New Visual Language Research Rebecca Shaw U1352953
Art Mo
ovements
Fauvism 1900-1920
F
auvism is a lose group of artists and painters. The style lasted a couple of decades, the actually art movement only lasted a few. The movement was developed by Henri Matisse, who had been inspired by his teacher, Gustave Moreau. His teachers broad-mindedness, origionality and affirmation of pure colours was inspirational.
Henri Matisse then went to visit the artist John Peter Russel in 1896, but had to leave after 10 days. He couldn’t stand the impressionist painter’s bright colour pallete. However, he returned the next year as Russell’s student and sought to understand colour theory. Fauvism uses strong colour and emphasised wild brush work. They opted for simplification and abstraction.
Cubism 1907-1914
T
his is the process where objects are broken down, anazlyed and then reasembled into an abstract piece. To represent a greater context behind the piece, the artist will use a multiple of viewpoints. Cubism began in 1907, with Pablo Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, and George Braque’s 1908 Houses at L’Estaque. The term Cubism was created by a French art critic called Louis Vauxcelles. He created this term after seeing George Braque’s landscape paintings, saying that the geometric forms within the abstract work looked like cubes. In 1911 the first organized exhibition for Cubists took place in Paris. It held work by artists such as Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes. Eventhough Pablo Picasso and George Braque was seen as the inventors of Cubism, their work was not part of this exhibition. Other variations of Cubism has evolved in other countries, such as art movements like Futurism and Constructivism. Eventhough Cubism was associated with painting it has developed into architecture and sculpture.
Dada 1915-1922
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ada was an anti-war European art movement. The members considered themselves “anti-art’ and stood for everything art was not. They rejected traditional culture and aesthetics, and intended to offend. It was an international movement that began as World War 1 started to break out. Artists, writers and intelectuals sought refuge in Zurich. The group began as a way to rebel and protest against the war. The group then grew and obtained members from all over Europe and North America. The movement was involved in the visual arts, literature and graphic design. It’s influences were mainly Abstraction and Expressionism, but it was also influenced by Cubism and Futurism.
The group inspired and influenced later styles such as avant-garde, pop art and surrealism. Their techniques to creating their work consisted of using collages. They imitated aspects of the Cubism movement by cutting and sticking pieces of paper, tickets, maps and more to portray aspects of life. Another method they used was photomontage. This is similar to the collage technique, but instead they used real photographs from the media to express their views. A further variation of the collage was assemblages. This was a three dimentional collage, where objects were attatched to create a message.
Constructivism 1916-1924
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onstructivism first originated in Russia in 1916. The movement saw art as a practice for social purposes. The term was first used by Kazimir Malevich to decribe Alexander rodchenko’s work in 1917. Artwork is made up of geometric elements, abstracts and combinations of sans serif typefaces. The final pieces tend to be flat and simplistic, and use simplistic colours, with extensive white spaces. As well as collages they use photomonage. Final pieces lack emotion The movement later inspired others such as Bauhaus and De Stijl.
De Stijl 1917-1931
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e Stijl is an artistic Dutch movement that originated in Amsterdam. It was created by Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg in 1917, who created a journal as a means of recruiting like minded artists and architects. The term is also known as neoplasticism (the new plastic art,) and translates as ‘The Style.’
Their artwork only consisted of the essentials, which are form and colour. They only used the three primary colours blue, yellow and red, along with black and white. Their art only allows straight vertical and horizontal lines, which can produce squares and rectangles.
Surrealism 1920-1940
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urrealism is an cultural art movement that emerged from Cubism, Dada and Freud. It aimed to create a ‘super-reality’ that was merged from the concious and subconcious. They used visual artwork and writing to allow the unconcious to express itself. It emerged from Paris in the 1920s and then spread to the rest of the world. The term Surrealism was invented by the poet Guillaume Apollionaire. However, André Breton published a manifesto called ‘Manifesto of Surrealism’ 6 years after the death of Guillaume Appollionaire. Therefore his interpretation of the worl ‘surreal’ is different. Surrealists don’t adhere to socially acceptable behaviour, and emphasise on the mysterious and mythological that is seen in dreams.
Pop Art 1950s
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op Art is a movement that developed in the mid 1950s in Britain, and late 1950s in the United States.
Recognizeable imagery is used from popular mass culture such as advertising, comic books and the news. Elements are taken out of its known context and combined with unrelated material, through a use of irony. Pop art takes it’s imagery from what is currently being used in advertising, such as the labeling and the logos. Images of celebrities or fictional characters from comic books, and advertisements are the main images in pop art. The pieces contain bright colours. Pop art rebelled against abstract art and instead wanted to express their optimism after the hardship after the war. The origins of pop art in North America and Great Britain developed differently. Early pop art in Britain was fueled by American popular culture viewed from afar. While in America, the artist were inspired by the experience of living within that culture. Pop art as a whole was an extension of Dadaism. They both explored the same subjects, however, pop art replaced the destructive and anarchic impulses with detatched affirmation of the artifacts of mass culture.
Minimalism 1960s
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inimalism began after World War 2. It was areaction to Abstract Expressionism and a bridge to post modern art. The term was first used to describe a 1913 composition by a Russian Painter called Kasimir Malevich. The composition consisted of a black square on a white background. Minimalism is when work is stripped down to it’s most fundamental features. It is characterised by it’s extreme simplicity of form and literial and had an objective apporach. It sets out to expose the essence and essentials of a subject by eliminating all the non-essential forms, features and/or concepts. Minimalism in art started to emerge in the 1960s in New York. New and older artist moved toward geometric abstraction and explored this via painting.
Artist R
Research
Bauhaus 1919-1933
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auhaus is an art school in Germany. It was founded in Weimar by Walter Gropius in 1919. He was an architect with the aim of bringing art, design and industry together. Bauhaus translates as ‘House of Construction’ and was understood as ‘School of Building.’ But despite its name and the fact that its founder was an architect it didn’t have an architecture department in it’s first few years. The school combined pure arts with crafts in the attempt to improve society, with students recieving theoretical and practicle training in all of the fine arts. The Bauhaus style became one of the most influential movements in modern design and developments in art, architecture, design and typography The school began in Weimar being founded by Walter Gropius. However, it also existed in two other German cities under another two different architect-directors. In 1925 the school closed in Weimar and reopened in Dessau. In 1932 this school then closed and opened in Berlin until 1933. Walter Gropius from 1919 to 1928, Hannes Meyer from 1928 to 1930 and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930 until 1933. The school eventually closed due to pressure from the Nazi regime as they deemed it as a centre of communist intellectualism.
Walter Dexel 1890-1973
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alter Dexel is a German painter. He studied Art history at the University of Munich between 1910 to 1914. He graduated in 1916 and recieved his doctorate in 1919. As well as studying art history, he took painting lessons on the side. On a study trip to Italy is where he produced his first pictures, being influeneced by CÊzanne’s landscapes. Later in life he began to be influenced by cubism and in 1914 he held his first exhibition at the Galerie Dietzel in Munich, with his Cubist pictures. As well as Cubism, Walter Dexel was also influenced by Expressionism and Constructivism in the 1920s. Walter Dexel became head of exhibitions in Jena in 1918. He organised the later exhibitions with Bauhaus artists such as Moholy-Nagy. Not only was Dexel an artist, but also worked as a typographer, designer and stage setter. Along with his friend Kurt Schwitters, Dexel joined the November Group in 1923. The November Group was formed to campaign for radical artists to allow them to have more say about the organisation of art schools and laws asscociated with art. The group consisted of German expressionist artists and architects. Dexel began to lecture in graphic design between 1928 and 1935, however he was dismissed from this by the Nazis.
Pablo Picasso 1881-1973
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ablo Picasso was a Spanish artist and sculptor, who spent most of his life in France.
The Rose Period has a more upbeat style, with orange and pink colours. Subjects include circus people, acrobats and harlequins
From the age of 7, Picasso recieved formal training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. His father, Ruiz, was an academic artist and instructor and believed that real training came from copying of the masters.
He is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century and is well known for co-founding the Cubist movement, and the invetion of constructive sculpting. In 1904, Picasso met Fernande Olivier, an artist who became his mistress. She appears in many of the Rose Period Paintings and has influenced the warm colours and the more upbeat and optomistic mood.
The family moved to Barcelona after the death of Picasso’s sister. His father took a position at the School of Fine Arts where he later persuaded the officials to allow his son to take and entrance exam for the advanced class. The process normally took a month but Picasso completed it within a week and the jury admitted him. Picasso’s work is split into periods. Most of these have been argued but the accepted periods are, the Blue Period (1901-1904,) the Rose Period (1904-1906) and the Cubism Period (19091919.) The Blue Period is characterised by the use of shades of blue and blue-green. The influence came from a trip through Spain and the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas. The sombre paintings often include subjects such as prostitutes, beggars and gaunt mothers.
In 1909, Picasso and George Braque developed Analytic Cubism. This is a style of painting that uses monchrome, brown shades and neutral colours. Objects were taken apart and then ‘analyzed’ in terms of their shape. Synthetic Cubism was a further development of this. The use of cut paper fragments were used in their work, this marked the first use of collage in fine art.
John Ernest 1992-1994
J
ohn Ernest was born in Philadelphia, USA in 1922. His work consists of reliefs and free standing constructions. His lifelong fascination with maths came across in his work. He made contributions to graph theory and studying crossing numbers of compleet graphs, along with Constructivism artist Anthony Hill. He lived and worked in Sweden and Paris from 1946 to 1951. After this period he moved to London. He was a mature student and Saint Martin’s School of Art and came under the influence of Victor Pasmore. During the 1950s, together with other artists he became a key member of the Bristish Constructivism art movement.
Vincent Van Gogh 1853-1890
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incent Van Gogh is a Dutch postimpressionist artist. As a child Vincent Van Gogh had always drawn, but he did not begin painting until his late twenties. Many of his best known pieces were completed in the last two years of his life. In just over a decade he had produced more than 2,100 artworks, 860 of them being oil paintings. In 1886 he moved to Paris and discovered the French impressionists. Before this his work mainly consisted of sombre earth tones. However he moved to the south of France and was influenced by the strong sunlight, which caused his work to become brighter in colour.
His work was appreciated for it’s rough beauty, emotional honesty and bold colour. It included self portraits, portraits and paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers, Vincent Van Gogh died in 1890 at the age of 37. It was due to a gunshot wound and was apparently self inflicted, yet no gun was found. He suffered years of anxiety and frequent bounts of mental illness.
El Lissitzky 1890-1941
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azar Markovich Lissitzky, also known as El Lissitzky is a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer and architect.
His work influenced the Bauhaus and Constructivist movement, and he was also an important figure for the Russian Avant Garde. He helped to develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich. Lissitzky was born in 1890, in Pochinok, which is a small Jewish community. As a child he lived and studied in the city of Vitebsk. He then spent 10 years in Smolensk living with his grandparents, attending the Smolensk Grammar School.
Lissitzky had always expressed and interest in drawing and at the age of 13 he started receiving guidance from a local Jewish artist called Yehunda Pen. At the age of 15 he was then teaching students himself. In 1909 he went to study architectural engineering in Germany. In 1912, during summer he went to travel Europe, spending time in Paris and Italy. He taught himself about fine art and sketched architecture and landscapes that interested him. Lissitzky’s work consists of abstract geometric paintings and embraces constructivism.
Kurt Schwitters 1887-1948
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urt Schwitters was a German painter, born in Hanover. He studied art at Dresdon Academy and after finishing, later returned to Hanover to start his artistic career as a post-impressionist. However, he started to develop a expressionist tone as his work became darker as the First World War progressed. He is most famous for his collages, called Merz Pictures. these were influenced by Dadaism and consisted of old items such as bus tickets and labels. He was influenced by expressionism and cubism and worked in several areas such as painting, sculpting, graphic design and typography
Andy Warhol 1928-1987
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ndy Warhol is an American artist best known for his work in pop art. His work explores the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement. In third grade he became a hypochondriac, developing a fear of hospitals and doctors. This was because he was diagnosed with Sydenham’s chorea. This caused him to often be bed ridden, which meant he became an outcast at school and developed a closer bond with his mother. While being bed ridden, Warhol would pass the time by drawing and collected pictures of movie stars around his bed. this period was very important to the development of his personality.
After graduating high school in 1945 he intended to study art education at the University of Pittsburgh, as his aim was to become an art teacher. However his instead enrolled in the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, where he studied commercial art. In 1949 he moved to New York and began a career in magazine illustration and advertising.
Neville Brody 1957
N
eville Brody is an English graphic designer, typographer and art director.
He attended Minchendon Grammar School and studied art at A-Level. In 1975 he then went on to take a Fine Art foundation course at Hornsey College of Art. In 1967 he then started a three year course for graphics at the London College of Printing. In 1977 punk rock was beginning to have a major effect upon life in London. This has a great impact on Brody’s work and motivation. However, this did not go well with his tutors.
Brody has pushed the boundaries of visual communication due to his experimantal technique. He initially worked in record cover design but his name become well known due to his work as Art Director for The Face magazine when that was first published in 1980. Brody has designed record covers for artists such as Cabaret Voltaire and Depeche Mode. He is now the new Head of the Communication Art And Design department at the Royal College of Art.
Barbara Kruger 1945
B
arbara Kruger is a North American conceptual artist. Her work greatly consists of black and white. These are then overlaid with declaritive captions, either in red or white, in Oblique or Helvetica font. She graduated Weequahic High School and then attended Syracuse University, studying art and design. She then obtained a design job at Condé Nast Publications. Her work uses the techniques of mass communication and advertising to explore gender and identity. She merges found photographs with existing sources and adds aggressive text that involves the viewer in the struggle for power and control. Some of her captions are instantly recignisable such as “I shop therefore I am.” Many of her texts tests the viewer about feminism, consumerism and individual autonomy and desire.
Helvetica 1957
H
elvetica is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by a Swiss typeface designer called Max Miedinger, along with Eduard Hoffmann. The design was origionally called Neue Haas Grotesk. The aim of the design was to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form and could be used on a wide variety of signage.
In 1960 the name was changed to Helvetica by Haas’ German parent company, Stempel. The name Helvetica means Swiss in Latin and was changed to make it more marketable internationally. The font consists of a tall X-height to make it easier to read in smaller sizes. Helvetica is one of the mainly used sansserif fonts, being used across signage and for commerical signage
Grid Systems 1957
T
he Grid Sytem is used in graphic deisgn, it serves as a armature so you are able to organise elements in relation to the page or to other elements. It is made up of verticle, horizontal and agular straight, intersecting lines. After World War Two, a number of graphic designers that included Max Bill, Emil Ruder and Josef Müller-Brockmann began to question the relevance of the conventional page layout of the time. They were influenced by the modernist ideas of Jan Tschichold’s Die Neue Typographie, which translates as The New Typography. Due to this they began to design a flexible system that would be able to help designers achieve coherency in organising the page. The result was the modern typographic grid that became associated with the International Typographic Style. By the mid-1970s the instruction of the sypographic grid as a part of graphic design cirricula became standard in Europe, North America and Latin America. The grid was adopted as a look for corporate communication. However, in the early 1980s some designers began to reject the grid. The opted in favour for a more organic structure. This resulted in a wave of experimentation.
The grid system is still being used and taught today, but it’s not a requirement. It’s used as a useful tool for certain projects. “ The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice. ” Josef Müller-Brockmann
Modernism Modernism is a movement that arose in the late 19th century. It influenced the development of art, design, architecture, literature and music. Modernist artists experimented with form and focused on machine-like perfection. Modernism developed at the time of the war and that is probably what made the artists reject the idea of realism. Utopian visions took over or in some cases rebellion. Such as the movement Dada, who protested against the war. Other art movements within this period consist of Cubism, De Stijl and Surrealism. Influential artists of this period are Pablo Picasso and El Lissitzky.
Postmodernism Postmodernism is the opposite. The era defies definition and shattered established ideas. It developed in the 1960s and brought about a new radical freedom and self awareness, which moved away from the utopian ideas. Art movements consist of Pop art and Minimalism, with Andy Warhol being one of the best known artists of this period. Vivid and bright colour is one of the key characteristics of this era, along with exaggeration. The artists use a sense of irony that seems to have a deeper message that is not clear at first. The movement was criticsed by hostile critics, but Rick Poyner states, that it cannot be understood without refering to modernism.
M R
Magazine Research
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like how the magazine GQ overlaps their letters, and changes the colour where they overlap. I’ve also noticed that they frequently change their logo colours and this is so it’s in keeping with the rest of the magazine. I’ve noticed that a lot of magazines have a central characer. Also, this person generally overlaps the logo, so it can be hard to read. I would prefer the logo to be over the top like in Lucky magazine. I like how InStyle magazine has a bold band of colour over the writing in their logo. I feel that this makes it stand out better and makes it easier to read. Most magazines have too much writing on the front, this makes it look too busy. I would prefer my magazine to have a more simple look.
Masthead Design New Visual Language
New Visual Language
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VIsual NEW VISUAL LANguage LANGUAGE
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New Visual Language
Further Development F
or my masthead design, I started by chooshing my favourite. I changed the font to see which would work best.
After looking at the GQ magazine logo that influenced my masthead. I liked how the letters overlapped and had a colour difference where they did. I experimented with this for my masthead design. I chose three random colours for each letter. For the middle letter I changed the transparency to colour burn. I tried it with three different colours to see which font looked best throughtout. I decided that the Rockwell Extra Bold font worked best.
Cover Design
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or my cover I started by looking at my previous work. I thought about using my Cabinet of Curiosity project, an illustration of Marilyn Monroe with a halftone effect and the typeface I created. I also looked at mt artist research, and was inspired by Barbara Kruger. My aim is to add my masthead to the piece of paper that is being held above the girls face. This will be in a red, helvetica font, to immitate her. I also looked at artist painting and decided to cut shapes out of them to see how it would look. In one of my lectures we spoke about glitching. I decided to try this with pictures I have taken for previous projects. I opened them in Text Edit and then added a word that related to the picture, for example, retaurant, university or football.
Form m Foll Follows llow
Fun Function nctiion
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
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decided that this was one of my favourite cover design ideas. I started by adding different mastheads to see which looked best. For the slogan I looked at my other masthead ideas and experimented with them. After I decided on my masthead, I changed the colours of the individual letters to see which worked best. As I wanted to keep the masthead in theme with the cover I decided to use the colour picker tool to pinpoint colours from one triangle. I repeated this to see which had the best colours
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
Form m Foll Follows llow
Fun Function nctiion
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
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decided that this was one of my favourite cover design ideas. I started by adding different mastheads to see which looked best. For the slogan I looked at my other masthead ideas and experimented with them. After I decided on my masthead, I changed the colours of the individual letters to see which worked best. As I wanted to keep the masthead in theme with the cover I decided to use the colour picker tool to pinpoint colours from one rectangle. I repeated this to see which had the best colours
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
I
liked the idea of using my work as the front cover. I started by seeing how just a single letter would look but I didn’t like this so decided not to develop it further. I then tried my Marilyn Monroe illustration and thought that this worked well, blown up. I then thought about using the technique I had doen earlier with the artist paintings, and thought I could try this with my own work. I tried different colours to see which worked best.
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
Form Follows Function
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In magazines they are usually at the bottom of the page, in newspapers they are generally at the top. In my magazine I will put them at the bottom. I feel that it will look better and won’t take up too much space. If they were at the top they would clashing with the title. I will be putting the numbers at the outside of the page. This will make it easier for the reader to find specific pages more easily. These are my ideas for the page numbers in my magazine. I’d like to keep the design simple as it will distract attention from the rest of the page spread. I like the idea of using a box around the number as a way of enclosing it in, or even a bold line, this separates the number from the rest of the text. For the titles on each page I would like to use the same design as the masthead on the front cover. Therefore the page numbers will be in keeping with this theme using the same colours.
Page Numbers
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age numbers are important as it allows the reader to quickly find content without any hassle. The bigger the magazine is the harder it is to create a page number the right size.
To start with, images. There are multiple options as to where these could go. They could either fill an entire A3 page, or spread onto the next page. They could also be masked into different shapes such as circles or triangles. There could also be multiple different images on a page spread. Once the images have been placed, the text needs to fit around this. It could either fit into one, two or three columns. The text can either fit to the side of the images, or on both sides. Some of the titles in the magazine are quite long. It therefore might need splitting up. It can start at one side of the page and then continue at the bottom, either on the same page or on the opposite side of the spread. The title can be condensed to one side of a page or go across the entire page spread. I don’t want just one continuous layout in my magazine. I will be using multiple different solutions.
Thumbnails
I created some basic thumbnail visuals to decided where to place items in my magazine.