THE LATE 20TH CENTURY 1960-1990
Table of Contents Helvetica
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Max Miedinger
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Akzidens Grotesk
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Armin Hofmann, Basel School of Design
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Saul Bass
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Paul Rand
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Herb Lubalin
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Wolfgang Weingart
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Karl Gerstner
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Gerald Holtom
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Emil Rider, Wim Crouwel
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Zuzana Licko, Rudy Vanderlans, Emigre
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The Rise of Digital Communication
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The Evolution of Mac
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Neville Brody
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Phillipe Apeloig
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HELVETICA A Timeless Typeface
Helvetica is one of the world’s most frequently used typefaces. Helvetica is a sans serif neutral, modern, and sleek typeface that will never age. Helvetica was created with readability in mind. Helvetica has a very uniform line width as well as straight edges that lie only along the x and y axis. Today you can find Helvetica on almost every computer in the world. Helvetica was created in the Swiss town Mßnchenstein, in 1957 when Eduard Hoffmann commissioned Max Miedinger to create a new typeface for the Stempel type foundry. Miedinger first gave this typeface the name Neue Haas Grotesk, which means New Haas Sans Serif. A branch of the Stempel type foundry was the Haas type foundry, but since Stempel would be the one releasing the type face they though the name would be too confusing.
The two foundries then worked together to form a new name. They decided on the name Helvetica, because it was close to Helvetia which is Switzerland in Latin. Helvetica soon became a staple type face for many companies including American Airlines, American Apparel, BMW, Jeep, JCPenney, Lufthansa, Microsoft, Mitsubishi Electric, Orange, Target, Toyota, Panasonic, Motorola, Kawasaki and Verizon Wireless.
MAX MIEDINGER Miedinger was born December 24, 1910 in Zurich, Switzerland where he also died March 8 of 1980. At 16 Miedenger worked as an apprentice for Jacques Bollmann at a book printing company, after which he attended the School of Arts and Crafts. Miedenger was a graphic designer as well as a typographer. Miedinger worked at an advertising company named Globe for ten years until he started working for the Haas type foundry. Miedinger created his first typface in 1954. It was called Pro Arte and was a condensed slab serif typeface. Soon after he created Helvetica. Miedinger’s final typeface was called Horizontal.
AKZIDENZ GROTESK Akzidenz Grotesk is a typeface very similar to Helvetica. It was rumored that if you took the serifs off of the typeface Didot that the proportions are very similar to Akzidenz Grotesk and that is where they got the idea for the typeface. Akzidenz Grotesk is dated back to being created in 1880 and was unchanged until Berthold G端nter Gerhard Lange added 33 new styles. The typeface was still the same, but this update provided more versatility within the typeface. In 2006 Berthold added more styles once again and released Akzidenz Grotesk Pro. Many confuse Akzidenz Grotesk, Helvetica, and Univers, because they are all sans serif fonts with very similar proportions.
ARMIN HOFMANN Armin Hofmann was born June 29, 1920. Hofmann is one of the greatest graphic design teachers of our time. His first teaching job was at The Basel School of Arts and Crafts when he was only 26 years old. Soon after he followed the head of the graphic design department over to Basel School of Design. He is known for creating the Swiss Style design method and is known as one of the most unorthodox teachers in all of graphic design. Armin Hofmann designed everything from books, exhibitions, stage sets, typography and posters. Hofmann’s posters were so beautiful that they were often exhibited in the New Your Museum of Modern Art. In 1965 Hofmann wrote a textbook called The Graphic Design Manual. This textbook is widely used still today, showing how modern Hofmann’s line of thinking was.
BASEL SCHOOL OF DESIGN The Basel School of design was opened in 1968 by Armin Hofmann, Emil Ruder, Kurt Hauert, and Wolfgang Weingart. Basel School of Design is known for it’s modern graphic design teaching techniques. The school’s motto being: to lay a strong and broad foundation for the major design disciplines.
The school created famous designers such as Kenneth Hiebert, April Greiman, Robert Probst, Steff Geissbuhler, HansUlrich Allemann, Inge Druckrey and the late Dan Friedman. Many are now also educators.
Saul Bass Saul Bass was born May 8, 1920 and died April 25, 1996. Bass was from the Bronx, New York. Bass is well known for his title sequences in movies, movie posters and logo design. Bass was the first to ever design a title sequence and even today his work is still considered the best. Bass’s first title sequence was Otto Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). Bass was known for not being afraid to push the boundaries. Saul Bass created hundreds of movie posters throughout his life. His style was most notable because movie poster of that age ere usually an iconic scene from the movie. Bass however created simple symbols to represent the movie and used a very cut out like design approach. Some of his most notable posters were for the movies, Vertigo, West Side Story, Schindlers List, The Shining, and The Man with The Golden Arm. Bass designed many logos for companies such as AT & T Corporation, Continental Airlines, Dixie, Girls Scouts, Quaker Oats, United Airlines, and Warner Communications.
DESIGNERS OF INTEREST
In the 20th Century (1960-1990) PAUL RAND
Paul Rand (aka Peret Rosenbaum) was born August 15, 1914. He went to college at the Pratt Institute from 1929 - 1932, the Parsons School of Design from 19321933, and the Art Students League from 1933 - 1934. His first job was to create stock images for a syndicate that supplied graphics for newspapers and magazines. He was influenced by the German advertising style Sachplakat (ornamental poster) as well
as the graphic designer Gustav Jensen. He was granted full artistic freedom for the covers of Direction magazine, but not fee in exchange. His page designs were the initial source for his reputation. Rand is know for his operate logos starting with his design for the IBM logo in 1956. He helped establish the Swiss Style of graphic design and was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972. Unfortunately, he died in 1996 from cancer.
“Art in any form is a projected emotion using visual tools.” –Paul Rand
HERB LUBALIN
Herb Lubalin was born 1918 in New York City. He attended the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture and graduated in 1939. In 1945 he became the creative director and vice-president of Sudler & Henessey and directed their design organization, Sudler Hennessey & Lubalin. Several years later in 1963, Lubalin was awarded the Clio for the best television commercial. In 1964 he created his own design firm, Herb Lublin, Inc. He gain two partners in 1968 and changed his design firm to Lubalin, Smith, Carnase, Inc. A year later, he joined with Etienne Delessert to establish a book production and publishing venture, Good Books, Inc. With Aaron Burns, he established a typographic agency called Lubalin, Burns & Co., Inc. In the same year, he created a London studio with Douglas Maxwell, Lubalin Maxwell. He died in 1981.
Above Left: Various corporate identities created by Paul Rand including ABC, IBM, Westinghouse, and UPS. (www-03.ibm.com, logos.wikia.com, imgkid.com, www.paul-rand.com, www.logoeps.net) Right: Herb Lubalin is known for designing the typeface Avant Garde and the logo for Mother and Child. (www.telegraphics.com., www. quintatinta.com)
“Typography fostered the modern idea of individuality, but it destroyed the medieval sense of community and integration.” –Wolfgang Weingart
WOLFGANG WEINGART
Wolfgang Weinkarte was born in the Salem Valley , Germany in 1941. He attended a two year program at the Merz Academy in Stuttgart in 1958. After graduating, he applied for an apprenticeship as a typesetter at Ruwe Printing, where he met Karl-August Hanke who would become a ment tor for Weingart. After is three year apprenticeship, Hanke encouraged him to attend the Basel School of Deign. In 1964 he enrolled as an independent student. At 27-years-old, Weingart was invited to conduct a typography class at Basel.
KARL GERSTNER
Karl Gerstner was born in Base in 1930. He when to Basel School of Arts and Crafts and apprenticed at the studio of the advertising designer Fritz Bühler. He was very fortunate and got to visit Cassandre in Paris and to now Tschichold in Basel. He took a photography course in Zurich with Hans Finsler. he met Max Bill and Alfred Roth who edited the monthly Werk. Roth gave Gerstner a whole issue of the magazine to edit and designat 25-years-old. His design was presented as a logical development of Modernism. He used a complex grid for the varying proportions. He published his first book in 1957. In 1959, Markus Kutter and Gerstner established their own design office and published another book. Their design
office grew into a large advertising agency and moved the main office in Düsseldorf. By the Beginning of the 1970s, Gerstner when into “semi retirement”. In the 1990s, their agency was bought by Trimedia, a PR agency.
Left: Several of Wolfgang Weingart’s books and type designed in a circle. (www.vangeva.com, clementinecarriere.wordpress.com, galleryhip.com, flyergoodness.blogspot.com) Right: Portrait of Karl Gerstner. (www.swissdesignawards.ch)
GERALD HOLTOM
Gerald Holtom was a designer who objected World War II from West London. He advised the DAC (Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War) that their impact would be greater if they had a visual symbol. Haltom created the “Ban the Bomb” symbol which used letters from the semaphore alphabet and a circle to symbolize the world. The design was taken by the CND. The US adopted the symbol during the anti-Vietnam movement to use it as a “peace symbol”.
EMIL RUDER
Emil Ruder was born din Zurich and when he was fifteen he too a compositor’s apprenticeship. In his twenties he attended the Zurich School of Arts and crafts. He eventually became a teacher in 1947 for typography at the Basel School of Design. He and Armin Hoffman developed a system for objectivity in design instead of the subjective, style-driven typography of the past. He pushed for precision, proportions, and the role of legibility and communication with type. Ruder was know to take only two to three students per year.He published his book Typographie in 1967 with his concepts, experiments, and philosophies.
WIM CROUWEL
Wim Crouwel was born 1928 in Groningen. He studied fine art at Minerva Academy and after two years of military service ibn 1951, he moved to Amsterdam. He worked for an exhibition company learning from Dick Ellfers. Afterwards he established his own studio with Kho Lian le. He took night classes at the Academy for Applied arts. In 1954, he met Edy de Wilde the director of the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum. De Wilde made Crowed the sole designer for the museum. Crowed created a gridbased methodology for the museum which he used from 1963-1985. In 1985, he became a director a a museum in Rotterdam. He retired in 1993.
Left: The peace symbol created by Gerald Holtom and a poster designed by Wim Crouwel for the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum. (blog.soton.ac.uk, mrmac7.wordpress.com) Right: Emil Ruder’s book “Typographie”, another poster design by Wim Crouwel, and portrait of Crouwel. http://www.designers-books.com/ typography-emil-ruder-1967/, luc. devroye.org, blog.soton.ac.uk)
EMIGRE
MAGAZINE ZUZANA LICKO
RUDY VANDERLANS
EMIGRE
Born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1961, Zuzana Licko emigrated to the U.S. at 7 years old. Although she doesn’t remember much of her childhood before moving to the U.S. in 1968, Licko said her background has given her a different perspective and a tendency to question things. Licko entered the University of California at Berkeley as an architecture student, where she met her future husband, Rudy VanderLans, who was studying photography. After discovering an interest in typography, Licko changed her major to graphic design. Fascinated by the use of type as illustration but limited due to UC Berkeley’s lack of a type design program, Licko was not able to create typefaces, only use them. The Macintosh computer was released just before her graduation, and Licko still works primarily on screen.
VanderLans moved to California to study photography after working for a number of design studios in Holland for several years following his graphic design studies at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.
In 1984, VanderLans – with two other Dutch artists – started Emigre, which began as a magazine that featured the work of artists who were influenced by travel or working abroad. After graduating with a degree in Graphic Communication, Licko joined VanderLans as co-founder of the magazine. Licko was not involved from an editorial standpoint, but started contributing as the magazine’s resident type designer. She used the first generation Macintosh computer to create her designs, despite the fact that most graphic designers of the time were rejecting the Mac. When Emigre turned its focus to graphic design, Licko began contributing more content, but was mostly involved with running the Emigre type foundry, the first digital type foundry, which introduced early dot-matrix fonts and, later, high-resolution typefaces.
“Sometimes I have to put a design away for months, even years before being able to see it with fresh eyes, which is sometimes required to solve a problem.” –Zuzana Licko
ABOVE: Emigre, an alternative-culture graphic design magazine, The foundry met many negative reactions was launched from modernists like Paul Rand, who by Rudy thought the new movement forgot beauty VanderLans and harmony. Massimo Vignelli said Licko’s and Zuzana designs were “garbage, lacking depth, Licko in 1984. refinement, elegance, or a sense of history.” (MoMA) Nevertheless, the foundry, magazine, Licko RIGHT: The and VanderLans met international fame and exposure of success. Zuzana Licko’s Emigre ran for 23 years, printing 69 issues typefaces sporadically until 2005, and provided a in Emigre forum for a growing community of digital designers. magazine The Museum of Modern Art said, together, led to the Licko and VanderLans “set the standard manufacture for digital typography and design” and of Emigre “established graphic design at the forefront fonts, which of contemporary art practice” with Emigre are now as the “testing ground for their digital distributed experimentation” and the “medium through worldwide. which they spread their enthusiasm for the (emigre.com) new technology.”
THE RISE OF DIGITAL COMMUNICATION Adobe PostScript ®
®
For graphic arts professionals, it makes all the difference in the world (adobe.com)
“Adobe invented PostScript and made it the world’s leading page description language. It was the first company to offer deviceindependent color technology, film recorders, color laser printers, and professional digital proofing devices. And today, Adobe’s latest innovations not only assure you of the finest output, but also provide you with an integrated workflow that will help you work more efficiently than ever.” – Adobe Postscript brochure, 1997
THE EVOLUTION OF MAC
Founded in 1976 by college dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Apple Computers, Inc. changed the way people viewed – and used – computers. The Apple II revolutionized the computer industry with the introduction of the first-ever color graphics. (macdaily.co)
NEVILLE BRODY
One of the best-known graphic designers of his generation, Neville Brody was born in London in 1957 and studied graphic design at the London College of Printing from 1976 to 1979. His record cover designs and involvement with the British independent music scene brought him into the public eye in the early 1980s. Brody has designed a number of very wellknown typefaces. In 1989, as art director of the English magazine “The Face,” Brody designed Industria, a condensed sans serif font with abbreviated, essential forms. Influenced by the New Typography of the Bauhaus, Brody also designed Insignia as a headline face for the “Arena” magazine. Insignia’s monoline, round-and-sharp forms reflect the Zeitgeist of that era, suggesting technology and progress. In 2011, when the Museum of Modern Art added the first digital typefaces to its permanent collection, Brody’s FF Blur was one of just 23 designs to be included. Brody developed the typeface in 1991 by blurring grayscale images of an existing grotesque and making vectors from the results. MoMA says FF Blur “resembles type that has been reproduced cheaply on a Xerox machine – degenerated through copying and recopying.” Today, Brody continues to create his unique and striking digital typefaces, and his work focuses largely on electronic communications design. TOP RIGHT: Neville Brody’s designs have received international recognition for their innovative style, reaching almost cult status. (linotype.com) RIGHT: Neville Brody is the founder of Brody Associates – a globally renowned, innovative, creative agency specializing in digital, typography and identity. Brody is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the fields of graphic design, art direction and brand strategy. (designboom.com)
LEFT: The letter forms of FF Blur – fuzzy around the edges like an out-offocus photograph – seem to celebrate their own imperfection, speaking to Neville Brody’s unique background. (MoMA)
PHILIPPE APELOIG A French graphic designer, Philippe Apeloig worked as an intern at Total Design in Amsterdam after studying art at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués and the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. After realizing the extent of his interest in typography and graphic design, Apeloig worked as a designer for Musée D’sorsay in Paris from 1985 to 1987. He left after receiving a grand from the French Foreign Ministry to work and study in Los Angeles. Later, he was honored with a research and residency grant by the French Academy of Art at the Villa Medici in Rome. Apeloig established his own studio after returning to Paris and from 1992 to 1999 taught at his alma mater, after which he taught as a professor of graphic design at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City until 2002. Apeloig has produced many acclaimed poster designs for cultural events and institutions. (designboom.com)
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