by Lilia Asenova
“The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design.� - Massimo Vignelli
David Carson “Styles come and go. David’s design is a language, not a style.” - Massimo Vignelli Born: September 8, 1955 Nationality: American Alma Mater: University of Arizona San Diego State University contemporary art designer and Art director “Godfather of grunge typography”, leading the revolutiion of visual communication in the ‘80s and ‘90s in 2014 received a AIGA Medal for his inspiring work and brave style, influencing many designers to break the rules and create an unique style Add to your library: “The End of the Print: The Graphic Design of David Carson” “David Carson: 2nd Sight: Grafik Design After the End of the Print
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El Lissitzky “If I can only sing through my mouth with a book I can show myself with in various guisses.� Lissetzky about the book art Born: November 23, 1890 Died: December 30, 1941 Nationality: Russian Alma Mater: Technical School in Darmstadt, Polytechnical Institute of Riga Artist, Architect, Teacher, Designer, Illustrtor, Painter, Photographer, Sculptor, Theorist main figure of the Russian Avant-Garde developer of the suprematism and constructivism (evolved the visual language from 2D forms to three-dimentional techniques) his work has a great influence for the Bauhause his art is created with the idea of change and inovation 3
Paul Rand “Art is an idea that has found its perfect visual form” - Paul Rand “Paul Rand is an idealist and a realist one who uses the language of the poet and the bussinessman. He thinks in terms of need and function... but his fantasy is boundless.” - L. Moholy - Nagy Born: August 15, 1914 Died: November 26, 1996 Nationality: American Alma Mater: Pratt Institute, Parsons, Art Students League Art director, graphic designer, professor one of the mot influential logo designer of the 20th century professor of graphic design at Yale University
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Add to your library: “Paul Rand: ADesigner’s Art” (1985) “Design, Form, and Chaos” (1994) “Form Laxcaux to Brooklyn” (1996)
Piet Zwart “Zwart was able to manipulate the oblique perspective in such a way that space was not onlyactivated but made to seem irational in order to heighten the viewer’s experience of what would otherwise have been an ordinary rectangular room.” - Collins, The Omega Workshop “typotech” - part typographer, part architect Artist, Architect, Teacher, Typographer, Designer, Photographer uses primary colors, geometrical shapes, repeaed word pattern and photomontage influenced by De Stijl, Dada and constructivism Born: May 28, 1885 Died: September 24, 1977 Nationality: Dutch Alma Mater: Amsterdam University of the Arts, Delft University of Technology
Must watch: “Everything must change” a documentary dedicated to Piet Zwart
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Paula
Paula Scher is an American graphic designer, painter and educator, born on October 6th,1948, in Washington DC. For her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, she graduated from Tyler School of Arts at Temple University. In addition, she also has honorary doctorates from the Corcoran College of Art and Design, the Maryland Institute College of Art, and Moore College of Art and Design. She started her professional career at CBS records, but soon after starting that job moved to work for Atlantic records where she became the art director in less than one year. After one year she returns to CBS records as an art director, where she designed over a thousand album covers. After several successful business endeavors in typography, advertising and brand identity, in the early 1990’s she joined Pentagram as a partner and began a career as an educator at the School of Vision Arts in New York. During her time at Pentagram, Paula has worked for many clients on their identity, branding and promotion, those clients vary from the public sector to the private sector and include names like: The Museum of Modern Art, Bloomingdales, Coca-cola, the Metropolitan Opera, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Citibank, Tiffany & Co, etc.
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All of those work and many other have become an example and a guide to the reintroduction of these brands in the modern era. She has received more than 300 awards throughout her career and her work is a part permanent exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and the CooperHewitt National Design Museum in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington DC, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. One of her most notable achievement is her recognition from the American Institute for Graphic Arts where she served as a board member and a president of the New York chapter from 1998 to 2000. She latter received the AIGA Medal which represents
Scher
she wrote an essay “The maps lie” which is the beginning of her book “MAPS”. 39 of her past paintings, drawings, prints and environmental installations have been collected in it. One of the biggest maps projects is her commission for the Queens Metropolitan Campus in NYC. Two colorful murals, with total coverage of almost 5000 sq. feet, are located in the halls of the common space between ,,-,Queens Metropolitan High School and Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School. The principal of the Queens Metropolitan High School said that “everyone looks up at the mural and finds something personal to them”.
the highest honor in the field. During these years she was named to the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, and accepted the prestigious Chrysler Award for Innovation in design. She has an affection to paint large-scale typographic maps in her spare time. In various interviews she has mentioned that it is her way of expressing how she feels about the world. Her inspiration comes from her father who was an areal photographer for the U.S. Geological Services. The biggest lesson he gave his daughter was the maps are never absolutely correct. Based on that
Scher has done many projects that shaped the overall face of NYC. She has been on the Design Commission and on the board of other city-wide services. One of her most influential pieces of work is her contribution through Pentagram on the graphic identity of The Public Theater. Influenced by Russian Constructivism and Art Deco, it has shaped the style for cultural event and performance promotion across the globe. Even today this bulk and sharp style can be seen frequently on posters and in magazines.
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According to Paula branding and building an identity is “the beginning of everything”. The Windows 8 logo, the Highline logo and the Citibank logo are signature for her career. About the CitiBank logo, designed in 1998; she said “It took me a few seconds to draw it, but it took me 34 years to learn how to draw it in few seconds”.
Her passion to what she is doing, to the typography and design, are closely related to her philosophy about recovering from failure. She has given speeches to encourage young designers, and people in general, not to be afraid of making mistakes. She has used that mythology in short and long terms, and established her presents in the art world through learning from the wrong decisions. From the time when she was an Art Director for CBS she worked on 150 records per year, and she says “80 percent of them were terrible. And that was how I learned to be a designer. I was very lucky”.
Paula Scher has created her own style, rejecting classical teaching methods. She is part of a generation that stood against what was before. Her style is organic and somewhat chaotic, and played a main role in the transition from verbal to visual communication.
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Massimo Vignelli Born: January 10, 1931 Died: May 27, 2014 Nationality: Italian Alma Mater: Polytechnic University of Milan worked in many areas releated to design distinguished himself by primarily using basic geometric forms “If you do it right, it will last forever.” - Massimo Vignelli “It seems to me that the whole city of New York was a permanent Vignelli exhibition.” - Michael Bierut “There are people that think that type should be expressive. They have a different point of view of mine.” - Massimo Vignelli
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Michael Bierut “If knoledge is power then Michael Bierut is the most powerful person in the entire design community.” Paula Scher, Bierut’s partner at Pentagram “Not everything is design. But design is about everything. So do yourself a favor: be ready for anything.” Michel Bierut Born: 1957 Nationality: American Alma Mater: University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning one of the most influential graphic designers 2006 AIGA Medalist for smart, bold, perfectly focused on the topic style
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Add to your library: “Now You See it” (2017) “Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design” (2007) “How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things, Explain Things, Make Things Look Better, Make People Laught, Make People Cry, and (Every Once in a While) Change the World” (2015)
Lester Beall Born: 1903 Died: 1969 Nationality: American Alma Mater: University of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago self tought graphic designer leader in the corporate design movement in the 1950s and 1960s “Anyone interested in design must necessarily be interested in other fields of expression - the theater, ballet, photograpgy, painting, literature, as well as music, for from any of these the alert designer can at timesobtain not only ideas releated to his advertising problem, but genuine inspiration� - Lester Beall’s thoughts according to his wife Dorothy Miller Beall
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Louise Fili Born: April 12, 1951 Nationality: American Alma Mater: Skidmore College, School of Visual Arts influenced by modernism and European Art Deco styles, because of her Italian heritage modern colors and compositions 2014 AIGA Medalist for craftsmanship, elegant use of typography and design “Graphic design is a wonderful field, but you have to intergtare it with something you are passionate about.” - Louise Fili “...you are dressing something up in order to apeal to people. Yet you have to be authentic to what the product is. You can’t lie.” Louise Fili
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Add to your library: “Elegantissima: The Design and Typography of Louise Fili” “Graphique de la Rue: The Signs of Paris”
Armin Hofmann Born: June 29, 1920 Nationality: Swiss Alma Mater: School of Arts and Crafts in Zurich “For after all, a poster does more than simply supply information on the goods it advertises; it also reveals a society’s state of mind” Armin Hofmann “Through the removal of olor, objects become neutralized and as interchangable as letters of the alphabet” - Armin Hofmann essential to the creation of the International Typographic Style, also known as Swiss Style as an educator he set new standarts for graphic design eduction across the world countered the widely accepted intence use of colors and emphasized modest use of font and color Add to your library: “Graphic Design Manual: Principles and Practice” (1965) “The Basel School of Design and its Philosophy: The Armin Hofmann Years” (1986)
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Classic Typefaces Bodoni Designers: Chauncey H. Griffith, Morris Fuller Benton, Giambattista Bodoni Foundry: Linotype Classifications: Serif
Frutiger Designer: Adrian Frutiger Foundry: Linotype Slassifications: Sans Serif
Gallliard Designer: Matthew Carter Foundry: ITC Spessifications: Serif
Gougy Designer: Frederic W. Goudy Foundry: Linotype Spessifications: Serif
Optima
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Designer: Hermann Zapf Foundry: Linotype Spessifications: Sans Serif
Classic Typefaces Walbaum Designer: Carl Crossgrove, Justus Walbaum, Lynne Yun, Juan Villanueva Charles Nix Foundry: Monotype Slassifications: Serif
Futura Designer: Paul Renner Foundry: Neufville Digital, Linotype Spessifications: Sans Serif
Perpetua Designer: Felice Feliciano, Eric Gill, Monotype Design Studio Foundry: Monotype Spessifications: Serif
Times Designer: Stanley Morison Foundry: Linotype Spessifications: Serif
Kuenstler Script
Designers: D. Stempel AG, Hans Bohn Foundry: Lynotype Classifications: Formal Script
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References
https://www.moma.org/artists/3569 https://paulrand.design/ https://www.moma.org/artists/6592 https://www.aiga.org/medalist-michaelbierut https://www.aiga.org/medalist-david-carson https://www.pentagram.com/about/michael-bierut https://www.pentagram.com/about/paula-scher http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Piet-Zwart/ https://www.aiga.org/medalist-lesterbeall https://www.aiga.org/medalist-louise-fili http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/ reputations-louise-fili https://www.aiga.org/medalist-arminhofmann https://www.aiga.org/medalistmassimoandlellavignelli https://www.fonts.com/ https://www.behance.net/PaulaScher
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“Words have meaning. Type has a spirit” - Paula Scher