Madi Nalley Portfolio of Works December 2014
CONTENTS Opportunists (DVD Covers)
3
The Building Blocks of Bauhaus (Magazine)
5
Combat (Typeface)
9
WPA: Honeybees (Poster)
13
Sight and Sound Tour (Logo)
15
Suzy Berhow (Portrait)
17
Anthony + James Green (Portrait)
19
OPPORTUNISTS F or this assignment, I was given a group of designers and the task of creating DVD covers for a series of documentary-style films surrounding their lives and work. After hours of studying these visionary pioneers, I came to form the thesis that each designer had seen their field of work in a different way than those around them, and used their own views to revolutionize each field respectively. They saw an opportunity and ran with it; thus, the title of the collection came to be ‘Opportunists’.
G N DI IL BU
K OC BL
S
OF
BA UH AU S E TH
1
THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF BAUHAUS T his collaboration of a piece may be categorized as a magazine, but in reality, it’s more of an informational manual on how the principles of the Bauhaus school were created, perfected, and taught to others. The layout is modeled generously after the most basic habits of Bauhaus designers— primary colors, geometric shapes, minimal usage of space, and asymmetrical yet eye-comforting organization of content. The following pages will show example spreads from within the publication.
CONTENTS
WELCOME TO THE BAUHAUS [5-9]
ELEMENTS OF BAUHAUS ART [13-57]
ARTIST PROFILES [61-105]
Gestalt Principles [13] Typography [23] Negative Space [35] Geometric Abstraction [47] Color [53]
Herbert Bayer [61] Laszlo Moholy-Nagy [69] Jan Tschichold [77] Theo van Doesburg [85] Josef Albers [93] Piet Zwart [99]
CREDITS [109-111]
3
“If today’s arts love the machine, technology and organization, if they aspire to precision and reject anything vague and dreamy, this implies an instinctive repudiation of chaos and a longing to find the form appropriate to our times.” -Oskar Schlemmer
WELCOME TO THE BAUHAUS 5
THE BAUHAUS SCHOOL
The Bauhaus was a school whose approach to design and the combination of fine art and arts and crafts proved to be a major influence on the development of graphic design as well as much of 20th century modern art. Founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar, Germany in 1919, the school moved to Dessau in 1924 and then was forced to close its doors, under pressure from the Nazi political party, in 1933. The school favored simplified forms, rationality, functionality and the idea that mass production could live in harmony with the artistic spirit of individuality.
Along with Gropius, and many other artists and teachers, both Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Herbert Bayer made significant contributions to the development of graphic design. Among its many contributions to the development of design, the Bauhaus taught typography as part of its curriculum and was instrumental in the development of sans-serif typography, which they favored for its simplified geometric forms and as an alternative to the heavily ornate German standard of Blackletter typography. Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in 1919. The name literally means “house of building�, which fits the intention of
teaching craft and technique in multiple medias. The Bauhaus in Weimar Germany came about to dispel societies misgivings about mass production. The creators wanted to reunite creativity and manufacturing by improving the quality of large-scale production.
The Bauhaus Dessau
The Teachers at the Dessau Bauhaus
7
TEACHINGS
The Bauhaus strove to maintain the spirit of the arts and crafts movement with an emphasis on intellectual and theoretical pursuits. One of the manifestos explained their pursuit of unity, collaboration, wholeness, and re-integration. The Bauhaus philosophy is best explained by Jan Tschichold, who stated that “Bauhaus is not a style, it is a collection of attitudes.” Gropius explained his vision for a union of art and design in the Proclamation of the Bauhaus, which described a “utopian craft guild combining architecture, sculpture, and painting into a single creative expression”. Gropius developed a craft-
based curriculum that would turn out artisans and designers capable of creating useful and beautiful objects appropriate to this new system of living. The Bauhaus combined elements of both fine arts and design education. The curriculum began with a preliminary course that immersed the students, who came from a diverse range of social and educational backgrounds, in the study of materials, color theory, and formal relationships in preparation for more specialized studies. After their introduction to Bauhaus theory, students entered specialized workshops, such as metalworking, cabinetmaking,
weaving, pottery, typography, and wall painting. The Proclamation of the Bauhaus (1919) described a utopian craft guild combining architecture, sculpture, and painting into a single creative expression. Gropius called for the school to show a new respect for craft and technique in all artistic media, and suggested a return to attitudes to art and craft once characteristic of the medieval age, before art and manufacturing had drifted far apart. Gropius envisioned the Bauhaus encompassing the totality of all artistic media, including fine art, industrial design, graphic design, typography, interior design, and architecture.
The Bauhaus Dessau
9
COMBAT
A Graphic Print Typeface
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff
Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz
0123456789 . , ' " ! ? &
Designed by Madi Nalley, Combat is a typeface designed specifically for print-based productions of the animated action series, RWBY. With proportions based on Futura and movement inspired by the actions of RWBY’s combat-ready characters, it captures the rambunctious and organic personality of a graphic novel without taking attention away from the visual panels.
COMBAT M odeled after the even lineweights of Paul Renner’s typeface Futura and the fluid movements of Monty Oum’s animated show “RWBY”, Combat is a set of characters designed for print/visual adaptations of the #1-rated action series (such as comic books or visual novels). The following pages will show example spreads from Combat’s process book, in which the typeface is put into a mock-up comic book format.
Did I miss anything?
!
They've offloaded
all the crates from the boat...
Not really.
...Now they're just sitting there.
Cool.
I stole you
some food!
WPA: HONEYBEES A n attempt to create an eye-catching, informative poster with the aesthetic of the early-20th-century WPA movement collided with the importance of diminishing honeybee habitats, as bees are responsbile for the pollenation and existence of a majority of the resources we use on a daily basis. Most people view bees as a nuisance and lump them together with wasps and hornets, whom neither of which have any naturally benefical purpose. If nothing else, this poster serves to at least remind the viewer to not kill the bees that they see.
SIGHT AND SOUND TOUR This was a collaborative piece with the head designer at the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind for a crosscountry motorcycle/poker run that took place in late 2013, in which the proceeds benefited charities and organizations that aid the deaf and blind community. We had the design of the logo revolve around the motorcycle tank, to give it an edgy appeal to motorcyclists, while still being appealing to the general public as well.
SUZY BERHOW Suzanne “Suzy� Berhow is a former model and a multi-channel YouTube celebrity, with content ranging from taxidermy and DIY craft projects, to video games, to beauty and fashion. For this digital portrait I used SketchBookExpress, with some touch-ups and editing done in Adobe PhotoShop.
ANTHONY + JAMES GREEN Anthony Green (right), a musician with a varied list of bands and musical performances under his belt, did a photoshoot for the music magazine Alternative Press with his son James (left), who was one at the time. This portrait was done completely in pencil.