatural colours and borders, more unrealistic images began to form and text began to appear on some artists work
Jules cheret
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Jules cheret was an artist from Paris, he’d been born into a poor family and they couldn’t afford to educet the child, the age of 13 he began an aprentiship, he traveled to London and on his return to paris he began to create posters for cabaret and theatre. These posters grew lots of attention and his buiesness soon spread so he was creating works for liquors and perfumes . He was well known for the way he represented women in his posters, they were happy and free spirited, unlike previous images where the women were depicted as prostitutes
Lautrec was an artist who developed a passion for painting and drawing at an early age, and was often thought of as ‘inventor of the modern poster’ he used people that he knew in his works and was interested in the goings on in paris, his works often depicted the nightlife and events occuring at the time. As Lautrec was disabled his works often included prostitutes as he felt that they accepted him even though he was an outcast, this lead to him being comisioned by some of the brothels, and he began to paint in more of a poster style
Cheret - La danse du feu
Lautrec - Aristide Bruant dans son cabaret
Key artists: Paul Cézanne Vincent van Gogh Auguste Rodin Paul Gauguin Jules Cheret Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Van gough - the stary night
Paul Cezanne - L’Estaque, Melting Snow
Fauvism Leonetto Cappiello Leonetto Cappiello was born in italy and visited paris, enspired by the city, its people and it’s culture Cappiello decided to stay. His first poster was for a magazine and after it was accepted it became a very big success, as did his career, launched overnight after the first viewing of his poster his prints became highdemand, he too was influenced by cheret but took a more modern aproach to poster design he worked with colour, his designs were simple and sophisticated alowing him to fit in with the modern poster design and demand of the time
Fauvism was a european movement that stemed from impressionism, it’s still possible to see the similarities, the use of strong colour and destorted forms, Fauvism took it one step further however and started to really distort the forms and the colours to the point where the image was no longer realistic, it was the artists representation of what he was seeing. The fauvist movement featured mainly on landscapes but some artists use people, much like with any form of art there is no set subject, each artist will paint differently. Fauvism brought with it a new way of looking at colour and making Andre Derain -The Turning Road at L’Estaque Maurice de Vlaminck -houses at chatou colour symbolic, getting rid of tone and replacing it with solid blocks of light or dark colour. At first people rejected fauvism as an art form as it was different, people believed it showed no artistic skill but eventually it began to gain respect and credibility. Although Fauvism itself had little effect on Graphic design it did enspire other art movements which graphic design took influence from so it remains an important part of design history.
Key Artists:
Gustave Moreau - The Pool of London
Raoul Dufy - Henley Regatta
Andre Derain Henri Matisse Maurice de Vlaminck Raoul Dufy Gustave Moreau
Cappiello - Musica e Musicisti
Matisse - Open Window, Collioure Summer Matisse - The Roof of Collioure
Cubism The Cubist art movement began in Paris and was led by Picasso and Braque. Cubist Art was all about the perspective from which the object was viewed, often taking uo multiple viewpoints within the same image. this means that a three dimentional image ould appear fragmented as artists would attempt to show the object from every perspective at once. Cubism was therefor seen as the new way of representing the world. Pablo Picasso was said to be the father of this movement and his art was enspired by ancient and tribal art which he often mixed with faces to form distorted figures that Fernand Leger - The City were’nt true to life. Cubism took its colour and use of colour from fauvism and then developed it further so that it was even less representational of the subject often using a limited colour palette, and very flat in its form. Cubism is coppied a lot by modern contemporary artists because it was such an influential movement.
Modern examples of Cubism cubism is still an influential part of design and the style has been used a lot digitally with the use of new tecnology and new software it means that images can be created influenced by cubism, but created digitaly using vectors rather thatn paint. These two examples are of modern or contemporary design they both appear to be quite different in their approaches, one appears to be more colourfull and is influenced by cubism but elements of
fauvism are still present in it, the background isis more evident of cubissm though as the forground shows one perspective. The second is a poster advertisment that uses the limited colour pallete of Cubism and the destorted shapes, however it is much more toned down than early cubism as the forms are still recognisable and the multiple view points have been reduced to just one view point, however the influences of cubism are still very clear in these artworks.
Alma Lee - Kitty Bird Watch
Sarah Bladdick - goodburger
Key Artists: Georges Braque Pablo Picasso Fernand Leger Piet Mondrian
Braque - Still Life With Musical Instruments
Picasso - les demoiselles d’avignon
Futurism Futurism was a movement that began in italy, people began to reject anything that looked old, they wanted a new italy, anything that looked towards the future was accepted. It focused on speed, modernity and tecnology, because this movement took off just before world war one it was influenced heavily by the war and by the new tecnologies, aiming to celebrate the new world and the new industry. This celebration and awareness can bee seen in most futurist paintings, the influences of the world can be seen amongst the angular shapes and bold colours that stemed from early fauvism, dynamic abstract forms seemed to be at the forfront of the futuristic movement. Futurism also had an impact on graphic design, Carlo Carra - Transatlantic seeing the rules of traditional layout broken and expressive typography, the aim was to make typography less predictable that created images that were more editorial. Futurism uses different fonts and point sizes. Futurism was the next step from cubism and focused on future events
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
fortunato depero
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was the artist that inspired and started furturism publishing its manefesto in 1910 the intention was to move art forward and forget all the previous versions of art and type, putting them aside for a better art form. In this example a variety of fonts and point sizes have been used, and the text doesnt follow a conventional layout, the two tone colour makes the text stand out and draws attention to the artwork. Futurism was one of the first times that typography had been chalenged, up until then its form was always fairly similar , and didn’t push boundaries, typography in itself began standing out as an art form in it’s own right.
fortunato depero was an artist that used futurism in a more graphical way, here we see one of the early covers of vogue magazine, from 1929. This I thought linked in perfectly with the brief and showed just how far graphic design and editorial design had come along, because now Vogue is one of the most famous, recognisable brands in the world, it’s so popular now that even the images on its cover can block part of the heading. Depero continued to publish these posters and others that were of the futuristic style and they became a popular edition to the graphic design and editorial world and influenced many other artists works.
Marinetti - Manifestação intervencionista
fortunato depero - vouge cover
Key artists Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Giacomo Balla Umberto Boccioni Carlo Carrà Gino Severini CRW Nevinson fortunato depero
CCRW Nevinson - A Bursting Shell
Dada Dada was a form of art that went against what society classed as normal. It started in Switzerland because people, like atists and writers began to protest against the fact that the war was allowed to happen, they were angry about the fact that the people at the top, the government, didn’t seem to care about how they felt. Art was used to mock the situation and go against tradition, often using humour to shock and change the course of art. Artists began to feel ashamed of their contries for taking part in the war and this was reflected in their work. a sence of unpredictability is also present in their work and even the way the name dada was chosen is a reflection of that, as it was literally chosen from a dictionary at random by poet Tristan Tzara in Zurich.
Hannah Hoch
Kurt Schwitters
Hannah Hoch is a german woman apauled by her country her piece bellow reflects her negative response to war depicting cut outs of german politicians Fredrich Elbert and Gustav Noske, they are shown in bathing suits because this was obcene behaviour, a fig leaf is present to symbolise inocence, in a sense that it woulld mock the government as it was far from inocent. However her piece was never publicaly displayed at if it were to fll into the wrong hands she would be punished.
Kurt schwitters was a large part of the dada movement, he used bits and pieces that he had found from around the streets, rubish, train tickets, bits of his every day life were present in his pieces because Schwitters believed that believed that there was no devide between art and every day life. Kurt Schwitters soon developed his own style of Dada which he called merz, this name came from cutting the end of the word ‘kommerz’. Merz aimed to create art that made
conections with everything in this world. He devoloped this style in his own way and encorporated typography into this work. In 1923 he published a magazine entitled merz and began creating cover designs for his magazine, 25 issues in total. The magazine featured texts on his thoughts and feelings about the dada movement, it also featured contributions from other dada inthusiasts and an interview with its founder Tristan Tzara and a piece of work by Hannah Hoch.
Hannah Hoch - Dada Panorama
Kurt Schwitters - Das Unbid
Kurt Schwitters - Merz magazine
Key artists: Marcel Duchamp Paul Eluard Raoul Hausmann John Heartfield Kurt Schwitters Hannah Hoch
Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement that started in 1924, it was all about capturing the unconcious mind. Objects would be moved and resized to change perspective, so as to represent a dream. Surrealism was founded by Andre Brenton who published the manifesto of surrealism. It was a movement that was heavily influenced byinfluenced by Dada. After the war many Dada artists began to use surrealism although the art and style was different the general idea was the same, it went against what was conventional and considered right and was more based on the ideas and the representations within Man Ray - La Fortune the pieces. Brenton wanted to make Dada more focused and less nonsesical and so Surrealism was born focusing on the mind, the dreams, and the unconcious individual.
Max Earnst
Salvador Dali
One of the most well known artists to use surrealism was Max Earnst, his paintings often featured trees or forests, these were used as a metaphore for imagination. The trees were also personal and linked back to the fear he felt when in the woods at an early age. The tecnique he used was called grattage, which was where paint was dragged accross a canvas to reveal the texture beneath, and frattage which was when the paint was scratched away.
Salvador Dali is probably the most famous artist accosiated with the surrealist movement. and he had his first artist exhibition in 1925. four years later he traveled to paris where hemet Andre Brenton there they wrote the manifesto ‘I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dreams and reality which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality if one may so speak’ The word surrealism means above reality which is quite literally a dream.
Max Ernst - La foret
Salvador Dali - The presence of memory
Key Artists: Sir Henry Moore Rene Magritte Joan Miro Salvador Dali Man Ray Georgia O’Keeffe Max Ernst
Georgia O’keefe - From the Faraway, Nearby
René Magritte - The Son of Man
De Stijl
Bauhaus
De Stijl was an art movement that reduced everything to pure forms, geometric shapes and lines, the primary colours are present throughout and the use of black and white is also used, but mainly for background colour and outlines. The aim of De Stijl is to express a new utopian idea of order, a sence of peace and calm, everything has its place. Much like Dada it was a response to the tragedys of war, its simplicity reflected a need to rebuild society from scratch, and sugested that the need to be so individual meant that being indevidual was in fact losing most of it’s significance. De Stijl artists believed that the Mondrian - Composition A beauty of the work arose from its purity, any form was represented by geometric shapes with the aim to create paintings which valued equality and harmony.
Bauhaus was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. Up until the Bauhaus art had been very traditional, it wasn’t until now that it was truly accepted as a form of art, it prided itself on simplicity. The Bauhaus school was founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar. The Bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture and modern design. Bauhaus had a large influence on the next developments in art, architecture, graphic design and typography. The Bauhaus The Bauhaus school style was marked by the absence of any ornamentation and by harmony between the function of an object or a building and its design.
Key Artists:
Key Artists:
Max Bill Piet Mondrian Theo Van Doesburg Vilmos Huszar Bart van der Leck
Walter Gropius Lyonel Feininger Johannes Itten Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Joost Schmidt Van Doesburg - Dissonances, XVI
Joost Schmidt - Bauhaus poster
Van der Leck - Composition No.7
Johannes Itten - winter
Constructivism Constructivism really took off as the Russian revolution began, it saw the begining of comunism which created a classless social order as a reult of the soviets rising up and protesting against their government on the grounds that they wanted to make their own decisions and not be controlled by the upper classes. Constructivism used geometric shapes with order to create a universal meaning. propaganda posters often featured red white and black as these were the colours of political protest, constructivism was simple it rejected traditional art forms opting instead for a more basic look, a less Moholy-Nagy - Composition A is more aproach to graphic design that fully acepted modernity, it was experimental, often without emotion and willing to try new media. A world of peace and utopia was reflected in some works, the roots of which probably stem from the de stijl movement.
El Lissitzky
Alexander Rodchenko
El Lissitzky designed many of the soviet posters and porpaganda as well as being an influential figure in the develpment of modern typography. The abstract geometric style in his work dates back to the movements before it and the influences are clearly visable within his artworks. circles, squares and lines are used throughout lissitzkeys work and his typography is is clear and to the pointevidence of futurism can be seen iin the way the type is ordered. the colours reflect soviet political protest.
Alexander Rodchenko was a soviet russian graphic designer, and one of the founders of cunstructivism along with Vladamir Tatlin, who said that traditional art was dead and prefering abstract sculptures and reliefs after being enspired by a set of wood reliefs made my picasso. In Constructivism the material dictates the art, the art does not dictate the material, the focus was more on how materials behaved. Rodchenko created a series of propaganda posters which aimed to persuade the soviets to buy shares in Dobrolet, which was the state airline, by using short straight to the point pieces of text along with imagery to support it. Rodchenko was inspired by Dada artists in germany such as hannah hoch, experimenting with collage in the mid 20’s, this photomontage illustrated poet Vladamir Mayakovsky ‘about this’ poem, Mayovsky was one of Rodchenkos lecturers and they often worked together creating a graphic bold style in their posters.
Key artists: Vladimir Tatlin Wassily Kandinsky Alexander Rodchenko Robert Adams El Lissitzky Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Rodchenko - Poster for the state airline Dobrolet
Lissitzky -Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge Lissitzky - Arkhitektura
Lissitzky - Arkhitektura
Swiss Style Swiss style began in the 1950’s aand was all about sreating a design that had solid structure often using a grid system it used margins, colums, rows, any text that was used fit perfectly within the grid system. Typography is a key part of the swiss style and it’s usually a Sans-Serif font that is used, mainly helvetica, that being one of the more neutral typefaces. Justified spacing is often used and more often than not the type is aranged on the left with the objective to be clearly readable. Swiss style also used a combination of typography and photography as a means of visual communication. Most of the works were developed as posters, which were seen to be the most effective means of communication.
Key Artists: Wim Crouwel Max Meidinger Jan Tschichold Paul Renner Emil Ruder Armin Hofman Max Bill Josef Müller-Brockmann
Max Meidinger
Josef Müller-Brockmann
Emil Ruder
Max Meidinger developed the typeface of Helvetica in 1957 along with felow typographer Armin Hoffmann, at the Haas foundry in Switzerland. They set out to design a new sans-serif typeface that could compete with other sans serif type faces in the Swiss market. However, Helvetica was originally called Neue Haas Grotesk, the name was changed in order to make the typeface more memorable to its audiences and easier to market internationaly. The aim of the new design was to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, had no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage. Helvetica is still used today and has become so common that it is almost part of our everyday lives, we do not think about type we just accept that it is there, helvetica is so neutral that it can be used in almost any circumstance.
Josef Müller-Brockmann was a Swiss graphic designer and design teacher. He studied architecture, design and the history of art at the University and in Kunstgewerbeschule, Zurich. In 1936 he opened his studio, also in Zurich, which specialised in graphic design, exhibition design and photography. MüllerBrockman was author of “The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems” and of “Grid Systems in Graphic Design.” He is recognised for his simple designs and his clean use of typography, most comonly noted is Helvetica, shapes and colours which were seen and taken from previous movements but used in a much more contemporary format.
Emil Ruder was another designer and typographer that played a key role in the development of The Swiss Style. Ruder attended Zurich School of Arts and Crafts where he was influenced by the Bauhaus and modern design and type. In 1947 Ruder helped found the Basel School. Where he because the head master. Ruder published a book explaining the basic grammar of typography titled “Emil Ruder: Typography”. The book helped to spread and popularise the Swiss Style, it became a basic text for graphic design and typography programs in Europe and North America. In 1962 he helped to found the International Center for the Typographic Arts over in in New York.
Meidinger - helvetica
Brockmann- Auto Club of Switzerland Poster Ruder -Neue BauteAdvertisement
Armin Hofmann
Max Bill
Wim Crouwel
The Grid System
Armin Hofmann is a Swiss graphic designer that worked alongside Meidinger. Hofman, with help from fellow graphic Designer Emil Ruder, successfuly managed to help form the Basel School of Design, this really helped to establish the style of Swiss Design as a succesful artform. Basel School of Art and was at the forefront of developing the graphic design style known as the Swiss Style. Hofman is well known for his posters, which emphasised the use of colour and fonts. Hofman then took over from Ruder as head of the school.
Max Bill was a Swiss architect, thpographer and graphic designer. Bill studied at the Bauhaus where he was inspired by the simple modern style. Bill was one of the first to join the group of Swiss artists. He became a professor at the school of arts in Zurich, where Ruder had studied. He went on to found a design school in the style of the Bauhaus. The school is recognised by its inclusion of semiotics as a field of study. Among Bill’s most famous designs is the “Ulmer Hocker”, a stool that can also be used as a shelf or a side table. The stool was a creation of Bill and fellow designer, Hans Gugelot.
Wim Crouwel was a graphic designer enspired by the ideas of the bauhaus. he believed we needed machines because we didnt have enough time, but he also believeed in doing things by hand because nothing was more critical than the human eye, this is reflected in his work with emotional and rational aspects. Crouwel is a modernist and impressed by a typeface like Helvetica he believed “A face shouldn’t have a meaning in itself, the meaning should be in the content of the text.”* In his work Crouwel chose sans-serif faces that allowed numerous combinations. The essential information was set in one returning typeface and the title of the exhibition slightly reflected the feel of the exhibition.
The grid system is used a lot in graphic design and fors the basis for the work, like a foundation for the work to sit on and within. Müller-Brockmann says “ 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.” Wim Crouwel is known for his exploration and experimentation with grids. In his poster for the Vormgevers exhibition in 1968, he made the grid visible. This device then formed the basis not only for the layout, but also for the lettering. use of the grid made design look much neeter and much clearer.
Hofman - Giselle magazine
Max Bill - Ulmer Hocker
Wim Crouwel - Morris Louis
Wim Crouwel - Vormgevers exhibition poster
Post - modern designers Post modern designers tend to shy away from the traditional methods of design, They don’t use a grid system much and are more about the random placement of text and image, they believe design had become too regimented and instead opted for a more expressive hands on aproach to design, this meant they went back in a way, to old methods, using cutting and sticking, collage, paint, in any way that they desired to make the artwork look apealing, expressive and unique. Key Artists: Stefan Sagmeister Andy Warhol Jamie Reid Nevile brody David carson
Stefan Sagmeister
David Carson
Neville Brody
Stefan Sagmeister attended the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, after leaving there he formed Sagmeister formed Sagmeister, Inc. His studio is very small in size and he works only with clients that appeal to him. He continues to operate his studio where he works for clients from a wide range of industries including fashion and music. An Inspirational and intriguing designer Sagmeister is recognized for his unique designs that tweak the status quo and question the designer’s role in society. Hepushes the bondaries of whats acceptable and what isn’t. Sagmeister is known for upsetting peoples perceptions of normal.
David carson was the designer behind Ray Gun magazine. Carson didn’t care about prior graphic design, he would endlessly taunt the grid system, coming up with new ideas and going about doing his own thing and creating work that appealed to him. Magazines were the main platform of his style. Ray Gun became more famous as a platform for Carson’s visual work than it did for its music content. Breaking the traditional value of type on a page and demanding fresh eyes from the reader. Smashing, slanting and enchanting the words on a layout, Carson made the point, over and over, that letters on a page are art.
Neville Brody is a well known graphic designer and typographer. As the Art Director of Fetish records he began experimenting with a new visual language, he then developed this style and made it his own linking text and image in unique ways and producing The Face magazine. It was his work on magazines that firmly established his reputation as one of the world’s leading graphic designers. Especially his contribution to The Face which completely changed the way that designers and readers look at the magazine because it didn’t follow the strict rules of design and was very anti-grid in its style and layout. Brody also gaind public recognition for his work in combining typefaces into design.
Sagmeister - Lou Reed poster
Carson - poster
Brody - poster
Wolfgang Weingart
Andy Warhol
April Greiman
Art Chantry
Designer Wolfgang Weingart is recognized for his typographic explorations creating a more experimental and expressive approach to typography that was influential around the world. In his work, Weingartpushes the boundaries of typography and layout, although some evidence of the swiss style can still be seen within his work. Weingart created abstract patterns with type, and went beyond the conventional almost to the absurd. In his work he uses a variety of layerd texts and colour pannels often fading in and out of the piece, he enjoyed juxtapositioning images and although he enjoyed experimenting with layout he rarely used any other text than Helvetica.
Andy Warhol’s art work is post modern as it combine both images and writing within artwork, most famous for his work in pop art where the images are often shown in one or two contrasting colours and are bright and bold. The ideas behind Warhols work are what really make it postmodern, the idea is just as important as the artwork itself. Warhol was one of the first pop artists to occure and mixes both art and popular culture. Although pop art and graphic design are different, influences of each can appear, the bright colours and text links it with artists like david carson and the earlt expresionist movements.
April Greiman was one of Wiengarts students and is now one of historys female graphic designers, influences heavily by Weingarts work she began experimenting with layout and often treated the page as if it wre three dimentional, she would place type and image within this space and play around with the content, overlaying text, tilting images, creating new compositions on the page and ading extra strokes and shaddow to create work that had balance and meaning. Greimans work usually featured Helvetica as a type face but it was condensed and sometimes Italic overlapping two coloured texts to create more depth and shaddow
Art Chantry is a graphic designer working in a post modern style he’s designed artwork and posters for bands like nirvana and the red hot chillie pepers as well as the cover for surf magazine ‘some people can’t surf’. Some of chantrys work can be found in the rock and roll hall of fame as well as the louvre museum, this isbecase it is so unique and iconic it’s become part of history, in his work it’s possible to see the influences from different genres, theres elements of pop art coming through as well as the different text sizes and styles. His posters are often hand crafted, not using tecnology as much as some other artists, instead opting for knives, paints and hand printing.
Weingart - Dadicta Eurodidac
Warhol - Absolut Vodka
Greiman - Your Turn, My Turn
Chantry - The rocky horror show
Post - modern designers Barbara Kruger
Jamie Reid
American artist Barbara Kruger developed an interest in graphic design after visiting and attending different design schools throughout her life. Barbara, working as a graphic designer and as a result she has been able to develop her own style whereby she uses reds blacks and whites, this could link back to constructivism where propaganda colours were used. her work usually involves black and white photography with grainy effects added. she uses overlapping text and catchy short snippets of text that stand out in some wy from the image, often distorting things and playing around with layout she is able to make her designs stand out against a croud.
British artist and designer Jamie Reid designed artwork for the Sex Pistols and his post medern style helped define the look of the punk rock scene. Reid grew up in London where he met future Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren. After McLaren formed the Sex Pistols, he recruited Reid to work with the band. Reid developed his style by cutting up graphics and other elements, fusing them together in various ways using a wide range of colours, the fonts he used were varied due to the fact the letters he was using were often taken from multiple sources. The feel of his work was hands on, like he wanted people to be aware of the fact there was somone behind the artwork.
Kruger - we wont play nature
Reid - God save the queen
Modernist Magazines a lot of these magazines are a modernist style, but they dont feature the swiss modernism style as much and more of the early artistic style, that’s influenced by art deco and the different art movements up until that point. the modernist magezines tend to be plain and simple in their appearence often using a simple colourscheme with a simple consistent masthead design, sometimes acompanying shapes into their designs, they more often than not use a sans serif font such as arial or helvetica. The examples that I’ve found are Collect magazine which uses a consistent masthead in the same colour and place each time, its price and issue are also in the same place from one magazne to another. The only things that change eawith each issue is the colour of the background that is often bright and consists of only one colour and tone. Then there’s the image which is different every issue but is still located in the same place, the image usually always the has an impact on the background colour because the two of them link together so that the colour palete remains as minimal as possible. The second one I found was Luxe magazine which is an interior design magazine with a very simplistic cover, The mastmead on the Luxe cover is always in the same place although this one changes occasionaly from black to gray, the magazine is simple because it shows off the product extremely well whilst also remaining quite minimal. The images
on this magazine also vary from one week to another but the proportions remain the same and the masthead colour depends on which colour harmonises best with the image that is used on the cover. Neue grafik is another example of a modernist magazine cover, Each issue is exactly the same, the content is obviously different, but the covers are the same, each masthead is in the same colour, the same place and the same font, each subheading is in the same place, each issue number and each background colour is always white. The only thing that changes on this cover is the fact that theres a block of colour underneath the heading, this block of colour canges from one colour to another from week to week, this keeps the magazine looking modernist, but also helps diferentiate between the ifferent issues, once again the magazine uses a sans serif font common to the modernist style. the last mag I found was the apropriately named The modernist’ magazine which is similar to neue grafik in the sense that each image colour is different whilst everything else remains the same, the difference being that the heading of the magazine is found in the middle of the image and not at the top of the magazine, the colour also changes each issue and the shape in which the heading is enclodes in is a circle but then it has small fading trieangles coming from it, reminds me of o sunflower but the fact that the image is consistent is what makes it look so modernist in its style.
Postmodernist Magazines Post modern magazines are different from modernist magazines because they are not clean cut and crisp in their appearence, they often have irregular type, sometimes the headings can change, the images change, the fonts change, the colours change, the differece is that post modern designers want people to look at their work and be able to see that it has been created by an artist and not a faceless coperation, this is reflected in the use of different fonts and the variety of different aproaches to the postmodern design, each artist will develop their own style in this way, the artists will chose weather they want to use serif or sans serif, some will use a mix. the first post modernist magazine that i looked at was ray gun magazine by david carson, this magazine uses different mastheads each issue with the letters varying from one week to the next, the placement of the masthead also changes, but i was really inspired by these covers as they each look so different no two are the same and i think this really does make you think about the artist behind the work, as in some of the ray gun magazines the images are blured, some are overlapped, some have text overlapping and the magazine style itself is very grungy and uniqueI like how in some of the covers there are random scribbles and the text is not set in one consistent line spacing, often having a variety of fonts within one design. The next magazine that i looked at was I-D magazine, which was very similar to ray gun but the
masthead on the I-D magazines is constant, its the same font and usually on the top left of the magazine, but the size and rotation can sometimes vary from issue to issue, the images also have a very unique overlay to them, some have drawn on lines that add to the image and some have like a colour wash that just sits on top of the image and doesnt really effect the image much some of the issues have a half and half theme where one side of the image is different to the other but they’re both still conectedanother thing ive notcied about this magazine is that the barcode moves around a lot. the third postmodern magazine that i looked at was called eye magazine, eye magazine also had a masthead that changed colour, but other than that it remained exactly the same, the same place and the same style, the entirity of the eye magazine was quite consistent, the main image of the magazine was the background which would change each week the writing and issue number always appears down he left handside in small text so that it doesnt take any attentin away from the cover image, II like how varied the cover images are from issue to issue. The fourth magazine that I looked at was fuse magazine that also used a changing background image each issue, but the masthead varies it changes font sometimes and it’s not always in the same placeoften though the colour of the font ties in with the background image so that it is consistent.
Existing Mastheads
My Masthead Designs
Chosen mastheads
Thumbnails
These are the mastheads that I will be trialing on my magazine, the first two are in Helvetica, but I can try them in both upper and lower case to find the one that best suits the magazine cover and the style of the magazine, The first one uses a block of colour to separate the ‘new’ from the ‘visual language’ because I think this makes the title seem more contemporary and then the font colour and the rectangle colour can be changed independently to match the colour of the magazine from week to week, black and white are just examlpe colours, they’re probably too harsh to use on the magazine cover and softer colours might be more apropriate. The second one is also in helvetica, but the difference is that the words on that one are stacked so they will appear on the left of a magazine cover, the colour will also be changed from black to whatever colour best suits the magazine, I may also use the font in lowercase to experiment and see what it would look like, because it mught turn out that these modernist mastheads look better in lowercase than uppercase. The last three mastheads are more suitable for a postmodern cover, this is because they offer that grungey look that isn’t quite as clean and neat as helvetica, it features eroded letters and this is what makes it more useful for the postmodern covers. The font that I have Used for this is called ‘plane crash’ I chose this one because It’s easy to read, and because the bottom of the letters are flat, for example if we look at the V the bottom of it is squared off, rather than reaching a point at the bottom, this made the font easier to use as it means that the letters look more aestheticaly pleasing once they are put next to each other in this way. I played around with the letter forms, overlapping them and
The thumbnails on the opposite page have been created for the magazine cover, the ones on the left hand side are modernist ones and the ones on the right are more postmodern. I found that the modernist magazines were harder to create for me as I really had to think about what modernism mas and so there’s quite a minimal amount of images and text on each one of the modernist designs, this is because the modernists often used shapes and colours instead, I found this quite difficult to visualise as it’s not usually something I’m good at doing, I found it chalenging to come up with different ideas for each thumbnail and found myself almost repeating ideas without realising it., and although I do like the look of modernist pieces of work, I’m not quite as confident at creating these pieces. With that being said though I found that creating the postmodern ones was much more fun for me as it alowed me to be more creative and alowed the placement of text and images in orders that wouldnt normaly be seen, postmodernism also alows for the placement of random lines and squigles that make the work look unique, the title can be placed almost anywhere as long as it is clear and readable, there seem to be less rules in postmodernism that restrict the way these covers are layed out, this is why in some of my thumbnails the title is at the top of the page and in others it will be in the middle, the barcode is also in various places in these thumbnails too and there is more use of imagery and text overlapping these images. The next step from here is to go and create some of these thumbnails. On the next few pages after the thumnails, there will be my examples of creating these thumbnails with different variations and colour, the mastheads will also be put to use.
rotating them, but in the end it seemed like the most obvious, conventional method of text layout worked best, having three individual letters next to each other means that they are easy to read and, I found that in some cases rotating the letters meant that the V was lost, because it looked like the N and the L had just been rotated to form the V, which was a good idea in theory, but when put into practice I found that this meant people didnt read the V so it lost all meaning, and theres a fine line between making something took contemporary and making something that is understandable. Another thing that I tried was putting each individual letter on top of one another and lining them up so that the ends of the letters touched, this was another idea that worked better in theory than in practice, because the letters dont all have the same poins, the bottom of the V has been joined with the top of the L and as a result the whole thing didn’t look quite right because I, idealy, wanted the letters to be square and even in the way
they looked. In the end I opted for a simple aproach of three letters as I believed that these letters were the easiest to read in this format and that I had been over complicating things before that so that the Letters were starting to look less like letters and more like building blocks, so going back to basics I adjusted the space between the lettersso that the top of each letter was touching the top of the next, I then thought about what else I could do with these letters to make them look more appealing or more suitable for a post modern magazine, this is where I came up with the idea of using opposite colour rectangles behind the letters so that the letters appear to be in a more square format, I tried one with the rectangle in the middle, and one with a rectangle at either side of the V, again these colours can be changed so that they match whatever the cover design is, they can also be moved and rotated so that the NVL goes down the side of the magazine but still remains readable. I think these are great for postmodern design.
Testing Fonts New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language NEW VISUAL LANGUAGE New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language New Visual Language
These are some of the fonts that I looked at using in my magazine, I was inspired a lot by the Raygun coversand the typewriter style fonts that were used there on the covers, I thought I’d like to take this element of the design forward so that the magazine has its own unique look, becuase i think that looking at all of the covers, I’ve decided to do a postmodern style magazine because this is the style i feel I’ll be able to complete to the best of my advantage and I feel this is what I’d get most enjoyment out of because I personally prefer postmodern design. I’ve found a variety of different fonts because I think different fonts might work well for different pages and some will work well depending on the topic of the page, for example a serif font would look out of place on a page that talks about the bauhaus, and then not all of the fonts will be suitable for body text some will look better as text for mastheads or for headings on each page. But I do think that prodominently I’d like to use the typewriter style fonts because these tend to work with postmodern design in my opinion. The fonts that I’ve chosen to feature in my magazine are the 6 fonts on the right.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz - alder
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz - Albertsthal Typewriter
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ - Sf Wadim Giant
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz - GeosansLight ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
- SkyFall Done
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz - Vcr Osd Mono
Test Paragraphs Bauhaus was a school in germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. Up until the bauhaus art had been very traditional, it wasn’t until now that it was truly accepted as a form of art, it prided itself on simplicity. The bauhaus school was founded by walter gropius in weimar. The bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in modernist architecture and modern design. Bauhaus had a large influence on the next developments in art, architecture, graphic design and typography. The bauhaus style was marked by the absence of any ornamentation and by harmony between the function of an object or a building and its design.
Bauhaus was a school in germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. Up until the bauhaus art had been very traditional, it wasn’t until now that it was truly accepted as a form of art, it prided itself on simplicity. The bauhaus school was founded by walter gropius in weimar. The bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in modernist architecture and modern design. Bauhaus had a large influence on the next developments in art, architecture, graphic design and typography. The bauhaus style was marked by the absence of any ornamentation and by harmony between the function of an object or a building and its design.
- alder
- Albertsthal Typewriter
Bauhaus was a school in germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. Up until the bauhaus art had been very traditional, it wasnt until now that it was truly accepted as a form of art, it prided itself on simplicity. The bauhaus school was founded by walter gropius in weimar. The bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in modernist architecture and modern design. Bauhaus had a large influence on the next developments in art, architecture, graphic design and typography. The bauhaus style was marked by the absence of any ornamentation and by harmony between the function of an object or a building and its design.
Bauhaus was a school in germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. Up until the bauhaus art had been very traditional, it wasn’t until now that it was truly accepted as a form of art, it prided itself on simplicity. The bauhaus school was founded by walter gropius in weimar. The bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in modernist architecture and modern design. Bauhaus had a large influence on the next developments in art, architecture, graphic design and typography. The bauhaus style was marked by the absence of any ornamentation and by harmony between the function of an object or a building and its design.
- Sf Wadim Giant Bauhaus was a school in germany that combined crafts and the fine arts and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught Up until the bauhaus art had been very traditional it wasn’t until now that it was truly accepted as a form of art it prided itself on simplicity The bauhaus school was founded by walter gropius in weimar The bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in modernist architecture and modern design Bauhaus had a large influence on the next developments in art architecture graphic design and typography The bauhaus style was marked by the absence of any ornamentation and by harmony between the function of an object or a building and its design
- SkyFall Done
- GeosansLight BAUHAUS WAS A SCHOOL IN GERMANY THAT COMBINED CRAFTS AND THE FINE ARTS, AND WAS FAMOUS FOR THE APPROACH TO DESIGN THAT IT PUBLICIZED AND TAUGHT. UP UNTIL THE BAUHAUS ART HAD BEEN VERY TRADITIONAL, IT WASN’T UNTIL NOW THAT IT WAS TRULY ACCEPTED AS A FORM OF ART, IT PRIDED ITSELF ON SIMPLICITY. THE BAUHAUS SCHOOL WAS FOUNDED BY WALTER GROPIUS IN WEIMAR. THE BAUHAUS STYLE BECAME ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL CURRENTS IN MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE AND MODERN DESIGN. BAUHAUS HAD A LARGE INFLUENCE ON THE NEXT DEVELOPMENTS IN ART, ARCHITECTURE, GRAPHIC DESIGN AND TYPOGRAPHY. THE BAUHAUS STYLE WAS MARKED BY THE ABSENCE OF ANY ORNAMENTATION AND BY HARMONY BETWEEN THE FUNCTION OF AN OBJECT OR A BUILDING AND ITS DESIGN.
- Vcr Osd Mono
Words I’m Likely to use CONTENTS BAUHAUS Contents Bauhaus
CONSTRUCTIVISM Constructivism
CITY IN FLUX City in flux
DEVELOPMENT Development
IMAGES Images
CONTENTS Contents
BAUHAUS Bauhaus
CONSTRUCTIVISM Constructivism
CITY IN FLUX City in flux
DEVELOPMENT Development
IMAGES Images
CONTENTS Contents
BAUHAUS Bauhaus
CONSTRUCTIVISM Constructivism
CITY IN FLUX City in flux
DEVELOPMENT Development
IMAGES Images
CONTENTS BAUHAUS Constructivism CITY IN FLUX DEVELOPMENT IMAGES
CONTENTS Bauhaus CONSTRUCTIVISM CITY IN FLUX DEVELOPMENT IMAGES Creating words and paragraphs that I’m likely to use in my magazine helps me to visualise exactly wow it will look once it’s in a magazine and therfore make my decisions that bit more informed, from this I’ve gathered that Alder has the potential to work well as a body text, and so does albertshaw typewriter, in fact they all do with the exception of SkyFall Done, provided I can encorporate them in the right way so that they work with the pages of the magazine rather than against. I may use Sf Wadium on a page that is specific to constructivism otherwise it will look really out of place, I’ll also have to be careful with how i use the font as it is quite a blocky style text. Vcr Osd Mono reminds me of a message that you’d get on an error screen so I might try to encorporate this into my work somehow because it does work well with the postmodern theme, although I’ll have to make sure I’m using it because it works and not just because I like it. Then paragraph I’ve used is one that will feature in my magazine and I think that GeosansLight is a font that would work
really well for that because it’s clean and it sort of reflects the bauhaus in its lettering, it’s not to blocky either and It might sit nicely on an image, thats something I’ll have to experiment with though before deciding that fully. Now I’ve Put the words I’m likely to use in each font so that I can see which font will be most succesful in being used for the titles of the pages, so far I’m favoring Skyfall for the Bauhaus page as this font wont work for a body text but it does look appealing in a title format, especialy for a bauhaus page, it has that look and feel about it, If I do a page on constructivism then naturaly Sf Wadim Giant is the obvious choice because it dcomunicates the message of what russian constructivism was, the letterforms work well to, lastly I think If i do decide to go with the error screen idea that the Vcr font would look great, And I think based on the postmodernity, it could also work in my favour. And since I do want to keep some level of consistency in this magazine I think All the other titles will look good in albertshaw, as i believe alder might be a slight bit heavy.
Texture Before I began to really look at creating the magazine I first thought about the aesthetics of the page and part of this involved looking at texture and paterns that looked really home made that I could use for the page backgrounds and anything else that required a texture. This bit was really fun to do, I started out by using paint blotches and different colours and then scanning them in, I also used tea and coffee staining to get some of the effects, I used sandpaper so make some of the marks and then I put it all together. The blue one is from an error screen that I took a screenshot of a section and then made a pattern out of it so that it filled the entirety of the page. I used photoshop on the textures that I produced to form new textures by combining the originals, and also by adjusting the hues and contrasts of the ones I had to form new textures that were similar except for their colours the colours used range from being quite dark to quite light, this is because I thought about how text would appear on these pieces and white text on dark backgrounds tends to look better, but then the opposite can be said for dark text, it looks better on light backgrounds, but by giving myself a large range of textures there is by far enough to work with.
Grid system Even though my magazine will have more of a postmodern look to it, the structure behind will be created using a grid. Sometimes it seems that postmodern magazines have no structure, this is because of the seemingly random layout of text and image on the page, I think it’s still important to have this structure in place even if it is not necassarily obvious at first glance, it just helps to keep balance and order to the work, so although things may look randomly placed, they are infact placed well within a structure that works for image and text. The grid on this page is the grid format that I am using in my magazine, the format i am using is 10 x 10 colums and rows and this is because it alows images and text to be placed anywhere on the page and still keep an order that is presentable and useful, I’ve added a lot of rows and colums to give the best use of space on the page without it getting to clustered with different guide lines, this means that I will still have the freedom to create a postmodern looking magazine, but will also have enough room to see what I’m doing. and each page will have the same grid system so that the underlying structure and theme is consistent throughout. The print screen in the document doesn’t really show the grid very well though, it misses out some lines despite being perfectly clear on the original image.
Formating To start the magazine off I wrote out a small paragraph explaining modernism which was automaticaly aligned to the left of the page, I changed this straight away so that it was justified with the last line aligned to the left, the problem was that there were lots and lots of rivers in the text and they were really obvious to see. I fixed this by looking at every line and letter individually and fixing it using the paragraph and character menu so that it no longer had those big awful gaps in between words that made it look unprofetional and tacky, another thing that I achieved whilst doing this was that since the words and letters were distributed much more evenly it meant that there was les space, or room taken up by the text in the text box, this meant I could adjust the size of each textbox to give a more even over all finish to the design. I’ll do the same formatting process with each one of my text boxes that I create, however I wont document every stage of the process like I have done here because there will be so many to do, one thing I am going to do though is take advantage of a postmodern layout and experiment with the sizes and shapes of the different text boxes that feature throughout the magazine, this is just because from my personal experience, I find that I’m more likely to read something if the text looks interesting, so for me a simple collum layout on every page seems like a waste of creativity and I’d like to make my magazine as interesting and different as I can, however I will definately make sure that what I write is readable to people, otherwise all the time and effort speant making unique looking layouts will simply be a waste.
Contents The contents page is the first page that i created individually adding each page to the list, I decided to give this page a background of the barbera kruger work that I’d done previously with one of my textures overlaid so the work can just be seen behind it, I didnt want that work taking too much attention away from the writing on the page. I used the typewriter font that I said I was going to use for this page, but I wanted the page to look unique so I made the sizes of the text and page numbers vary so that it doesnt look exactly the same on each line, I’ve still made it so that it is easy to read though, nothing is too big or too small that it can’t be seen.
Page 1 - 2. These are the first two pges after the contents page, I decided to keep these quite simple and not too overcrowded, as I mentioned on the previous page the text has been formatted so that it fits neatly within the boxes. I decided to do an overlapping text title because I thought it would make it look that little bit different to just a normal title, I went with the font that I’d tested at the begining overlapping it in different colours to that it was still readable. As for the background I shose to use blue as it worked quite well on this page as the white text can still be read clearly, and also I was able to take the background back into photoshop and make two seperate ones, on the left is the one that I created for modernism by taking several artworks from modernist designers and then layering them into the background in a way that wasn’t obvious, there’s the bauhaus, de stijl and a few other modernist pieces in there too, I did the same thing with the postmodern side, blending in things like Jamie Ried, andy warhol and david carson
Page 3 - 4. This is the page that I wrote my test paragraph for, I’ve included that on ere and stuck to the original choice of having the chosen fonts on this page, just like with every text box it has been justified and made to look like suitable for publishing. The title on this page is a little different to the last page in terms of where it is located, I decided to do the word ‘bauhaus’ rotated down the page for something different and new to look at, the image of the bauhaus is overlayed with one of my teastain textures, but only very slightly, just enough to give it a slight grungey appearence that helps to make it look postmodern, again on this page I used the 3 column layout because after much trial and error, this was the one that it worked best for, i tried one long column, and I tried two, I tried putting the collumns on the oposite page but in the end the tree colums looked best on the left page.
Page 5 - 6. This was a page that came as quite a large chalenge, I wanted the layout of this page to be unique and interesting, and not just the same 3 columns this time. Since the page was about constructivism I could get away with using my russian type of font called Sf Wadim giant. The title of this page is at the top left the page,and spreads across the top in tree different colours. I used one of my textures for the background and then overlayed a russian constructivism piece over the top of it, fading it out so that it can only just be seen, I did this because it links in with the work on this page and because the background alone didnt have enough about it to support the images and text on the page. The images are of works by artists such as rodchenko and el lezitskey, these pieces are slightly faded out so that they are not too harsh on the page and therefor sit harmoneously with the background. I am aware that the text boxes are different sizes, this is how i wanted them to took to give the magazine a very post modern feel about it. the text in the boxes has been formatted, and i like the way that the font makes these text boxes look even more square than that of any other font, it adds to the look and feel of constructivism and helps the page in general look more put together.
Page 7 - 8, 17 - 18, 27 - 28. I’ve grouped these pages together in order to write about them because the style and presentation is prety much the same. I’ve used these pages as seporators, they seporate my pieces of work out by subject, the first one is city in flux, then earth artefact and then my typeface. I’ve done these pages to look like this because I wanted there to be a definate break in the pages, I also needed the briefs to be clear and the objectives of each individual topic to be easily read. These are the only pages where I havent made the text fit exactly to the box, I’ve done this on purpose because I wanted the page to look as much like an error screen as possible. The background for these pages is that blue texture I talked about earlier, created fom taking part of an eror screen and then making that into a pattern that fills the page.
Page The
Page 9 - 10. This page was created ising some of my city in flux work as the main focal point, the photo is slightly overlapped by the background texture in the corners as without this happening there was a solid line down the side which didnt look as appealing to me as it could have been, by blending the photo with the background I was able to soften the line a little bit so that it wasnt as harsh. the text on the right is aligned in the gap between the image and the edge of the page where the background is shown. other variations are seen below where the text touches both sides of the image and the pageand one where the text is more to the left aligned down the edge of the photograph. I think I made the right choice by keeping the text central to the space that it was in.
Page 11 - 12. This was the page that I just kept comming back to, I don’t know what it was about this page but nothing I was doing on it seemed to work for me, in the end I found a layout that worked best. As can be seen in the variations below, I started out by using a large text because I’d seen David Carson do this that covered the majority of the page, but this left little room for anything else on the page and I still had to include the images in some way, I found that just putting the images straight onto the page didnt work in the way that it had when I did my constructivism page, they needed something more, I thought back to the ray gun covers and decided that the extra black markings would help harmonise the images to the pages which I think worked in the end, because it gave it a postmodern look about it that it didnt have before.
Page 13 - 14. This page was another one that started out differently, the end result came about by be moving an image by accident and then actually really enjoying the outcome. as seen below this page was originally going to be a double page with half of it covered by the yellow texture background with the text on and half of it being the imagewith nothing covering. Both of these pages have grayish black texture for the background and the image is faded out slightly so this can be seen through it, over the top of the page on the left is a yellow texture, which I moved to it only covered half of the left page, leaving a column doen the middle for text, after trying the text in one long column I decided it was too plain so I decided to split the text into two boxes and cover half of one with the texture.
Page 15 - 16. In my magazine I’ve talked about how I made these little colour sample swatches that were inspired by the pantone posters. I thought It would be nice to end thecity in flux section with a picture of these in various different places. I was going to add some text to this page but once I’d added the image I decided that actually it did not require any text and the only thing that text would do is take attention away from the image itself.
Page 19 - 20. This page documents my idea on the earth artefact that show a varied range of aproaches to the brief I used one of my darker textured for this page as the text looks better in white, I think I was trying to over complicate this page at first because I wanted it to look unique, but sometimes the simpler ideas work better than the complicated ones, although I liked the idea of interlocking the ideas, I just didnt think it was right for this page so instead I opted for rotating the text so the boxes read vertically instead of horizontaly and keeping the titles the same so they still read horizontaly. The last thing I did was to change the text I’d been usng one called Trebuchet MS that I decided just wasn’t right so I switched back to using my typewriter font Albertchaw.
Page 21 - 22. This page didnt really need much on it in terms of imagery which alowed me to be more creatinve with my text boxes, so I created different shaped ones and rotated the text in some, making sure that there was a clear gap between each one so that it would be easy to differentiate between one text box and the next, all the text in the boxed has been formatted, but I really like how it fits together so well, almost like jigsaw, It did take a while to get the shape of the boxes right, I had to stap and re evaluate several times in order to make sure that I hadn’t gone too far and made everything unreadable but decorative, there has to be a balance, once again with the image i’ve faded it out slightly so that it fits in with previous images. The title on this page is a similar style to the title on the modernisms/postmodernism pages because I think those ones worked really well. Originally the background on this page was blue, but I thought the blue seemed a tad dark and almost childish, wanted it to still be taken seriously so I opted for a lighter colour that tied in more with the dark text and didnt seem quite as childlike, it looked more apropriate to the page it was on.
Page 23 - 24. This was another page I was unsure of how to present, I found it a chalenge coming up with new creative ways of displaying images, I chose to put these ones on like a camera reel so that they wouldnt look boring, originally the backgrouns that I used for this page was a purpley green one, but after adding all the images and looking again at the page I decided that that was defiantely not the way to go, as it made the page seem tacky, I changed the background to a brown kind of colour so that it matched the colour of the camera reel and then I began to experiment with the text boxes, this was the hardest part as in the begining I didn’t have a clue where to put the text I tried one colum, and i tried little colums but in the end i decided to do the text alongside the reel.
Page 25 - 26. Here we see I’m back to my three column layout but in this case I think it works rather well with the background and the colour of the text on the page. I used the same idea as before by creating borders fo the work so that they fit in with the image much better than they would have if I were to just have placed them down and faded them out, I’ve learnt that this works for some images but not for all of them, the backcground was one thing that I was unsure of, I tried a lighter background on one side with a darker on the other but this didnt work very well with the title or the images and text boxes. I also tried the heading in different colours but i found that the lighter heading worked best as it was more visable, I did put a darker one in the background though.
Page 29 - 30. The page that shows my typeface features the purple texture again and everything else worked onto this texture. I toolk the piece by El lezitskey that I had based the typeface off of and then I faded it quite a lot onto the background of the left hand side, because Linke I said on a previous page the background alone sometimes isn’t enough to support the work, and by fading out an image I could also make the background slightly lighter but still interesting to look at. I decided to put my typeface in the top left corner as it would work well there because of the shape of it, I didnt want the page to seem too busy though so I adjusted the spacing on my text box to spread the lines out and make the page seem more free and less cluttered and fitted the text around my typeface so there was no negative space on the page. on the opposite page I put the el lezitskey reference piece and added the blackish borders to give it a more postmodern look to it and then I overlayed my other slightly wider typeface onto this piece of work so that it was still visable but not overly distracting to look at as to draw attention away from the rest of the page.
Cover and spell check. This is the cover design that I chose to use in the end because I like the minimal colour sceme in this and the mastmead reflects the postmodernity because of the crackled and eroded effect that it gives off, although I said in the description that I might not make it black and white but I experimented around and found that actually it looks better in black and white. The actual image that I used for the cover is one that was part of my city in flux work, I overlaid one of the textures that I created over the top of the image that’s how I created the colour in the foreground. The small textboxes at the bottom are in the same font as the pages inside the magazine and helped to tie everything together. I’ve also added a barcode to the magazine to make it look more authentic. The back page of the magazine will be similar to the cover of it, Ill get rid of the text at the bottom and replace it with the issue number and the price, then I added a black rectangle over the top of the cover and faded it by bringing the opacity down slightly so that the image in the background can be seen but only slightly, I didnt want the back of the magazine to be more appealing than te front, this is why I’m dulling it down a bit.
Here Is just the last final touches for the magazine, I’m doing a spell check on it just to make sure everything is spelled correctly and everything looks profetional by changing and ignoring words that the spell check doesn’t recognise.