Postmodernism Is not a style, but a group of approaches

motivated by some common understandings,

Characteristics of Postmodern Art and Design:

Montage

Pluralism, stylistic eclecticism

Surface

Parody/Irony “contrived depthless-ness”

Fragmentation

Randomness

Unpredictability

Juxtaposition of Styles

End of originality. Art can only be repetitious.”

Stands in opposition to the

ordered rationality of Modernism.

The 60's Toots of postmodernism

Pop is born

Communities of opinion

and belief readers identified with

each other through style– graphic,

music and fashion.

Fasion

Music

Communities forming based on magazines

push pin studios Milton Glasser, Seymore Chwast

A new pluralism

emerged from the

“ME” generation, a

spirit of the 60’s,

pluralistic, eclectic,

hedonistic, and anti -

establishment.

are you experience-jimi hendrix

became the moto

Graphic novel comics and edgy adult literature form hybrids- Village Voice, Rolling Stone.

pushpin studios cleaned up the late 21st century

Rejections of the International style by young Swiss designers- Began in Basel through the teaching of Wolfgang Weingart-

energy of motives begins to loosen the hold and gives the swiss style a new way to design a page

New Wave- european design updated for postmodernism design

Gets a bigger hold on the west coast than the east coast, It burst on the west coast because of the culture, there were more open artists. The east coast such as new york was still very corporate.

Questions the customs of typographic arrangements and Swiss typographic decisions.

Every Graphic convention or assumption was up for interrogation...

Wolfgang first designer to work with a computer

The Swiss Poster 1984 offset litlograph first poster made on the macintosh

Idea of rupturing the picture plan'

Willi Kuntz-One of the first new wave spreads

Conservative but still involved with dividing the picture plan in half

he was the segway into corporate world in New York

Rosmiare Tissi, Siegfried Odermatt, shared his passion for a more intuitive approach

Playfulness

not taking yourself to seriously

bold stair stepped rules - micheal mayburry vandevile

Early days of the computerfirst with the paint boxes and later with the first Machintoshs.

Postmodernism: appropriation, to copying styles, was no longer naive nostalgia but calculated because the past itself was considered invented....

what ever you want to work with because everything was considered inventive.'

Hatch letter printing press is famous for doing blues and western posters

Charles Anderson-

CSA Archive - collection of historic

line art and illustrations.

trends...retro punk funk

Nevel Brody: urban primitive

typographic configurations

become iconic emblems glyphs

emblematic of British new wave

music- They become Iconic

In the 90's people started ripping off his style

The idea that people could create their own typefaces sooo they did. It was the second wave of the typographic era

Deconstruction is the idea of really questioning, it's a form of questioning, a way of looking at anything that is a representation of nature culture, it's about asking questions that disturb the way we feel about something.

Speech the poorest form of expression. Writing is the second

Glas, 1974 by Jacques Derrida

designed by Richard Eckersley

Derrida’s writings were unconventional: A sentence might begin on page 319 and not end until page 322; a single footnote might run the length of an article; two separate narrations might share the pages of a book.

The Idea of information architecture being explored

deconstruction is a way to read

“texts” (as broadly defined);

any deconstruction has a text as its object and subject.

normative :

SEE IMAGE –––––– READ TEXT

deconstruct:

SEE TEXT ––––––– READ IMAGE

ED FELLA

distinctly unsystematized... inspires “Grunge”

If type is a systemized system what can I do to unsystemize it.

Ed Fella- all had done cut out type, he created everything with his hands to add a personal touch

emigre magazine, tried to harness the new type/design world

It's the idea that the designer has something to say

that type doen't have to be unmeaningful

David Carson Disruptive and

disturbed... attacking the “grand narratives” of type and design.

grand narrative

a myth or faith bassed statement that encompasses how we got here why we are here and how we should live story telling in the interest of the powerful.

Everyone was making type and the internet made it possible to sell it

Text and Img period

Questioning motives

disturbing the unknown

Post-Structuralism - challenging hierarchies

computer age

signifier and the signified

Words are not merely codes,

using them is a behavior, and

the behavior alters their

meaning.

Structures in the mass media can be reshuffled and re-inhabited.

Mau views graphic design as a restrictive discipline...

instead expands it to economies of information...

challenging hierarchies:

tentativeness, slipperiness,

ambiguity and the complex

interrelations of culture and

meanings...

Emphasis on the body, the actual insertion of the human into the texture of time and history...

rupture of the picture plan

fragmentation- and the electronic media-

The 90’s a rethinking of the ways order can be

achieved...

Chip Kidd book designer

Stock photographs onto the covers of fiction

We don't read the imgs as imgs we read them as text

It's all about the now movement

If the past is now and the future is now then where do we go from here? To the left? To the right? I enjoy postmodernism but maybe that's just because it is the now. Thinking of it that way really makes me look at it a different way. It seems more valid maybe since it's now. My brain is totally scrambled now. But i'm excited to be apart of a movement.

Barbara Kruger's stand for what she think is right I feel is very admirable. And shows the strength that most women should.

How to pick a good typeface

img1

img2

img3

img4

The legibility of a typeface has anexact parallel in the audibility of a human voice.

type, the voice of the printed page, can be legible and dull, or legible and fascinating, according to its design and treatment.

What the book–lover calls readability is not a synonym for what the optician calls legibility

That is, it is very unlikely that a type-founder or composing–machine manufacturer would produce and offer to good printers a face of which any 2 characters had confusing similarity

The size must be chosen in view of whether the work is one of reference that is, to be read in short sections by people who are concentrating, or a novel to be read uninterruptedly by people who are enjoying themselves, or an educational book for young and reluctant eyes.

Though any size may be called "unreadable" when it is too small or even too large for a given purpose

Set a page in Fournier against another in Caslon and another in Plantin, and it is as if you heard three different people delivering the same discourse –– each with impeccable pronunciation and clarity

Perhaps the layman would not be able to tell one old-style setting from two others of the same group; yet he could not read the tree pages in turn without at least a subconscious discrimination.

Baskerville and Fournier were both designed during the eighteenth century, and some people thing that they represent in miniature, the clarity and good manners of that age.

It would be better first to remember that Baskerville, being relatively generous in set–width, will "drive out" the book; whilst Fourier, a neatly condensed face will be more frugal of space.

Thus Pride and Prejudice by Jane Auseten, produced by Peter Davies Ltd. had a large amount of text to begin with, and not too many pages were to seperate one illustration from the next: Fournier, in a beautifully legible small size, solved the problem.

Baskerville Printed on bulky paper, has saved many a fine book from seeing to offer less than the money's worth

The word "set" which appears in our type specimen books, means that an actual type of the widest letter in the front (M) will be as many points wide as the number giver.

Some typefaces are more sucessfull in the sizes above 11 pt. than in those below it

Bodoni demands in justice exquisite printing for 6-8pt. Saslon and Garmond seem to improve as the sizes increase.

Fournier and monotype are very successful in the smallest settings as well as normal sizes.

Centaur is fine in any size

Baskerville's experiments; the difficulty arises in the fact that a smooth-finished surface of paper takes the inked copy with such ease that little or no impression into the fabric of the paper is necessary, and therfore, the only ink which comes off they type is that on the actual printing surface.

"kiss" impression of thousands of shallow dots of metal on smooth paper is different from the pressure of a deep–cut type and wood–block into damped paper.

The modern printer is versatile, our ancestors never would have thought it to be. he prints from a rotary as well as a flat surface and often from rubber or copper cylinders

But some survival of crafr tradition prevents many printers from realizing that a face, like an ink or a paper can be suitable or unsuitable for a given process.

If a monotype user has four body composition faces, and each well–designed and adapted to a particular printing process, and if the four designs are sufficiently different to convey four different "tones of voice" it would be inordinate to expect that man to increase his type repertory without very good reason.

Nowadays italic is thought of as a part of the whole font loosely called "roman." but the appearance in a page, or even a long sentence, in italic would show why this form of letter, at least until the middle of the sixteenth century, was considered as an entirely separate alphabet.

Neither it nor the body roman must be to discrepant in weight serif treatment, and general appearance. Perpetua is one of the few types which may be said to have "a greek" in the sense that most romans have "an italic"

The almost superstitious regard for caslon old face has been such that only a typographer of our own time has dared to point out that its capitals, especially the capital M, are so heavy in contrast to the lowercase that very often they create a spotty effect

If the craft is to maintain its touch with the real world, must always be considered first and foremost. But beyond all the questions of relative width, color, suitability for certain processes, and optical legibility, lies the whole fascinating field in which the skilled typographer is at home

The first is that before any question of physical or literary suitability, must come the question of whether the face itself is tolerable or intolerable as a version of the roman alphabet.

If the letters, however pretty in themselves, do not combine automatically into words; if the fourth consecutive page begins to dazzle and irk the eye, and in general if the pages cannot be read with subconscious but very genuine pleasure, that type is intolerable and that is all there is about it.

There are bad types and good types

The second generalization is, that the thing is worth doing. It does genuinely matter that a designer should take trouble and take delight in his choice of typefaces.

The best part of typographic wisdom lies in this study of connotation, the suitability of form to content. People who love ideas must have a LOVE of words, and that means, given a chance they will take a vivid interest in the clothes which words wear.

They will use such technically indefensible words as "romantic," "chill," "jaunty" to describe different typefaces. If they are wise, they will always admit that they are dealing with processes of the subconscious mind, mere deft servants of the goddess Literature.

img1. is a good example of how good type can still look bad. It's a good Idea but not very well thought out. There is too much spacing between the paragraphs and not enough between leading. the white on blue is horrible, It is also a good example of how a "classy" typeface can attempt to have a modern look.

img2. is an example of a good display of text even though it's showing you a variety of faces they are still spaced nice, but it is showing a favorite on a typeface which this article said you should not have, for if it is a good typeface it can be used or not used but shouldn't only be used or cast aside.

img3.Is just an example of how type can look good in many different ways and shows a variety of things you can do to experiment with type. Even though it is set at an angle it is still legible and set nicely. I think it's just a good way to show that even though it's different or the typeface looks different that it doesn't mean it should be cast away. And also shows that it is appropriate for the page that it is on.

img4. is a better example of what a good text body can look like. It has meaning and a purpose for being made. It's set in a tolerable face with a good amount of leading. I think the gutter is a bit large but that may just be me.

International style flourished during

the 60’s in the two Swiss cities:

Zurich and Basel

Swiss design did most of the first graphic design books

unfeeling unemotional -> just facts

Emil Ruder-universe type face

Armin Hoffmann published a graphic design manual

master of the poster

boslo school took more chances

he plays with the rules of swiss design

type could be visual and verbal

Josef Muller Brockman

swiss grid wrote grid systems

his posters considered masterpieces

music poster-used stankowski's tectonic elements to express music visually

the shifting creates rhythm

Created a visual counterpart to the structural harmony of Music.

The Swiss Movement had a major

impact on American Graphic Design

and the emerging field of corporate

graphics. The two ultimately merged.

fight of who was going to control american design

the golden age of logo

Critics of Swiss design claim it suppressed the role of content and the “voice” of designers

producing a rigid and severe style that had inflexibility at and sameness of form.

Paul Rand: cared about the audience familiarity

appreciated humor and wit, and child play

he did not follow the strict approach to the formalities of Graphic Design, he gained by his travels and what he worked with

UPS logo, they got rid of the package because of the string they didn't want people using it anymore

enron- bad things in co. america

art imitates life

control there message, and maybe even hide their faults. from the pubic by changing their logo design

Chermayeff and Geismar Associates

“Early Design office” with strong

aesthetic background through

educational diversity of the partners.

also did a little bit of film

they are responsible for most media design

Vignelli he will not go down without a fight

Unigrid system, developed in 1977 for the United States National Park Service by Vignelli Associates-

strict but flexible grid system

Knoll

Herbert Matter- 1950’s- 60’s

menely is on one exream swiss and paul rand on the other more flexible

Media revolution-

“The Society of the Spectacle,”

- Guy Debord

print fought to be relevant, it had to get more involved with entertainment

fasion becomes important in print and tv

henry wolf- tip of the hat

photo shoots became the hallmark of photography and advertising, very little use for illustrations at this time

george lois -genius

tells him they have to make it more racy

The model was formulated by Rand

early in the 40’s. In the 60’s the role of

art director and copywriter formed the

creative soul of the firm.

he set the level of response

esquire magazine

Lois most innovative concepts grew from his ability to understand and respond to the people and events of his era. Staying in touch with his times vital.

Herb Lubalin

Photo-typography Became viable with the establishment of a firm in New York 1936. The perfected technology finally allowed an expansion in the mid 50’s.

It was drawn very big then shrunk down no space negative leading

decorative type faces

Term was “figurative typography”

he used american work all the way it was really the laucnh of post modernism

provoke the audiance, make it simple, make it direcet, speak to them

I think it's so amazing that the arts and life all around influence each other. It's crazy to think about he movements in terms of inventions which in a round about way I think makes it easier for me to understand. And now I understand better about how post modernism and graphic design played off of each other.

!930-40's isotope movement

Otto Neurath- founder introduced in 1936

continued into the 1940’s

Vienna Sociologist- political economist, and

unorthodox Marxist.

his point was, was to come up with a universal language that everyone could understand. WWI-WWII

First time we see iconic communication, formalized language

This movement Begun in the early Constructivist

movements then Bauhaus and

ISOTYPE movement. first showed up with el lassinskies beat the white with red wedges

socialist look and feel, socialist in nature.

-Know: ISOTYPE Acronym for - “International System of Typographic Picture Education”

Sutnar used bleeds extensively with visual coding system of number, words, and rules Defined information design for a generation of designers at mid–century. Visual "unit" becomes the double page spread defined for function, flow, and form

Design for Information: patterns of

information relied less on dynamic flow and looked more towards a consistency of color and placement

Herbert Bayer- World Geo- Graphic Atlas 1953- considered a hallmark of organizing design and information

Also during this time we saw a huge shift in creative persons coming from europe to the states because of the new york school

the term graphic design wasn't coined until 1922 by addison Dwiggins

Images cast off neutrality, traditionalism, and provincialism and an embracing of the modern world.

plakinstil. de stile, constructivism

european modernism spreads through publishing

Lester Beal- Combined the Dada and reductivist methods and strategies of the type case with nineteenth century American flavor-

lester was self taught, lived in the midwest had no baggage

Paul Rand (like Lester Beal) initiated an unique American approach to graphic design - built on European models - but an emphasis on the role of content and meaning.

Most of his early work is playing with American art

Alexey Brodovitch- Harper’s art director from 1934-1958 taught night classes to advertising and marketing, he also taught editorial designers how to use photography, Most influential in the time for graphic design

the invention of the 35mm camera made this possible, photo shoots started being a part of everyday language

Claude Shannon- Bell labs

Combined mathematical theories and

engineering principles to set the stage for the

development of digital computers in mid 1940’s

School at ULM - Developed a curriculum that addresses new needs of this age. evolved along scientific and methodological approaches to design problem solving

comprehension of signs and symbols in multilingual formats.

Goals of Bauhaus is to have a art program

product semantic

Isotopes pop up everywhere in 1966 and beyond, the Olympics revolutionize isotopes

A international style of typography braught out by the swiss swiss design and international style same thing.

The Idea of the box is used as a unit for type forms to be drawn in, with mathamatics and geometric rules

type is still hand generated

Theo Ballimer, samlple sketches of a logotype for tapeten giger wallpaper

The use of using pure abstract form to show process, represents forces that cannot be seen, air, energy, wind, works best with science

Anton Stankowski-

Swiss

Major contribution creation of visual forms to communicate invisible processes and physical forces.

pure plastic form derived from dej stile

the idea of 2d form suggesting 3d form

kept forms in a book until he needed them, then took them reworked them and used them

max miedlinger 1967 - the hass grutesk face is introduced.

swiss designers: helvetica emerges in the 1950's

edward hoffman creator of the original helvetica

Helvetica focuses on letter ground relationships, it doesn't just sit on the page in interacts with the page.

Drink Coke. (Period)

Helvetica- clean and tidy

Everyone uses Helvetica if they wanna look chic

I love that as we move through time in Art History that I get called into the images and design more... their is something that catches my eye better. It inspires me and makes me want to try something similar to it! I agree with Johnothan Barnbrook on helvetica it's nice and was nice for the time but now I just feel it is over used and something can be better

using the laws of media to look at a cellphone

1. A cell phone enhances the way you hear, the way you communicate, it enhances our ability to get information with the push of a button. It enhances our ability to be distracted.

it can be an extension of our emotions by being able to update them via our phones. cell phones are an extension of our home phonebook. It is an extension of a portable light. It replaced phone operators, and rotary telephones It has taken place of writing a letter.

2. Cell phones replace our need to communicate in person, they replace facial gestures and our ability to make eye contact with people. it allows us to share information with out printing and sending.

They allow you to replace a printed address book because you can just punch it into your cell.

3. with cell phones introducing text messaging and e-mail to phones, retrieve a for of sending a telegram you can write your message or send it my voice.

I don't think that cellphones have knocked any other technology out by themselves yet, but land lines are on their way out the door. I don't think that they will go away interlay unless they attach a fax line to cell phones.

4. I feel that if the cell phone keeps getting pushed that it will soon take over everything. Our thoughts, our functions, our abilities. So far they can already can take pictures connect to the web and allow you to organize your life. I think that it will eventually kill all sorts of human interaction and communication. I feel that if cellphones keep going the way they will be causing a huge problem with human interaction in general. I feel that if the smart phones get any smarter they will take over us.

In conclusion I feel that cell phones are a connivence that is getting harder to live without. They they have taken the world by storm and that they are becoming a very powerful component of everyday life. No matter what type of technology that is introduced to be a helpful convenient part of life. but they they all have serious after effects that no one thinks of until it is to late. When the day comes that my home, office, food, vehicle, and any other thing I can possibly imagine taking with me is put into a simple small cell phone that it will be time to be scared.

curves eliminated, sans serif type was favored

squares were used for a module for type design, color when to more primary favoring red

Architectural and graphic forms in

asymmetrical equilibrium

Cubisim makes a huge push into design

Movie

Design is in everything

moris linked art and trade to form the bauhaus movement

trade and craft schools went up in germany

functional house hold objects using traditional ways to make them

when the first world war ended the bauhaus created the most advanced school of the time with design. this was a huge revolutionary for architecture

The belief that art could be used to change society

the school was laid-out like an architecture firm

The students had radical parties

should search for inspiration within yourself

eden's classes began with relaxation and breathing exercise, but he took it further for himself by fasting

square, triangle, and circle, had been given further meanings.

kandinskey went as far as adding sound to color chicken yellow cow red

red blue yellow, bauhaus style of design

practical work was introduced into education

dutch painter dusberg de still movement- the first to focus on design. concentrated on right angle lines

a dispute broke out about diagonal lines

art and technology was formed during post war and the desired to industrialize, the be more functional.

maholly introduce machines into the workshop

it wasn't about unique anymore it was about production

less is more

function rules supreme

herbert head of type he decided one typeface that was more understandable

suported a flat roof cubic design

the community hated the new modern design with clean lines that are still functional

1945 failed in all attempts to support itself and the state stopped helping them

with the rise of hitler the school moved to desso who where open to their new ideas

the ultimate aim in every design is expression

their quest was to created the home of the future, they where functional and cheap. even the workers that build them could buy them

in 1947 the school revolved around architecture

in 1932 they moved to berlin and there whole way of teaching was changed

the nazi's out lawed the bauhaus, the faculty was dispersed throughout the US

seagream building built in new york a triumph of form and function

a new visual literature

type and photo in combination and the force that connects them

use film strips to re-photograph type

Most of there work shows up in the 21st centery

rotation of type-kandinssky

red and black are primary

exterior signage, sans serif, wayfinding,

wanted to make it easy for the user to follow

GI bill helped lots of soilders go to school

people in the us would see the 25page add

used asymmetry to show info the best way

Diagonals become prominent

brought in more space, with perfect balance

sebon remake of garmond

I think it's crazy that the bauhaus was so influential to us still even today. Its great to see that the past still does influence us today, I guess that's how we learn and that's why we are here. The question really being are we going to influence people?

Avant grade important movement, Pure form becomes content referencing nothing but itself... and with it's geometric shape color and space motivates graphic design to take on a new look even more different than 25 years before

Abstract art - shift to our formalism

Suprematism-dadaism-futurisim

Russians coined the phrase

“Cubo- Futurism”

Embraced the usage of photography and used it as a power illustrations could never do

Photography was used to creat myth not to restate reality, used for propaganda martial

Goals of Constructivism-

To redefine the concept of the artist as that of a industrial worker with technical mystery of a practical medium

Corporate design of the 60's come through

What type of images would show movement?

Architectural design becomes popular

Film was revolutionary

The photomontage sequence- not only theatrical, but distinctly cinematic,using documentary film techniques of Dziga Vertov.

Constructivists enhanced rhetorical power through “hyperbole”,

extravagant exaggeration...

Rodehenko Makes the book form more dynamic by

incorporating the grammar and syntax of theater and film in

its design.

Rodehenko was also motivated by culture

Rodehenko and Mayakovsky blew up and became big calling them selves Advertisement constructors

EL Lissitzky visionary and innovator of the 20th century like the high priest of modernism

Communication is shown with structure of elements

“Beat the Whites With The Red Wedge” 1919 propaganda poster proved that abstraction could prove a message, with the combination of abstract geometric form and typographic elements

the idea 'can we come up with posters that semi peasant people could read and understand' can you decipher this rather important shift, the birth of form, something that all could understand, something that everyone could understand using symbolic images?

Invent symbols and put them in front of the public and educate them on what the symbols mean

children's tail of two squares was a great example of something showing a symbol with typography to form a new meaning

the diagram a new syntax

EL Lissitzky- Spread the Constructivist philosophy through frequent visits to the Bauhaus. into western europe in the 20th century

lissitzky Established a typographic standard for the modern movement.

the structure of the book becomes a part of the structure

First designer to have his work presented at a large scale

Salomon Tellingater more free spirited, open layouts

The Steinberg Brothers-invented the idea of a modern movie poster their posters are unlike anybody else

the forms the attitudes are put into place in the 20'th century

Revolution completes the establishment of a “professional

identity” for modern graphic design.

Design on the avant garde became the idea of social change

It is amazing to me to watch how graphic design came about and what the movements where that pushed them forward that inspired the designers of the early 20th century. It is based on a lot of the movements that I have always found fascinating Unlike the rest of the art world graphic design was really only taken by storm with a few designers vs 10 or more artists. I guess what I want to know is why is it that even though they move forward in designing why is it that other new approaches aren't still happening