NVL
Form Follows Function
AN EXPLORATION OF MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM MAY 2015
ISSUE 1
Contents
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4. Modernism 6. Postodernism 8. City in Flux 18. Earth Artifact 24. Type Transcription
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M
odernism Modernism is a popular artist movement that was strongly influenced by the development of modern industrial societies, the deve l o p m e n t o f c i t i e s and the change in social trends also largely created an impac t. M odernism emerged around the early 20th century. Modernism is a response to the new technology and society changing after the industrial revolution. Artist started to take influence from the new machinery and the city environment. Then new modernist movement affected all forms of art and design. Modernism wasn’t a ‘style’ but a movement that was influenced but then new and ever developing environment. It would take influence from the present rather than the past or future. Modernists rejected the historical and more traditional forms of design and focused on exploring with new materials and simplistic design. Louis Sullivan believed that design should be made 5
round the principle of “Form follows function”. Sullivan believed that the shape of an object or building should be reflected in the functionality of it. Modernism design would reject historicism completely and create designs that consist of simplified shapes, Geometric patterns and minimal decoration. As modernism was surrounded by ever changing technology modernist star ted to explore the idea of mass production. Bauhaus is the main example of the modernist movement in practice. Walter Groupius was the Founder of the Bauhaus; aimed to teach the principles of modernist design to pupils and to reject historicism in order to unite both ar t and technology. This led to the use of mass production within the Bauhaus.
Postmodernism Postmodernism is a late 20th century movement, which came about in the 1960s and influenced artists well into the 1990’s. Artist decided to come away from the strict, minimal style of modernism and they w a n t e d t o e x p r e ss themselves through their work. One popular style that came from postmodernism is the Pop art style; this style took influence from the popular culture of the present. It used bright colours, bold outlines and had an expressive feel to it. This is very different to the grid like, minimal style of the modernist movement. They aimed to bring freedom to art and design. Postmodernists also had a critical interpretation of art, culture, history, etc. Postmodern products have been described as tacky, superficial and complex yet they’re elegant and cheerful.
They believed in the idea of deconstruction, they would take apart something in order to create something new. Postmodernism were the opposite to modernists and took influence from thing that they rejected It would take influence from both the past and present whilst creating innovative pieces. Fine artists tend to be large followers of the movement as, they were able to go back to the traditional values of art and design that were abandoned by Modernim. They would produce simple product that would take influence from the technology around u s, The movement tended to combine multiple things in order to create a new product. There was no limit to the possibilities from the movement.
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City in Flux For the City in Flux project I had to create visual piece that would show how the city changes. Many aspects can cause the city to change whether it be culture, politics, c onsumerism, people etc. I decided to look at aspects of time and how over different decades cultural values change causing a large affect on the structure and visual appearance of society. I researched into different cities and took primary photographs in different places so that I could compare the changes in the city depending on place. I also researched different time periods and popular culture for that time to see changes in the cities structure.
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I believe this project was fairly interesting as it was so open due to there being many different things that can cause change in the city. Once I decided to create a small book to show cultural changes and values throughout different decades I found it fairly straightforward. However I did find it fairly difficult to think of ideas for the 2000’s and Now piece’s. This is due to there not being any bold statements that are extremely noticeable such as the 1970’s and Disco.
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City in Flux explains culture in that particular decade.
This is my final piece for the City in Flux project. For this idea I decided to look at cultural comparisons between a range of decades and how it influences the city to change in many ways. I found that consumerist culture and subcultures both have a large impact on the city in different ways, the buildings and structure of the city changes from decade to decade depending on what is seen as popular culture at the time. I decided to research into different artist throughout each decade and then gain influence from them so that I am able to create a piece that best
I personally found this project rather difficult to start with as it took me a while to generate different ideas and find a starting point for the project. Once I had made a project plan and organised each stage I was able to start to progress and develop the project. This is an image of the front cover of the small book I created, I used a record because music is one cultural aspect that always has a great influence on how the city changes.
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City in flux
For this piece I decided to look at the work of Peter Blake as his work strongly reflected in consumerist society. I then decided to look at different products that were most popular in the 1960’s. I used a mix of photography and adobe programmes to create this piece. I decided to research into the 1960’s so that I could understand what culture was like in that decade. I found that pop art was a large part of consumerism and this is what led me to look into
pop artists such as Andy Warhol and Peter Blake. I also found that the 1960’s were known for the bold patterns and bold colours, this was shown though art, fashion and advertising in this time period. Drugs such as LSD were taken medicinally, spiritually and recreationally during the 1960’s this created a large impact on the music, artwork and films of this decade. This is why I used bold colours throughout my work. 12
City in flux
I looked at the theme of disco for this piece as I found that disco was the most popular thing in the 1970’s. I found that disco affected a lot of thing such as fashion, consumerism, subcultures etc. I thought it would be a great idea to use to represent the 1970’s. I also researched into graphic designers that were most popular in that decade and found that Wim Crouwel was
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well known for his work with the Grid system. I decided to create a piece that would represent both disco and the grid system. Disco balls are mad up of geometric shapes such as triangles and square’s so I decided to create a grid pattern for the disco ball.
I also researched into the 1980’s and found out that they were popular for a lot of things such as music and the bold fashion style. The 80’s was all about making a statement and standing out. Michael Jackson was popular in the 80’s with his record bad. Rock and roll was one of the biggest influences on the youth of the 1980’s. Capitalism was big in the 80s and everyone bought into the culture. Retro became Chic. One of the most popular toys in the 80s
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was the Rubik’s cube, the puzzle it’s self and the neon colours were a massive hit. I decided to look at the bold change in music and found that cassette tapes were becoming very popular. I also found that Neville Brody was one of the popular designers of that time so this gave me the idea to make a typographic piece in the shape of a cassette tape.
For this decade I decided to look at the popular graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister and his work with typography. I found the way he uses his own handwriting to make his work seem more personal. I researched into popular culture in the 90’s and found that potable CD players were first introduced in that decade. This decade was known for the rise in multiculturalism and alternative media. Popular cultures such the Rave
scene; Grunge and Hip Hop were introduced in the 1990’s. I decided to use a CD and scratch the lyrics to a popular song into the cd. I believed that this technique was fairly effective as it created an interesting piece.
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For the 2000’s I looked at drastic social change. I found that there was a large problem in the economy. The great global finance crisis began and this led to the increase in prices, banks crashing etc. Due to the rise in consumerist culture there was a higher demand for material goods, this was used to help pump money back into the economy. This global crisis caused many businesses to go bankrupt so I decided
that for this piece I would look at representing the loss of money, I decided to take influence from Attic noise and their bold use of colour. This would help me to create a simple design. I believe that this piece wasn’t as effective as some of the others as there was no strong cultural aspect that would stand out to be easily recognised. The 2000’s tended to take influence from past decades for fashion, art etc. 16
This final piece was influenced by today’s culture. I looked at current fashion trends and found that they are all about slimming down clothing; skinny jeans and tight tops were largely popular. Elements of alternative fashion from the 70’s and a sort of pop indie look is most popular as bold patterns were reintroduced. Vintage is starting to come back and is more popular than ever. Vintage is a word 17
often used to describe the fashion and culture of today so I decided to create a simple piece influenced by the work of Neubau. They create simple graphic pieces that consist of overlapping text and lines. This piece was very simple and slighly plain.
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Earth Artifact
Brief Summary
The Golden Record
We are required to create a range of ideas inorder to create a new verision of the ‘Golden Record’ entitled, ‘Earth Artifact’. It doesnt have to be an updated version similar to the original, it maybe be a more contemporary version that reflects the different aspects of life and culture. We are required to document all the stages of research and design processes that will show a critical understanding of the design brief.W
The Voyagers Golden Records are phonograph records, which were on the Voyager spacecraft that was launched in 1977. On these records there are sounds and images that would help show and explain life and culture on earth. For example it will contain information about different species, evolution, environment, music etc. It was created so that we could communicate with any extra terrestrial life by showing them what life is like on earth.
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Earth Artifact This is one final piece that I have created by developing past ideas that i created influenced by the work of Robert Rauschenberg. For this image I have created a collage of multiple images and textures that I have taken from photographs that a family member had. I was able to add a colour overlay to some of the images and then I experimented with the contrast and layout. I really liked how Rauschenberg uses colour and the way he lays his work out as
a collage. I used blocks of colour and also added blocks of texture for the background of the images so that it would make it appear ‘timely’. For each of the images that I used I lowered the opacity so that it would enable me to see the other images through it. I thought that this piece was rather effective for the Earth Artifact brief as it shows elements of social culture and conflict in a clear way.
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Earth Artifact For this final piece I decided to repeat the same process of creating a collage inspired by the work of Robert Rauschenberg. I decided to overlap images and import textures to create a more textured effect. I also added a colour overlay and changed the threshold on some of the images. This added more contrast to some of the images and made them appear more ‘timely’. For this piece I decided to add text onto a texture that appears like an old piece of paper this was to make it
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appear like clippings from a newspaper. I thought that by adding this text it would make the piece appear more descriptive and people would be able to understand the image more. As the piece was created for extra terrestrial life I thought that they would be able to connect words with images so they would be able to connect a specific emotion by looking at the image.
Type Transcription the alphabets on illustrator. I found this task fairly simple for the piece’s on Kandinsky and Milton Glaser. I found the piece on Rosenwald fairly d ifficult, i then had to try to overlap several shapes and then add extra lines so that i could make letters. I believed that this was fairly time consuming. Whereas the other ideas were fairly straightforward as I was able to use simple shapes and lin e s to cr e a te th e letters and I was also able to use curved lines for the other. i found that rather simple.
These are 3 alphabets that I had to create for the Type transcription brief. I had to choose 3 different artists and looked at one piece of work from each to gain influence in order to create an alphabet. I had to try and pick out patterns that look similar to letters, once I did that I had to draw out and alphabet and create the other letters for the letters that I found in the artists work. The artists that I looked at for the type transcription were Wassily Kandinsky, Lauri Rosenwald and Milton Glaser. I then had to complete
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