New Visual Language Research & & Development Development
Libby Howker
The Brief For this brief I have been asked to submit design proposals for a new graphic design publication entitled ‘New Visual Language’. The first issue will focus on Form follows function - and will be an exploration of Modernism and Postmodernism. The first part of the brief will entail research in to both movements: Modernism and Postmodernism , generating a body of work that explores the origins and philosophy of the movements related to the area of Graphic Design. Through research the aim is to convey the essential nature of the movements and to understand the social, industrial and political concerns which influence both movements. The second part of the brief will include submitting designs for a broad sheet magazine, which should be based on my
personal and original visual research from the rear. The content of the magazine will include edited versions of my work from the Earth Artifact and City in Flux studio briefs, as well including the transcribed type I developed and research from the first part of this New Visual Language brief. Also when creating the publication, a masthead design should be produced along with a suitable cover design, contents page and inner pages, which will be designed through looking at existing magazine layouts/features and then through thumbnail creation and a final design will be selected from multiple variations. The date and the mention of the magazine being the first issue is to be presented on the magazine also.
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Less is more”
M M o d e r n i s m The influence of the modernism movement was felt most heavily after the first world war and took influences from the industrial revolution and the growth of consumerism after the war. It rejected ornamentation and believed that ‘function should always dictate form’. Modernist designers believed that a utopian society could be achieved through modernist principles and design. Designers of the era of Modernism abided to strict, structured grid system with emphasis on negative space, just as important was the use of clean sans-serif type.
El Lissitzky E de l Lis ty sig sit wo p o g n e r z k y m r k r a p , p h wa C o o d e h e a h e r o to s a t h n s r n i v i l y a n g r a Ru s He e d truc sm, in d a phe sia an de eve tivi in flue rch r, n S o d p s i g l o p s m p a r n c e i te c - h v i e ro p n e d m e m o t i c u d e t . H b e i s e t U n a g a m n t o ve m l a r a r l i s an lief nti ion nd any f th en the y h i a g t h r e c i n a p ex e B t a hi s sig s re ent at t are the ost hibi au nd L ex i e h h t s m e n i f r a e 20 s to s o c r ifi ai or itz hib ns us o a b f t c t n n r o c ex h e a . h i ve k y i t i o in h ti as h r an hib fie nt in g y ang st c ed cen the Su s Pr nti als n d cr d b itio lds no ear e, oul in t tur co pre oun ons o c esi w i i t i c a o o k n d o f va t s h i n d e d b h e y di mb ma se co hal gns e i t e e nn ll o y e al me ine tis rie nce leng . i n y r d e s s i g n p o g n a b ro d i e g n i m b e i t n s i o a rc t p a s o f r n i e d in sp ign , ph rap nd ugh te e c , p o h c h t Li age ab na hit inti tw ng a rn te ro to y, an co ssit r y. stra l sp ect ngs o-d r t, m at d d g u e i o wo c o n ct ace ure so ime an co uld zky na r in ta ,t d u He ld me be wo w i a n d u g h n s i ge l a ks g l o t i t , cc an -d h p a i d d e s h ev i m t r a t h r e to n a l la d an r tic ent epl an ed im en di eco d a ula ified y af d th tha sio tio fo t r na nal C o n d u rc h r l y th fec at t ar , t t p l e i h n fo s e i t s te c o s g r t h e e a n r f t d t f a we g r q u o r u r e r la or p l m re aph ent rea e a s an hic tte mer ife e of ss of te ic p ly, h ch s e d b ar t r. a rud age n u rod is ing f fec oo s, a pos im s. D nfi uc des the tive ks, c h s t ro t e r e n t e s l t e r t i o n i g n p u ev a n g n g b y a r y p i t e e d s o s , w b l i c eg oke e a sta Liss sha be poli r bu he . t t t al i ita ide nd a em itzk pes ng ica ildi her l ng e ria as b n y c a co s, ni of uil t fo ou nd mp sm co di r ld co ri m ng pol ma lor sed . m co iti un u ca ke s, l al ld ity an d
bauhaus
The Bauhaus school of art, design and architecture in early 20th century Germany was the birthplace of a revolution in modern design. Founder Walter Gropius’ form-follows-function philosophy transformed advertising, typography, architecture, people’s living spaces, and the public’s aesthetic expectations in fundamental ways. The designers at the Bauhaus believed that you should never sacrifice your message for your design. Their focus was on readability, narrative, and information first, artistic flair and frills second. They wanted design to reinforce a message, never the other way around. One of the school’s most famous thinkers and artists, Wassily Kandinsky, strove for a universal aesthetic: a visual style that would transcend cultural differences and language barriers. He believed certain shapes and colours complemented each other and communicated a specific idea or emotion to the viewer.
Futurism embraced technological progress and celebrated the potential and dynamism of the modern age. The widely influential typography of Marinetti abandoned traditional grammar, punctuation, and format, to create vivid pictorial typographic pages. It was Inspired by the mechanism of war which led to war being glorified in resulting works.
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The Futurism movement was the first movement in the history of art to be engineered and managed like a business. Founded in 1909 by the Italian writer and poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, initially as a literary movement, futurism introduced the use of the manifesto as a public means to advertise its artistic philosophy, and also as a polemic weapon against the academic and conservative world. Marinetti, along with his supporters, penned numerous manifestos, not only on literature, but also on music, dance, performance, painting, and architecture.
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M o d e r n i s m ; keywords
Grid
Constructivism
Rules
Bauhaus
Swiss style
Utopia
Typography
Universal
Indusrial revolution
Evolution
Technology
Consumerism
Sans serif
Layout
Order
Grotesque
Systematic
Avant Garde
Minimal
Functionalism
Clean lines
Guides
Elimination of ornament
Negative space
Modernism “Less is a bore”
postmodernism
Collage by Charles Wilkin
Postmodernism was a reaction to modernism, which it believed had not fulfilled it’s promises of designing a better world. Also postmodernism was a response to the world wars. The complete opposite of modernism, it dissolved hierarchies and questioned how things ‘should be done’, rejecting grand narratives and binaries. It opposed legibility and simple motifs and combined and mixed styles. Postmodern design often featured collage, deconstructed type, historical figures and signs aswell as encouraging diversity and complexity. Kitch imagery was also used as well as highly political and satirical material.
David Carson
Probably the most well known and celebrated postmodernist graphic designer is David Carson, his work instantly recognisable from his use of grunge typography, type overlayed imagery and disregard for the rules of design. One of his typographic pieces of work shows his postmodern view towards legibility stating “Don’t mistake legibility for communication”. This idea can be seen throughout his works as type hierarchies are dissolved which is shown in ‘Raygun’ magazine of which he was the art director and in which he employed much of the typographic and layout style for which he is known. His layouts featured distortions or mixes of ‘vernacular’ (everyday, mundane, ubiquitous) typefaces and fractured imagery, rendering them almost illegible.
Dada T
he Dadaists insisted that the valuing of “logic” among modern cultures had led to an overvaluing of conformity, classism, and nationalism which in turn provided a suitable environment for the horrors of World War I. Dadaists therefore rejected this devotion to reason in favor of chaos, nonsense, and irrationality. Their interests lay primarily in rebelling against what they saw as cultural snobbery, bourgeois convention, and political support for the war. Dada events, including spontaneous readings, performances, and exhibitions, had been taking place for three years at Hugo Ball’s Cabaret Voltaire before Tristan Tzara claimed to have invented the word Dada, in his Dada Manifesto of 1918. Various explanations have been floated for the name of the group, but the most common is that put forward by cofounder Richard Huelsenbeck, who said that he found the name by plunging a knife at random into a dictionary. It is a colloquial French term for a hobbyhorse, yet it also echoes the first words of a child, and these suggestions of childishness and absurdity appealed to the group, who were keen to put a distance between themselves and the sobriety of conventional society. It also appealed to them because it might mean the same (and nothing) in all languages - as the group was avowedly internationalist.
Hannah Hoch Hannah Hoch remains a well-known member of the Berlin Dada movement, and was among the first prominent artists to work with photo-montage techniques. Hoch described the war as having shattered her view of the world and affording her a newly political consciousness. Hoch’s work, while mostly in keeping with the general Dadaist aesthetic, skillfully added a wryly feminist note to the movement’s philosophy of disgust with the perceived wrongs of society. One of Hoch’s most often used techniques was the fusion of male and female bodies, or the bodies of “traditional” German women with more recent depictions of a sexually liberated “modern” German woman. Her work prods at notions of women’s objectification, sexuality, and humanity by depicting them as vibrant central characters, often the only ones in motion; and reducing men to individual parts, often attached to larger female forms.
Barbara Kruger Associated with postmodern Feminist art as well as Conceptual art, Kruger combines tactics like appropriation with her characteristic wit and direct commentary in order to communicate with the viewer and encourage the interrogation of contemporary circumstances. The economy of Kruger’s use of image and text facilitates a direct communication with the viewer. Within a short declarative statement, she synthesises a critique about society, the economy, politics, gender, and culture. Kruger merges the slick facade of graphic design with unexpected phrases in order to catch the viewer’s attention using the language of contemporary publications, grapic design, or magazines. Rather than attempting to sell a product, her works aim to sell an idea to the viewer that is meant to instigate a reconsideration of one’s immediate context.
Kruger appropriates images from their original context in magazines and sets them as the background against which she emblazons confrontational phrases. From her use of clearly legible font to her jarring palette of red, white, and black, each element of the final artwork is crucial to its effectiveness as both an artistic expression and a protest against facets of postmodern life.
P o s t m o d e r n i s m ; keywords
Pastiche
Cultural discourse
Gender
Parody
Fractured narrative
Rejection of binary
Repetition
Multiperspective
Language
Tensions
Mirrors
Vernacular
Overlap
Political
Appropriation
Satire
Deconstruction
Grunge
Kitch
Typography
Magazine layout: Visual research
Layout Research From my visual research in to magazine layouts I feel I now have a better idea of what makes a good magazine cover and inner page layout. I think for a front cover a single image - whether a photograph or an illustration like on the Little White Lies magazine cover- looks quite effective, one that either fills the whole page, or with a border round. This is something I will experiment with, and explore the photography and illustrations I have created for each brief to see what looks effective and eye catching for a front cover, and which masthead suits different images. Also something I quite like is when each inner page is slightly different as I think it is more visually interesting, and different article content could dictate a different design layout. I will experiment with different column layout and text and image relationships through thumbnails to see what works best, and will help me when it comes to designing the layouts on InDesign.
Initial layout thumbnails for inner pages
Existing mastheads
What makes an effective masthead? From my research in to existing mastheads I noticed some similarities between the ones that worked most effectively. One thing a lot of mastheads feature is that all the letters in the masthead are in capitals, which is effective in making the name of the magazine stand out. Another attribute a lot of mastheads have is the use of heavy, bold fonts, again to stand out on the shelf and catch people’s eye, and also for legibility purposes. One feature in terms of colour that I noticed was that red is used quite a lot and black and white is also used quite frequently for mastheads. As well as this quite a few mastheads are contained within a shape - either a square box or in some cases a circle, which I think looks quite effective and a nice alternative to a square box. The masthead for ‘rebel’ magazine that I looked at is quite different to the others I
observed as the font is not in capitals or a sans serif bold font, but a script brush stroke style font, and rather than being perfectly horizontal it is on an angle, These alternative, unusual masthead features actually make it stand out for those reasons, and it has probably been created like that purposely to reflect the ‘rebel’ name of the magazine as it’s going against standard masthead ‘rules’. When thinking about the type of masthead I will use on my magazine I will have to consider a design that reflects the theme and style of the magazine, like the ones I have looked at do, to effectively communicate the magazine’s intended feel and message. I quite like the idea of containing the masthead within a square box or circle, and also think black and white works quite well as well as lower case type and unusual fonts like the ‘rebel’ masthead.
Masthead Experimentation/Variations
NEW VISUAL LANGUAGE
NEW VISUAL LANGUAGE
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
NEW VISUAL LANGUAGE
New Visual Language
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Form Follows Function
n.v. l
nvl Form Follows Function
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Form Follows Function
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NEW LANGUAGE
n.v.l
new visual language
Cover Experimentation and Variations
Cover Experimentation and Variations
Inner page layout samples
Contents Page Development
Final front cover
Final Contents Page Design
Thumbnails of final layout designs
Final page layout designs