April 19th

Post modernism

used to note a break w/ the earlier modernist principles by placing emphasis on form over function, by reintroducing traditional or classical elements or by carrying modernist styles or practices to extremes.

-Seen in art, design, literature, and architecture

-emphasis on feel rather than rationale (why put gothic writing on my tattoo? Because I can)

-emphasis on surface, texture and materials

-self consciousness or self referencing

-mixes high and low

-historical references

-vernacular

Essentially, post modernism is an extension of the idea and basis of modern design. It is ever present in all aspects of the art world, from fine arts to architecture to design. It is an emotional idea, based on feeling as opposed to rationality. It speaks to the impulsive side of the viewer, feeding their gut reaction and feeling with no true thought or solid idea behind it. You see a complete mixture of various elements in post modernism, anything goes, and the idea is to blur all rational meaning. Post modernistic design and art isn't immediately recognizable as to its function, again playing on the idea of feeling and emotion over rational thought. The basis of this style is the reaction to something, be it a painting, a sculpture or a building. 

Post modern architecture- diverse materials, silly and whimsical, no hint as to the function of a building,

pluralistic, it opens the doors for many different materials and ideas, it is very free and democratic

Vegas is a perfect and almost stereotypical example of post modern architecture, a complete hodgepodge of design styles and cultural influence, from egyptian to greek architecture. 

Post modernism can be seen as based on the computer, the digital world.

Just a few important people worth noting are....

Wolfgang Weingart- one of our pioneers as designers

he was doing the things we do on the computer with letterpress

he taught at Basel school of design and Yale

He began to tire of the international style, so he begins experimenting, which was important in pushing us out of international style 

As a teacher, he's taught many successful designers of our time.

Characteristics:

-experimented with stairstepping rules

-diagonal type

-reversing type out of bars (black bar w/ white type)

-introducing variations within a single word

-experimented with letterspacing sanserif type

-works with open systems and playful elements 

Rosemary Tissi- plays with design and type by pushing design boundaries and the usual rules and precautions in design.

April Greidman

opens studio in LA, magazine cover reminder of lissitzsky, student of Weingart, she loves triangles and was an early adopter of the Mac technology

The Situationists- reminiscent of dadaist ideologies, art for arts sake, the world and life have no meaning and neither should art. They advocated experiences of life for the fulfillment of human desires and experimented with the construction of situations, or the setting up of environments favorable for the fulfillment of such desires. In other words, they create happenings, situations and they make fun. 

Memphis Design group-based out of milan

hoped to erase international style, function is secondary to style

Teddy boys- looking rockabilly/50s-like

Paula Share- all about parody and riffing on things, paying hommage to dadaism, it could be debated that she simply ripped people off and copied to an extreme extent

Charles Anderson (associates) promoted the ideas of cultural language and repackaging

spaghetti sauce packaging- unlike the simple graphical packaging up until that point, appropriating vernacular to connect with the audience (or the consumers), this vernacular is characteristic of post modernism, spoke to the audience in a new way, taking the large bold text of the packaging up till that point and made it more rustic and illustrative

Peter Seville- (still alive)- he created an aesthetic of industrial inspired designs, design director for city of manchester, as art student his buddy was doing designs for buzzcocks so he follows

Von Oliver- associated with and worked for 4AD records

These designers still working traditional means, but then with the invention of a little thing called the Mac computer, a big shift happens, with the invention of this new technology, and the new way it was advertised, it changed the way we worked, creating a completely new aesthetic, digital and clean polished aesthetics. 

Cranbrook- the studies here took a theoretical approach to design, looking at deconstructive theory

Ed Fella- designs and hand draws/ builds his own art and typography

David Carson- given art director job w/out formal direction and knowledge

Sagmeister- hand carved type in his skin, yet another man in a line to go to the extreme for his art, brought forth the question of "what would you do for your art? how far would you go for it? would you bleed or even die for it?"

Post modernists will create work that is difficult to read and understand and that will slightly disgust or repulse you, it is better communication because it effects you more, it pulls at your heart strings and effects what you feel more than what you think, and emotion is much stronger than thought

In my own respects, I can see the appeal and effectiveness of post modern design, but its not something that really floats my boat. In the arts and architecture today, there is definitely a strong mixture of modern and post modern influence, and to a certain extent, I value the style of post modern architecture and design, but it is something that can only be taken in small doses. I can easily see myself being influenced in some ways by post modern design, but only where it can truly fit, not a heavy and easily recognizable influence. The idea of art for arts sake is a very comforting thought, being able to release yourself from rules and regulations and produce simply what you feel and what looks best, but without purpose, then what good is anything really? I find so much pleasure in creating something that moves past a simple reaction and plays with a persons mind, something that makes the audience think, and from that thought emotion and feeling is easily born. So as far as myself, I can easily say that I am more of a modernist, that emotion and irrationality isn't an effective base for my work. 

April 12th

Swiss Design and The International Typographic Style  (synonyms?)
More than just grids, visual unity through asymmetrical organization, use of objective photography, sans sarif type flush left rag right, and mathematical grids


Most important is attitude over appearance and design is both socially useful and important

Traced back to the Bauhaus and constructivism

Max Bill and Theo Balmer- took on swiss design early and both were Bauhaus students

After WWI the swiss adapt to modernist ideals

Balmer is student at Dessau in the 1920s and uses implied grid in design

Max Bill involved in planning the Ulm (the Institute of Design) which is important due to its inclusion of semiotics as a field of study

Semiotics- the philosophical theory of signs and symbols, what things mean in relationship to other things

Syntactics- order

Semantics- meaning referred to

Pragmatics- hot its used

Ferdinand de Saussure- the dyadic model, a signifier and the signified

In reference to THE BRAIN-

it always finds the quickest and easier meaning, they will try and put things together that don't compute

Adrian Frutiger- b. 1928- creates the Univers (one of my favorites) family in 3 years, trashes the traditional roman system and uses numbered system in place of it (Univers 55), tremendous variation while using the same family

Armon Hoffman- HES ALIVEEE!!!

creates the archaic swiss style and a system of contrasting relationships, negative space plays a highly important role in any composition

"if you design the negative space, the rest will work"

Josef Muller Brockman- consistently uses implied grids and objective imagery, uses the grids as art


Modernism- theory with a lot of thought, it acts as a real belief system
European- how can it help society vs. American (morph modernism and make it more pragmatic)- whats the concept


Paul Rand, Saul Bass and Ivan Chermayeff
1940s post WWII economy is growing, more european immigration, introducing more advertising along with European ideas

Paul Rand- cover for Direction magazine, uses dots to convey different meanings, often uses hand made media found images cut paper and collage, rough and less refined, designed the original UPS logo

Art- 
an idea that has found the perfect form
aesthetics- when form and content become one

Saul Bass- designed film titles, many for Alfred Hitchcock, and the Man with the Golden Arm


Ivan Chermayeff- harvard and yale graduate (designed many logos for huge companies like Chase and NBC)


Personally, swiss design seems to take rigidity to a new level and the work of many of the people we've learned about is interesting but i'm not really sure how I completely feel about it. Its all about grids and designing to a system, and i think it relies a bit too much on the fusion of form AND function. I enjoy seeing that wabi sabi feel that type and design used to have, that hand crafted and imperfect feel. I love the clean cut and crisp style as well, don't get me wrong, but swiss design takes it further than i feel anything really did before it. Yes, it definitely feels like everything is EXACTLY where it needs to be to communicate most effectively, but its that intense stray from the hand crafted I feel pushes me away, the minimalistic and clean design seems to remove emotion and feeling from the art and move far into the world of organization and perfection. Its sometimes intimidating to look at this sort of work, because there it stands in front of you, bold and strong. The style is very flexible, though, and i really enjoy the idea that within such a well designed and perfect system, there is the flexibility and a designer is able to really personalize and create fresh imagery all the time with such contrast to other work. I can definitely see the influence of this movement on current design, and its truly amazing how the ideals and imagery stood without true contention that long, and most likely much longer based on how the future looks. 

April 5th

Bauhaus review:

Walter Gropius was the first director of the Bahaus from 1919 to 1928 

the final director was Mies van der Rohe. 

1925 until 1932- Dessau, Gropius replaced Meyer in 1928 and then Meyer was replaced byVan der Rohe in 1930. 

During this time ideas from all art movements were applied to the functionality of design and typography was utilized as communication. 

Herbert Bayer designed the universal alphabet with no capital letters, which in turn made it harder to read. 

Walter Gropius came to America in 1937 when he accepted a job at Harvard. Once he started his job he became overwhelmed with the way architecture was taught in America and decided to take over the architecture school at Harvard. He taught his students the same lessons that were taught at the Bauhaus and and greatly influenced design in America during the Great Depression, with other schools beginning to adopt his ideas. Soon many others from the Bauhuas followed him to America to teach as well. Laslow Maholy Nagy became very close with Gropius and moved on to each architecture in Chicago and created a new Bauhaus. Maholy's approach to teaching was to give students projects that helped them succeed by letting them explore and make mistakes on their own.

Jan Tschichold - caligraphy, hand written invitations, san serif type, limited color, open space

1924 - Writes pamphlet describing typography and design, while producing work similar to Bauhaus.  

1925 - Writes an elementary book about asymmetrical typography 

1928 - Publishes the new typography at age 25

Jan states that the most efficient way to send a message through type is clearly and simply while using grids and and simple construction. Later in his life (after being confronted by Nazis) he moves to Switzerland where he sets out to create a new style using a more classical approach. 

Herbet Matter - Starts his own style after coming to America in 1936

He utilizes: clear typography, extreme perspective and scale shifts, and creates a photo montage in posters designs.

Throughout his career he eveloped a basic vocabulary of elements to create travel brochures, did work and advertisements for Knoll chairs, and creates sketches for NHRR logo.

Addison Duiggins - San Serif type

Utilizes an abstract composition and a limited palette.

WPA was a federal art project that was paid for by US tax dollars and gave artists plenty of work and also provided posters and designs for important causes.

Ladislav Sutnar - Uses abstract designs with negative space. 

Lester Beale was one of the first to bring modern aesthetic teachings to America. This artist uses a lot of arrows, bars, and rules in his compositions along with old wood cut typography. He was known for work with Rural Electrification Administration. This was to convince population that electricity is a good idea for rural areas. 

International style: clean and efficient works, which included everything from graphic design, fine arts, typeface design, and architecture. 

March 29th

Originally, I didn't have a post for this particular class due to the fact that I was absent, but going with the notes I received from others in the class and my own review of found material, this is what I've come up with....




So this class was largely about the Bauhaus, something I didn't know much about, other than the small fact that Dorian's website (beachaus.com) sounds remarkably similar to the school.


So basically, the Bauhaus invented what we consider to be the modern art student, providing for new age thinking and design. 


It lasted from 1919 to 1933, spanning across 3 different locations.
A brief timeline includes:


1919-1925- Weimar (1st location)


1923- First public exhibition


1924- Letter of Resignation


1925- 1932- Dessau (2nd location)


1928- Groupius replaced by Meyer


1930- Meyer replaced by Van der Rohe


1932-1933- Berlin (3rd location)


Walter Gropius- founder and first director of the Bahaus. He introduced the school using a cathedral model- the 3 spires being painting sculpture and architecture together as one, thought these areas should be equally valued, not separated. 


The Bahaus was a place where people put their entire lives, a strong sense of community where people put everything they had into what they were doing and truly believed it meant something. 


Council of Masters-
Gerhard Marks (sculpture/pottery)
Lyonel Feringer (painting)
Johannes Itten (preliminary courses)


Itten- focused on the individual student, attempting to release the creativity of each of the students, not simply follow everyone else, "it wasn't about making the students do what someone else wanted, but what was inside of them," established the preliminary courses, focused on materials as well, developing an understanding of physical materials, classes studied high contrast (soft/hard, round/rigid, light/hard), created work from found objects (rummaging through junkyards and scraps to find forms which could be used), a reflection of the students situation, they didnt need to worry about money and tuition


Itten leaves the Bauhaus in 1923 due to a change in the direction of the school


in 1923, the first exhibition is held, the public was curious as to the goings on of the school and what their money was helping to support, so they were shown, it not only showed the public what was going on there, but provided new inspiration for other artists and designers (such as Jan Tschichold)


Itten replaced by:
László Moholy-Nagy 
very experimental, all about typophoto (unification of all elements- image and type), he sees photography as replacing painting, trying to develop a new "visual language" of sorts with photography, experimented with photograms (playing around with the film as you expose it) creating interesting and unexpected results, the idea was to not worry about the result but just see where the process would take him, used photomontage, collage, assemblage etc. 


Herbert Baehr- created the universal alphabet which did away with capital letterforms
The Bauhaus experimented with typography as well, doing away with serifs, experimenting with contrast, hierarchy, composition, flushed left and ragged right, used bars rules grids and open compositions, strong verticals/ horizontals in compositions


The final move of the school to Berlin was a transition from a nice and modern building in Dessau to a very depressing old building, but things didn't work out, you know, with the whole Nazi thing in Germany


The Bauhaus was a very progressive school all about new directions and Hitler saw the work they produced as degenerate and subversive, and the school was finally pressured to close in 1933


I am truly blown away at the magnitude and importance that this school holds. It was only open for 14 years, yet in that time, it gained worldwide recognition and became a hugely influential design force still recognized today. Comparing our schooling to that of the Bauhaus, I can't imagine having the freedom and curriculum those students were allotted. As art students today, we do follow the same basic principles of core study to learn the basics and fundamentals of art and design, slowly branching out to gain our own direction as we progress each year, but throughout our years at Ringling, I feel we will always be made to follow in the footsteps of those before us, that the level of experimentation and freedom the students of the Bauhaus enjoyed will never be achieved by us. We must always follow the rules, and when we don't, we are penalized for it. However, we have the same spirit, I feel, the same love for what we do, and no matter the obstacles before us, we will continue to produce work and continue to change the world the way we see fit. 

March 22nd

No post, test time!

March 15th

Back to the ole' grind. Luckily today was a short class, probably one of the best things that could happen right after a week long break.

Today we didn't talk about too much, starting of with

Photo montage becomes very popular

photography is a tool of the modern age

development of montage in cinema

Sergei Eisenstein- use of montage in the Battleship Potemkin

shows intense violence without gore, it implies the violence without showing it flat out

critical point in cinema history in which many modern day examples pay homage

The Untouchables- modern day example of similar montage to the Battleship Potemkin

Alexander Rodchenko- born 1891

Pure Red color, Pure Yellow color, Pure Blue color- oil on canvas

He makes the statement of reducing painting to its logical conclusion

1923- Works for magazine Left Front of the Arts

De Stijl- The Style

Movement developed in the Nederlands

It is a utopian approach to aesthetics

Art should be useful, have purpose

Concerned with what makes good art??

Experiments with structures, it is an intellectual pursuit

Rectilinear planes, void of surface texture and decoration except for pure primary hues plus black and white, no trees or happy cows

Looking for universal harmony in art

The idea of De Stijl is applied to architecture, sculpture, graphic design, etc.

Theo Van Doesburg- Founder, leader, and publisher of De Stijl

Piet Mondrian- most well known De Stijl artist

De Stijl evolves- the beginning of exploration in using asymmetrical composition (which is pivotal in modernist design)

Theo Van Doesburg prints Dadaist poems- He believed dadaism was necessary to destroy the existing system in order for De Stijl to come into place and make its name

March 1st

WWI- different design during the war
Allied design soft and illustrative

Axis design more graphic and sophisticated

Ludwig Holowein 1914- reductive form, play with figure and ground, negative space.

1936: germany lost to a black athlete, Jesse Owens 

the poster depicts epic man soaring with wings over stadium

Hitler refers to the role of propaganda in the war effort

he believes the design of germany during the first war to be wrong minded and that they should appeal to the lowest common denominator

posters of the Allies considered to be superior

Holoweins reputation is tarnished due to his work and association with the Nazis 

Edward Mcknight Kauffer 1918- incorporated cubism into his design

there is a generous use of negative space

things become abstract

posters understood based on juxopotion

A.M. Casander- uses abstraction

looking for logic and reason, 

pictoral and illustrative posters, sophisticated design

Dubonnet campaign- constantly in use since it was created

Before WWI there are waves of unrest from the workers

Russian Revolution - 1917 

the russian avant-garde- consists of 3 parts

Cubofuturism- expresses motion through still images

work made out of scrap and whatever is available (cut paper and found objects)

Suprematism- rejects utilitarian function and pictorial representation

Kazmir Meliavich- the essence of art was the perceptual evolution through color

1915- the red and black square

Constructivism- stands as the opposite to suprematism 

Vladamir Tatlin, Rodchenko, and Lissitzky- art must have function, renounce "art for arts sake"

the belief is that art should serve the new communist society

Lissitzky- painter, architect and typogropher
develops the idea of the proun- the relation between art and architecture
the idea of building and how architecture is very utilitarian