Eyes exist in the state of savage

Surrealism in Graphic Design

“‘Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies,’ wrote John Lennon in ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.’ This symbolic lyric is a good example of surrealism.” as Steven Heller (2010) said.

S

urrealism, born of the political ideology of Karl Marx and the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud, is one of the most influential art movements of the 20th century. For the meaning of Surrealism, people have their own understanding and interpretation, In general, Surrealism use methods like anti logical to reveal people’s potential awareness in visual structural form and to create special, dreamlike visual form. It is a cultural movement, an thought and a dream. It made writing and subconscious, treachery and love, daily life and Utopia had merged. It seems coverall, amazing, keep in suspense but can not interpreted completely.

The word “Surrealism” was invented in 1917

Dictionary: Surrealism, n. Pure psychic

by Guillaume Apollinaire, and adopted by

automatism, by which one proposes to

fellow French poet, Andre Breton, in 1924 to

express, either verbally, in writing, or by any

describe a radical movement of artists and

other manner, the real functioning of thought.

writers, who drew on their subconscious to

Dictation of thought in the absence of all

depict a heightened or “super-real” vision of

control exercised by reason, outside of all

the world.

aesthetic and moral preoccupation.

Surrealism produced works of anti-art that

Encyclopedia: Surrealism. Philosophy.

deliberately defied reason; However,

Surrealism is based on the belief in the

Surrealism’s emphasis was not on negation

superior reality of certain forms of previously

but on positive expression. The movement

neglected associations, in the omnipotence of

represented a reaction against what its

dream, in the disinterested play of thought.

members saw as the destruction wrought by

It tends to ruin once and for all other psychic

the “rationalism” that had guided European

mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in

culture and politics in the past and that had

solving all the principal problems of life.

culminated in the horrors of World War I. 1924, Dadaism fell into a decline, according

This is a programmatic definition in the entire

to the major spokesman of the movement, the

surrealism movement, and it played a positive

poet and critic Andre Breton, who was once

role in guiding.

a member of the Dadaist movement, had seen the horrors of war first hand. In this year, he

In 1929, Andre Breton issued The Second

officially broke away from Dada and created

Manifestoes of Surrealism and a series of

the first of three manifestos which assert

theoretical articles of Surrealism. It promote

Surrealism’s ideology and are supposedly

the Surrealism genre’s development, and

influenced by Sigmund Freud’s research. He

enhance the influence of the genre. In The

with a number of artists and poets issued

Second Manifestoes of Surrealism Breton

“Manifestoes of Surrealism”, they defined

stated that “the Surrealists strive to attain

Surrealism as:

a mental vantage-point from which life and

death, the reral and the imaginary, past and

order through dream media. And the second

future, communicable and incommunicable,

sentence in The Second Manifestoes of

high and low, will no longer be perceived as

Surrealism becomes a famous quotation

contradictions”. Breton and others published

“People is eternal dreamer”. To a certain

theoretical articles, literary poetry and

extent, Surrealism is reflected artistic

painting, to revealing the two extremes link

sensitivity to recent political changes

between real and the virtual. And focus on

occurring in the Western world and people’s

the expression of the dream and the reality

fear and loathing of First World War, it

of uncertainty, they want to explore people

emphasized perceptual, therefore, it had a

inner world to rebuild a new personality and

tremendous impact on the traditional art.

Surrealism’s revolutionary aim, inherited

unleash a revolution in human experience, a

from Marx and Rombaud, to “transform the

liberation of the individual from the

world” and “change life”, in fact, these two

domination of the rational in matters personal,

slogans are the one to Surrealism. Like Freud,

cultural and social. They want to conquer

the Surrealists believed that mental

nowadays, it is completely disconnected with

movements and motives were demonstrated

all aspects of history, even do not care about

most clearly in the unconscious. Breton (1924)

latest affairs, so that can present modern

wrote in the Manifestoes of Surrealism

society. Surrealism advocate spirit

“Surrealism is based on the belief in the

freedom, they do not need rational control

superior reality of certain forms of previously

and imaginary bound. Therefore, Surrealism

neglected associations, in the omnipotence of

do not afraid rational lost, but worry about

dream, and in the disinterested play of pure

the rational control, they struggle against

thought.” The surrealist movement aimed to

“hauled down imaginary flag”.

However, this movement was and remains

much and insufficient constructive. What

radically different from all other contemporary

Breton and others seek for is to explore

movements in the arts because its most serious

the inner world of people to rebuild a new

undertaking is literally to change life.

personality and order, rather than completely

Surrealism finds its roots in feelings of revolt

destroy. Nevertheless, without Dada,

and aversion to the atrocities of the First

Surrealist would not have had the ability to

World War, the same train of thought

see beyond conventional thought and

applying to Dada. This goes to explain the

tradition of mainstream society to entertain

link between these two movements:

the unbelievable or nonsensical.

Surrealism is in part born of Dada, and develops in parallel to it. Moreover, they tried

What is more, Surrealism accept and inspired

to communicate with Dada spirit at the first

by Freud psychoanalysis and Bergson’s

time. Although Dadaism use literary form to

Intuitionism when it developed to a

express themselves, however, literature and

mature stage. Making their creative principle

art is not the purpose for them but to present

switched over to express subconscious from

spirit of disillusionment, the ideological field

Nihilism, they believe subconscious is more

in Nihilism and Anarchism. In the evolution of

real than rational and promote “automatism”.

Surrealism, the first stage is similar with Dada,

By tapping into the unconscious aspect of our

it lead people keep aloof of the slogan: going

brain. In 1919, Freud defined ‘the uncanny’

out into the street and shots at the crowd.

in his essay of the same name as a fear that

However, Breton and others discovered that is

exists when the familiar suddenly becomes

just the essential difference between

strange and unfamiliar. His analytical model

Nihilism spirit of Dada and the modern spirit

of the human mind with a conscious and

they desired. They think Dada destroy too

subconscious layer forms the basis of

Surrealism. However, Surrealism is different from Freud, like Rene Magritte said “to be a surrealist … means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and being always on the lookout for what has never been.” That is to say, Surrealists thought people should to predict future, rather than analyzing past.

“To be a surrealist … means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and being always on the lookout for what has never been.”

- Rene Magritte

As an art movement, the major Surrealist

free form, Surrealism provided a major

painters were Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Andre

alternative to the contemporary, highly

Masson, Rene Magritte, Yves Tanguy,

formalistic Cubist movement and was largely

Salvador Dali, Pierre Roy, Paul Delvaux, and

responsible for perpetuating in modern

Joan Miro. With its emphasis on content and

painting the traditional emphasis on content.

One of the most celebrated artists of the

hard. In Dali’s images the watch looses that

movement is Salvador Dali, who combined

shape. It’s like it is running out of the clock. A

Surrealism and unconsciousness closely. And

real clock gives us the exact time... the

he’s expansive artistic repertoire included

watches of Dali are timeless. By making the

film, sculpture and photography, in

clock soft it becomes impossible to function

collaboration with a range of artists in a vari-

and so it refers to eternity.” The soft watches,

ety of media. The “Paranoid-Critical” method,

which becomes an unconscious symbol

created in the early 1930’s by Dali himself,

of relative space and time. Dali has been

is a Surrealist method used to help an artist

express what he want to express is Freud

tap into their subconscious through systematic

revealed personal dreams and illusion. It is a

irrational thought and a self-induced paranoid

real subconscious and it is a recording and

state. By inducing this paranoid state one

expression of his own dreams. Moreover, he

can forego one’s previous notions, concepts,

combine paradox, illusion and things which

and understanding of the world and reality in

irrelevant together, making image full of

order to view the world in new, different and

dramatic effect, what he called “the usual

more unique ways.

paralyzing tricks of eye-fooling,” it bring people visual and spiritual shock.

In his painting, he had uses a large number of visual design method and symbolistic symbol,

As the most representative figures of

it create a staggering world. His best-known

surrealist, his artistic achievements also

work, The Persistence of Memory, was

related to film. An Andalusian Dog is a

completed in 1931, every objects in the image

cooperation work with Spanish director Luis

become soft, watch become an impossible

Bunuel, it is regarded as a milestone in the

tongue shape, and a strange face, crawling

history of Surrealist film, which have many

ants appear in it. These weird objects

daring scenes. Produced from a script said to

revealing a quiet atmosphere like frozen in

be based on two dream images - a woman’s

time. The whole painting looks

eye slit by a razor, ants emerging from a hole

preposterous but these objects painted

in a man’s hand. For the Surrealist group, it

meticulous are shown in sensitive and realistic

was a revolutionary film, insofar as it sought

skills, it is real more than real. Dali use

to destroy oppressive bourgeois institutions -

particular external image to present

politics, marriage, religion, art, morality. It

abstract mental state, it give rise to

was seen by them as a transgressive

interested, imagination and exploration.

The Dali Museum states that “The main theme

film, hence liberatory. It can be considered Surrealist for its alleged

of the ‘soft watch’ is the contrast between the

automatism and free association, its

hard outside and the soft inside. We expect

dreamlike elements, its violent images, its

and our experience tells us that a watch is

radical montage structure, its assault on the

spectator. In 1940 Dali summed up his desire to make objects: “I try to create fantastic things, magical things, things like in a dream.

The world needs more fantasy. Our civilisation is too mechanical. We can make the fantastic real, and then it is more real than that which actually exists.”

Another famous painter Rene Magritte, his grotesque theory and unique style make him become a alternative surrealist painter. Look at his work, The False Mirror, how fantastic that blue sky and clouds within the eyeball. In his opinion, human eye is only a false mirror, because it only present natural’s phantom, rather than natural itself. Painting is just to illustrates the illusion of the human eye due to no eye can see “real”, this art form is grotesque. His work frequently displays a juxtaposition of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. It has broken rational rules and inertial frame of reference, moreover, it finely express a magic world is latent within people’s inner world. In fact, what Surrealists after is the “convulsive beauty” just hidden under a scene which looks like real but faraway.

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The works of Sigmund Freud on free

The Surrealists explored unique ways of

association, dream analysis, desire and the

interpreting the world, turning to dreams

subconscious, are of primal importance to the

and the unconscious as inspiration for a new

surrealists: their artistic methods of liberating

vision. Their innovative thinking challenged

the imagination drew their inspiration here.

convention, changing perceptions of the

Max Ernst uses “frottage” and “collage”,

world in which they lived and transforming

Man Ray develops his “Rayographs”, Joan

the language of art and design. Surrealist

Miro and Salvador Dali create symbolic

imagery and ideas inspired designers. They

images composed of disparate and

were absorbed into the worlds of fashion,

unexpected elements. These artists believe

commercial design, graphics and film and

that every movements of madman is a

many Surrealist artists were actively engaged

subconscious reflection to the real world,

with these activities throughout their careers.

this is hard to see in daily life. Therefore, to present dream in their mind, imagination and

In the years between the Two World Wars,

subconscious things are manifested through

people are confound at Surreal magazines,

their work, this is what Surrealist looking for.

brochures, book and exhibitions. Surrealism is concerned about confusion, the thought need

This art movement had a great impact in art,

to change people’s original feeling without

design, literature, culture and even extending

hesitation and it must be cause such this result.

to politics. Surrealism painting’s thinking

Nowadays, face to a huge media, people

connotation and forms have a strong impact

involuntary forget their flesh in a corner, brain

of design field. In 2007, “Surreal Things:

thinking follow the change of media

Surrealism and Design” the first substantial

information into another reality space, at this

exhibition to examine it is influence on design,

time, we are irrational and only left visual.

opens at the V&A Museum. It provided a

Under this circumstances, weird surreal image

chance to explore the links between

become reasonable. Correspondingly,

Surrealism and design. The exhibition, which

Surrealism has inevitably produced and

focused on objects, interiors, and fashion.

developed.

Ghislaine Wood (2007) claim that:

In many Surrealist pictures the most ordinary

the man slits the woman’s eye with the razor,

and common things turn into symbols that are

and the vitreous humour spills out from it. A

suddenly strange or unnerving. For example,

similar ambivalence is attached to the image

“the simplest surrealist gesture consists in

of the eye throughout surrealist iconography

going out into the street, gun in hand, and

and thought. The motif of the violated eye is

taking pot shots at the crowd”, from

recurrent in Surrealism: In Max Ernst’s

Surrealism slogan, “gun” becomes a symbol

illustration for the cover of Repetitions (1922)

to express the revolting spirit. In the Luis

represents an eye with a piece of string

Bunuel’s Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

threaded through it; in Man Ray’s Object To

(1972), a man take a gun to the street, shot,

be Destroyed (1923) a woman’s eye is cut

breaks glass, frighten a partisan off. Later,

out of a photograph and attached to the

this scene come again in his film The Phantom

pendulum of a metronome; Breton notes how

of Liberty (1974).

Nadja as a little girl gouged out her doll’s eyes to see what was behind them. Thus, the

Moreover, Dalinian symbols, the watches of

Surrealist motif of the eye is seen to be

Dali are timeless; ants symbolise death,

intertwined with numerous other images,

decay and an immense sexual desire; the egg

revealing an intricate network of intertextual

is an Dalinian image that symbolises hope

links between verbal and visual texts.

and love; the grasshopper symbolise fear; etc.

Elza Adamowicz analysis The multiplicity of possible yet inconclusive

An Andalusian Dog, the ants from a man’s

referential or symbolic meaning itself frees

hand; pianos; donkeys; specially, a cut occurs

the images from any narrative function

to the moon being overcome by the cloud as

to float freely as itinerant signs, and the

viewing subject is subjected to the delirious

element. In terms of surreal design, when

interpretations - or indeed confronted with

an object was diverted from its ordinary

the absence of meaning. Untrammeled by

application, this diversion conferred on it an

syntactic constraints, they can proliferate

undefined and surreal usage. However, the

freely. This characteristic of the film recalls

experimentation of the gestalt theorists was

the Surrealist’s with the single image, which is

designed to show that the appearance of any

as a consequence, remains open to multiple

element depends on its place and function

associations.

in an overall pattern. Rudolf Arnheim (1974) states “most natural phenomena are not

For contemporary designs, bodily images to

described adequately if they are analyzed

which Vaughan Oliver returns include eyes,

piece by piece. That a whole cannot be

hands, the thumb, the toe, the tongue, teeth,

attained by the accretion of isolated parts”.

hair (shaped as heart, vagina and skull),

Therefore, as director Luis Bunuel (1983) said:

sexual parts (clitoris, penis) and various kinds

“Nothing, in the film, symbolizes anything.

of meat - heart, pig’s liver, eel, ox tongue,

The only method of investigation of the

bull’s eyes, human stomach lining.

symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis.”

Furthermore, In Karel Teissig’s poster, this can

- it is also can applied in design.

be seen most obviously in the dolls, Ten Little Indians (1968) and The Last Butterfly (1990), he use collage to deal with these dolls with a grotesque style.

Surrealism is talking about life, any object in the world can be considered as surreal

A list of surreal elements

GUN

GUN

Luis Bunuel Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972)

Luis Bunuel The Phantom of Liberty (1974)

EGG

A list of surreal elements

Salvador Dali Homme Nouveau (1943)

GRASSHOPPER

Salvador Dali The Great Masturbator (1929)

PIANO

DONKEY

A list of surreal elements

Salvador Dali & Luis Bunuel An Andalusian Dog (1929)

EYE

A list of surreal elements

EYE

Max Ernst Cover of Repetitions (1922)

Man Ray Object To be Destroyed (1923)

BODILY IMAGE

A list of surreal elements

Vaughan Oliver The Breeders - Pod (1990)

A list of surreal elements

Karel Teissig The Demon (1965)

DOLL

DOLL

Karel Teissig The Demon (1965)

Karel Teissig Ten Little Indians (1968)

Not only Dali, When Surrealist painter design

What they have to do is to create a new

all kinds of strange objects, it always showing

feeling that predecessor do not know, remove

multiple meanings and conveying complex

all accepted rules. In this way, Surrealist get

symbolic meaning, give people visual and

out of rational, logic and limited

psychological conflict and shock, as well as

common sense, except all obstruction and

it leave profound visual thinking and expand

follow instincts. So that, the first things it is

new imagination space to later generations.

influence design’s ideological and spirit.

Visual transmission design is a design

What it is more, it reveals people intuition and

activity which uses visual symbol to exchange

instinct, to express this awareness through

information. Surrealism focus on liberation of

design works.

the spirit, stimulate innovation and how to use visual language to express their own intuition

Surreal artistic expression has a tremendous

and feelings. These spiritual liberation have

impact on thinking pattern and artistic

develop different imaginations and become a

expression in graphic design. Uncanny:

visual source of inspiration for designers. The

Surrealism and Graphic Design, curated by

technique of expression have substitutes one

the English design critic Rick Poynor for the

thing for another in graphic, exaggerated

Moravian Gallery in Brno, is the first major

composition, deformation, metaphor,

exhibition to explore the influence of

designers are no longer limited to

Surrealism on graphic image-making and

superficial stage of works, but to rise a new

graphic design. Featuring more than 250

level. Through these ways to express their

items — posters, prints, books, magazines,

thoughts and key messages send to audience.

record sleeves, typefaces and films. This exhibition investigates the profound impact of

Surrealism announced that intuition is holy.

Surrealist ideas and images on visual commu-

nication from the 1930s to the present. And it

is a grotesque, leering mask. One of the

is surveying a portion of the Surrealist

most fascinating cases of the way the spirit of

landscape, from its avant-garde roots to its

Surrealism continues to operate undercover in

inevitable application as modern graphic

contemporary image-making. Teissig’s posters

design. Surrealist ideas and images had a

using the full resources of art and design, in

profound impact on image-makers in every

new alchemical fusions, to pique viewers’

sphere of art and design, and by the 1960s

interest and usher them into a realm of

the effects of Surrealism were widely felt in

imaginative freedom.

international graphic communication.

Uncanny traces this intermittent line of

These images have retained their ability to

development up to the present. The exhibit

fascinate and generate disquiet, which proves

scopes out a swath of vintage and

that they keep on affecting the viewer’s

contemporary work, for example, Karel

unconscious. Rick Poynor (2010) argued:

Teissig, who pioneered the use of surreal

This cornucopia of images shows that

collage effects in the Czech poster. In a

graphic design, too, can sometimes be a

more diffuse way, the Surrealist influence

place to encounter the strange, the fantastical

also guides Teissig’s use of collage. In his

and the uncanny, to rediscover our lost sense

poster for the film of Agatha Christie’s Ten

of mystery, and to experience the

Little Indians (1968), two of the Indians have

convulsive beauty and capacity for

doll heads – the doll is one of Surrealism’s

enchantment and wonder that the Surrealists

enduring icons – while the third figure’s face

called ‘the marvelous’.

Obviously, many graphic designers around the world are influenced by Surrealism styles, ideas and techniques. What calls for special attention is that designers Vaughan Oliver and Stefan Sagmeister, furthermore, a magazine called Toilet Paper. Each of them are good at surreal graphic design, but they are using different forms and solutions to present surreal design in their works.

CASE STUDY ONE

bed of salt return, at least in content, to the Pixies’ earlier declaration of eyeball-slicing, surrealist desire in their “An Andalusian Dog” days. Admittedly, at the Pixies’s reputation for inhabiting the dark side. “The Pixies were one

Vaughan Oliver is one of the most remarkable designers to have emerged from Britain in the last two decades. At different times, he is also designer, typographer and image-maker.

But Oliver most characteristic work is about music. At their most expressive, his designs embody his intense emotional responses to his sensations as a listener.

Oliver’s covers for the American band the Pixies, working with photographer Simon Larbalestier, pursue a darkly surreal and freakish iconography of a hairy-backed men with a thick coat of hair, like a wolf’s fur, covers his body, more than lived up to the music and had a Joel-Peter Witkin like atmosphere of theatrical perversity intensified by the darkness, the folded cloth with a fish nailed to it, and the heavy Polaroid border, as though the viewer has chanced on a secret scene. For the Pixies’ popular Monkey Gone to Heaven (1989) Oliver show a stuffed monkey with a halo, surrounded by wooden printing blocks of the numbers 5, 6 and 7, as a special color, of an irregularly shaped, warm-copper graphic frame. Oliver reversed the cover board, and printed on the rougher side, to increase the cover’s tactile impact.

Trompe Le Monde’s (1991) bull’s eyes in a

of the most inspirational bands I’d worked with,” says Vaughan Oliver (2010). “Close to my themes, the dark sense of humour, the surrealism, the sex and lust and all of that … and full of images, even though we didn’t try to illustrate those images.”

Oliver’s design for music stand out not just because they ravish the eye with their graphic invention and production quality, but because they appear to exhibit the continuity of vision across a body of work that one might expect of a genuine authorial presence. This intensification of ordinary experience, the sense of being possessed by music, lost in sound, the ego dissolving, blissfully or sometimes darkly adrift in a primal zone of color and images, recurs throughout Oliver’s work. Many of these lustrous designs are metaphors for psychic states - reverie, dream, abandonment, ecstasy - attainable through surrender to music.

On photographic sleeves such as Tiny Dynamine (1985), Echoes in a Shallow Bay (1985)or It’ll End in Tears (1984), the image flowed from front cover to back, enveloping the vinyl record in a single, seamless mood.

Oliver wanted sleeves to have a “tactile” presence, he uses more special effect with

corrosion and confusion - “We express

merveilleux. “When seeking the object of its

ourselves with textures,” he declared - soon

fulfillment,” wrote Andre Breton(1970), “the

become a favorite device for achieving this

demands of desire exert a strange power over

end. His underworld of texture was dirty,

external phenomena, tending egoistically to

murky, ambiguous and uncertain. Meanwhile,

admit only that which can serve its purpose.”

the fine lines and fonts are become

Surrealism’s assault on reason struck him with

important elements of his design, Oliver has

the force for truth. “It felt natural,” he (1999)

play Surrealism aesthetic principle ingenious.

recalls. “Everything they did made sense.”

As Rick Poynor said in Vaughan Oliver: visceral pleasures: As a teenager, he was drawn to Surrealism, and though he would not now

Moreover, in Vaughan Oliver: visceral pleasures Rick Poynor said: A natural and guiltless surrealist, Oliver

describe himself as a surrealist, the

cheerfully submits to the direction of his

movement’s visual strategies and favored

unconscious. The frisson he wants an image

lexicon of images offer keys to help unlock

to generate sounds a lot like Andre Breton’s

his work. The surrealists, too, discovered

idea of convulsive beauty. The methods he

intimations of the sublime in the corporeal

uses-chance, words association,

reality of the flesh. Surrealist photographers

serendipity - are textbook procedures of

of the 1920s and 1930s explored many of

Surrealism. His favorite symbols (hair, teeth,

the visual themes towards which Oliver (and

knives, eels) would give a psychoanalyst a

his collaborators) also gravitated, sharing

field day.

the same sensibility, without ever having seen these earlier images.

In his image-making, Oliver has an instinctive craving for the mysterious convulsive beauty and for the deeply gratifying state of being and heightened awareness that the surrealist poets and painters termed le

In addition, another among today’s most

Sagmeister found different objects to make

important graphic designers, Stefan

type out, found some more stuff in the

Sagmeister, New York-based graphic designer

camera and in Photoshop, also, found

and typographer. His works presents graphic

himself. Neither material nor effort are

design and typography spatially to an extent

spared to give words dimension in the literal

previously unknown. Moreover, he had

sense. As collage form, it used before

develops many typography design that jolts

Surrealism, but Surrealism systematize these

viewers, they all made a powerful impact,

methods and improve it, they breakthrough

though people reaction to each one was quite

painting tools and materials, some surreal

different.

works paste their ideas and desires on paper or canvas by amazing photography combine

Everything I Do Always Comes Back to Me

patterns, prints, graphics... anything as

(2002), six double page spreads for Austrian

Surrealism structural form. Like Lakshmi

Magazine. The typeface presented by

Bhaskaran give the key characteristics to

different materials and collage as the form.

Surrealism: it is a dreamlike depictions and deliberate construction of strange combination using found objects.

What’s more, with a wink at Surrealism and the optical phenomenon of after-image, an Austrian fashion retailer named Blue gets orange - its opposite on the color wheel - as

CASE STUDY TWO

the key color in the store’s signs, interiors, shopping bags, and ads. As his book Made You Look (Peter, 2009) describes, his thought

pattern began with a negative: Why make a

do all that heart touching, books have several

stupid blue logo for a company called Blue?

days, while most graphic design has to

The question provoked a Surrealist solution.

connect in seconds. (Peter, 2009)

“With a name like Blue, we just had to do

Sagmeister’s innovative work shows that

it in orange,” said Sagmeister. His desire is

graphic design, too, can cut to the emotional

to transform stale thinking and his work not

quick.

only able to objectively reflect the reality of our world, but also to create a new powerful

His most extraordinary fusion of

world.

established ways of problem-solving and the new aesthetic came the following year with

Sagmeister said he wanted to produce design

the ‘Jambalaya’ (1997) poster, for the

that “touches the heart”. Designers envy the

National conference of the American Institute

power that art forms such as music and film

of Graphic Arts. Why a headless chicken? Is

can exert on their audiences. In a lecture titles

it a metaphor for something? It may be that

“Is it possible to touch somebody’s heart with

immersion in design as a practitioner reduces

design?”, he expressed this concern in Made

its mystery when one tries to be an ordinary

You Look:

viewer again, whereas, for the audience, it

I have seen movies that moved me, read

retains its disruptive power to come out of

books that changed my outlook on life and

nowhere and take the emotions by surprise.

listened to numerous pieces of music that

What’s more, A hand scrawled version, on

influenced my mood. Somehow, I never seem

which Sagmeister projects were reduced to

to be touched quite the same way by graphic

single icons. The poster signed a turning point

design. I know the comparaison is not all that

for the design profession, away from

fair, after all, movies do have 90 minutes to

aspirations of digital perfection toward a higher appreciation for a designer’s personal mark.

He talks about it in Made You Look: The finished poster sat amid a long-standing debate in graphic design. On one side were those who felt that the ‘big idea’ approach to design was dated. Sagmeister gave voice to this contingent by incorporating a quote from design critic Karel Martin: ‘The danger of idea-based is that it produces simplistic one-concept pieces which, once you have got the point, become merely irritating.’ On the other side were those - including Sagmeister -

who felt that design driven by style was vacuous. Hence the prominent Sagmester slogan, style=fart.

The poster suggested that the issue was more about the obviousness-versus-originality than truly conflicting ideologies. As Carl Jung states that: The creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image and elaborating and shaping the image into the finished work. By giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life.

Through Sagmeister‘s work, his surrealism is something that conjures a sense of bizarre and the unexpected, or the irrational. As Rick Poynor (2006) judges “his fame, though, is something of a paradox. His work is remarkable, in the context of the 1990s, not because it represents a startlingly new departure, but because it represents the persuasive reassertion of ways of designing.�

CASE STUDY THREE

Furthermore, not only graphic designers but

man’s mouth. From the the eye-slitting scene

also a magazine media, Toilet Paper is a

of An Andalusian Dog, eyeball is become

Surrealism magazine created by artist

an element of Surrealism. “Their work has

Maurizio Cattelan and photographer

a deep and even disturbing psychic power.

Pierpaolo Ferrari. They are doing some

It resists the norms of everyday design and

amazing photos with each printed issue and

engages the viewer because it expresses

this magazine combines commercial

something that many of us feel.” As Rick

photography, twisted narratives and

Poynor describes Surrealism works. They

surrealistic imaginary to create a series of

speak language through powerful images

powerful visual tableaux. This project is also a

dressed with dirty, crazy and picky

sort of mental outburst. A magazine as a

imagination. It explain and define people

platform for art? A different kind of

perception, but instead, it allow all

exhibition? It presents 21 double pages of

image types and forms to exist side-by-side,

images without accompanying text or

equalized and “liberated” and without any

explanatory contextualization that work as

hierarchy.

much with symbolic, narrative and visual enticements as with the surreal flights of fancy

What’s more, Pierpaolo Ferrari mention his

in strong and impressive images, found in art,

favorite photo in the magazine, the image

film and advertising.

which is a woman’s legs hang upside down and a watch hung from her ankles. This photo

Ever since the first issue of June 2010, Toilet

use Dali element ‘watch’ to present time, the

Paper has created a world that displays

woman’s status like suicide and time stop, it

ambiguous narratives and a troubling

that means life is bound to time? A sigh of

imagination. For instance, The first spread

time passes by relentlessly? Nothing will stop

features a dirty ear floating in a bowl of yel-

by any changes? Or just like Dali, it is a

low soup; a man use scissors attempting to cut

recording of his own dreams. For

bird wing; a finger with dirty blood and so

photographer, it is not important about what

on. Specially, one of the surreal cover image

it is talking but want to know what people can

which is a lady looking at an eyeball in a

see form it, it needs people thinking and to

see what’s behind it under themselves

and intellectual mindset. Even this magazine

affective factors.

without texts, but reader still can get some thoughts throughout surreal photographs.

In an interview with the Italian edition of

Maybe it remind people some life fragments

Vogue, Pierpaolo Ferrari commented:

or these photos reflect some phenomenons.

The magazine springs from a passion/

To stimulate image thinking in subconscious

obsession that Maurizio and I have in

by free association of ideas, thereby creating

common. Each picture springs from an idea,

novel and shocking visual imagery, this way

even a simple one, and then becomes a

of thinking is the graphics creative need.

complex orchestration of people who build

Surreal image and concept can carry a strong

tableaux vivants. This project is also a sort of

conviction in a easy way, why not?

mental outburst.

By appropriating images from the information highway as found images or using them as inspiration for new images, Toilet Paper functions as the latest printed reading material of our time, both in its visual form

Visual has selectivity, it select the most

retical for visual communication design. Sur-

interesting thing, this is the essence of human

realism taught the world to see art not merely

vision. Usually, people’s vision would over

visually and literally; but to appreciate it in a

messy stuff away to choose an organized

subconscious level as well. Nowadays, surreal

and ordered object to meet psychological

images become familiar and it grow globally.

pleasure. However, human vision always get

The style provides designers more freedom to

bored with over orderly things but interested

convey their feelings and thoughts through the

in orderly process with change. When we

canvas. Surreal art can be dreamy or gritty;

watching group dancing, it is hard to escape

or it can be optimistic or depressing. Dreams

audience’s eyes if one of dancer get a small

represent scenes from this hidden area, which

mistake, due to this mistake action had break

is why Surrealist art has repeatedly featured

whole order, people will fouce on it and get

remarkable images born in the imagination.

pleasure on this mistake. The characteristics

This aspect of Surrealism chiefly influenced

of surreal visual langage always against

later generations of graphic artists.

normal order, remove vision of conscientiously obeyed the rules by irrational form. A super visual memory of surreal design has made the important theo-

As a complete historic event, Surrealism

deconstruction and combination have

involving poetry, art, personal ethics and

directive significance to graphic design.

collective behavior. It have reached the high level of other movements and surpassed

People accept the absurd contrast, life,

narrow ethos of that period. After the World

intention, time and space in Surrealism, but

War I, artists and intellectuals were looking

this does not imply Surrealism will become

for an escape against the harshness of reality,

realism. World has been shaping up,

they wanted to reform the world their own

Surrealism ideas are ahead of time based

way. Although surrealist art movement has

on practical development. Achievements of

passed more than half a century, but its

human civilization, on the one hand, is make

impact and significance is far-reaching,

impossibles to be possible, on the other hand,

Surrealism did infiltrate the world of graphic

is come up with infinite impossibles. Scientists

design. It provides a new creative way of

are working for impossible becomes possible,

thinking.

constantly pushes the progress in human civilization; designers gives birth to anew

In graphic design, designer can use the

universe and create infinite impossibles, so

structure of spatial perspectives, shape, color,

human have endless spiritual world, thereby,

distortion, montage, light and shade etc., to

people experience wonderful and

combine different natures objects through

mysterious in the inner space except reality,

these ways. This three-dimensional or

which familia things look as they have never

mixed-dimensional graphics can make

before looked to anyone. This new

amazing of prosaic image and space, and

appearance, rather than being distortion or

give people an unexpected and strong vision

betrayal, reinterprets the ancient truth in a

novelty. Making a complete image

grippingly fresh, enlightening way.

separation, deconstruction, and then according to the creative re-combination main part and separate part, thereby, there is an intrinsic relationship between deconstruction image and main image. The manifestation of

An Andalusian Dog (1929) Directed by Luis BuĂąuel and Salvador DalĂ­. Pairs: Ursulines Film Studio. [Video: DVD].

Adamowicz, E. (2010) Un chien andalou, London I.B. Tauris Arnheim, R. (1974) Art and visual perception : a psychology of the creative eye, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Breton, A. (1896-1966) Manifestoes of Surrealism, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Bunuel, L. (1983) My last sigh, Abigail Israel (trans). New York: Knopf.

Cardinal, R. and Short, R. (1970) Surrealism: permanent revelation, London and New York: Studio Vista/Dutton.

Dali, S. Brugge: Museum-Gallery Xpo Salvador Dali.

Freud, S. (1856-1939) The uncanny, London: Penguin.

Heller, S. (2010) Surrealism for Art and Profit. The New York Times Style Magazine, 4 August.

Hall, P. (2009) Sagmeister: made you look, New York: Abrams.

Poynor, R. (2000) Vaughan Oliver : visceral pleasures, London : Booth-Clibborn.

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SMisiurek (2011) Maurizio Cattelan + Pierpaolo Ferrari: Toilet Paper Magazine. [Internet].

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Uncanny: Surrealism and Graphic Design (2010). Czech Republic: Moravian Gallery.

Wood, G. (2007) Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design. London: Victoria and Albert Museum.

Major Context Project Designer Xiaoqin Hu Tutor Sakis Kyratzis