The week before last

If you get 20 people together to discuss postmodernism you'll get 20 different responses.

We design what we think is important.

Michael Graves?

- Dorian hates it
- it's functional and cheap

MOVIE TIME

Postmodernism

Break with 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

- emphasis on surface, texture & materials

- self-consciousness or self referencing

- mixes of high & low

- historical references

- vernacular

- poster modern device playing with language, taking pieces from different things and putting them together

Supergraphics

became popular in the 60s and lasted until the 70s

large geometric panels of color were popular

taking large bold geometric letters and placing them in the landscape

Logo

a logo is sacred

you do not mess with it

"Wolfgang Weingart is my homie"

he is the guy that started a lot of stuff for us

eventually gets tired with international style

starts experimenting and pushes out of international style

he teachers in basel (center of design education)

he has important students that go out and teach his principles

Characteristics

experimented with letter spacing sans serif type

experimented with stair stepping rules/lines

experimented with diagonal type

reversing type out of bars (knocking out type)

introducing variations within a single word

Dan Friedman

takes variety of letterforms and has them float in space

studied in basel from late sixties to early 70s

taught in Yale

people that study at basel come back and teach and really good schools

if you studied in basel you had a theoretical base

Back to Weingart

holy shit this guy gave homework that looks like the homework we get now

"what if" came from him

what if I . . .

made variations

rotated this

knocked out this type

EXPERIMENTATION

In the 80s . . .

apparently we loved things that floated

I MEAN WE LOVED THAT

I guess the 80s had an "orgy" of texture just for no reason

Willie Kuntz

Micromacro

he's good for "what if" pushing those boundaries

Memphis

way to go Memphis you messed up somehow

Memphis Design group based in Milan

hoped to erase International style

pulling everything they could find and put it together in this "vomit soup" to reject International Style

function is secondary to style

Memphis Couch

good lord this looks horrible

please take it off the screen

Memphis Shelf

it looks cool but how the hell am I supposed to put something on it?

why does it have angled shelves?

it looks kind of like some weird robot

it was attention grabbing, fun, and lively

70s

a time of "epic" rock

artwork reflected

they were deep and meaningful

"the ship sailing over the planet"

basically it was really ridiculous and unnecessary

and then . . .

. . . came the 80s

saturations of color

everyone was taking the same drug

Patrick Nagle

posterboy of the 80s

all about surface and objectification

Walked back in on some dude getting head from a hooker

Peter Ceville

had a friend doing rock and roll posters

got interested and met friend in Manchester doing posters

language he developed created an aesthetic that became pretty popular for a while

Von Oliver

English designer

traditional designer

traditional means

Stefan Sagemeister (German Artist)

"his voice will convert you"

frontal nude pose for poster

had assistant carve typography into his body . . . literally

famous for handmade typography

mixing high and low

very charismatic

famous for taking a year off early in his career and wrote articles about his year off

very sincere

Postmodernists create work that is difficult to read or disgusts you

they say this is more powerful than clean helvetica type

it actively conveys you therefore it a more effective form of communication

Chip Kidd

book designer

he's the same as as Dorian (however old that is)

Cheese Monkey's

Conclusion Postermodernist or modernist?

I don't think I really fall into either category because to be honest I don't really like to label myself. I don't feel like I have a strong connection to either one of them because I am a young student who's trying to be a designer but is still learning all the do's and don't. I mean I have my own opinions on what design I think works and what I think doesn't work but I don't feel like my personality is so black in white. I think we all have a little bit of postmodernist and modernist in us.

April 12th

Swiss Design + The International Typographic Style

more than just grids

visual unity achieved by asymmetrical organization - traced back to new typography of Bahaus

objective photography

sans serif type

flush left, rag right

mathematical grids - traced back to Behrens

socially useful

Everything from swiss design we've seen before, they're just coming together in one form

swiss design = the international typographic style

more important than the appearance than the attitude

design a socially useful and important activity

Being a designer is about the way you live your life. Would you be a designer if you weren't getting paid? If you weren't benefitting somehow? Swiss design is about the spirit behind the design. Roots come from:

the new typography

De Stijl

Bahaus

Max Bill + Theo Balmer

died in 1965 and 1994

both students of the Bahaus

link from Bahaus to post WWII swiss design

Balmer student in Dessau

grid as art, it isn't just a set of rules but it informs or becomes the art itself

Ulm

school notable for inclusion of symbiotic and a major

Semiotics

"the philosophical theory of signs and symbols"

what things mean in relationship to other things

syntactics - order

semantics - meaning or referred to

pragmatics - how it is used

The human brain is a lazy muscle and will always go to the easiest possible solution

as soon as you get other information your brain will lock in on that information

sometimes you get meaning from casual juxtaposition

dyslexic people see thing that aren't necessarily there

Adrian Frutiger

apparently still alive

born in 1928

Univers

1954 completes Univers alphabet after 3 years

deals away with traditional nomenclature and has a numbering system instead

this a logically system of articulation

Arman Hoffman

still alive also

develops system of relationships and contrasting elements

gave us the one truth that if you design the negative space the rest will work

the negative space is an active component

Joseph Muller Brockman

died in 1996

good for creating semiotic relationships

dynamic imagery

film poster from 1960 "deFilm"

you can see the units and grid

you can see dominant horizon/vertical

negative space doesn't feel like it's been leftover

a good grid is libertating

Paul Rand, Saul Bass, Ivan Chermayeff - The Big Idea

Paul Rand

does a lot with the simplest imagery

frequently will sign his own work

you see a lot with cut paper and things that are hand done

designed UPS original logo

a lot of work that was just immediate, casual, a collage

MOVIE TIME - Paul Rand

Saul Bass

title sequences

Conclusion

The Vagina Monologues poster was great, that's the classic case of a good idea. For me, I can tell when something is really good when I get pissed off. You ever get that way when you see something and you're like, dammit I could have thought of that! I don't literally get pissed off but it really gets to me. The best ideas aren't "hard" to think of. It's just hard getting to them or recognizing them.

"You know what looks like a vagina? Lips." That's not an earth shattering discovery. You don't need a doctor or some genius to figure that out. Some middle school kid could probably point that out. So what makes it good? The fact that it has double meaning and both of those meaning relevant. You use your mouth to talk about monologues and that's why the lips are relevant. What are we talking about? Vagina's, and oh hey . . . those lips kind of look like — ohhh I get it.

Boom. That's a good idea. When you get a reaction. When you're drawn in because you see something ordinary and it turns into something that is extraordinary. That is the key to good advertising.

Post Test Part II

BAHAUS REVIEW

utopian desire to create a new spiritual society

at the beginning was unity of arts & crafts movement to build for the future

ideas from all of the advanced art and design movements were explored and applied to functional design

Gropius - 1st director of Bahaus

Itten - 1st foundations program

Joseph Albers - 1st graduate who also taught there

Van der Rohe - final director

Bayer - designed universal alphabet

Moholy Naig - replaces Itten and becomes Gropius' right hand man

far left - tyopophoto

middle - photogram

far right - photoplastic

Universal typeface

no capitals

silly to have two alphabets

harder to read

MOVIE BREAK ON BAUHAUS

Jan Tschichold- hand lettered advertisement

son of designer/painter

studies calligraphy as a child

most German typography printed in Textura

designs constructed on underlying grid/mathematical structure

In what way is Tschichold like Morris, Elbert, Hubbard/Roycrofters, and Wiener Werkkstatte

gives ideas of Bahaus practical express

writing pamphlets for lowly printers to understand

Herbert Madder

SWITZERLAND POSTER

Swiss born and later moved to America

pioneered use of photomontage in poster design

defined what modern poster design could be

major scale shifts

very clear and efficient approach to typography

repeating figures

swiss flag as airbrush element

diagonal lines

Modernism starts filtering in

very open and generous white space

Lester Beal

brings modern aesthetic to american population

PIONEERS & PIORIA

likes arrows, bars, rules, sans serif typography, and old wood typography

Royal Electrification Administration (1937)

simplified regular form

figure in ground

doesn't need paragraphs of text or electric wires

Corporations begin playing important role in design and spreading gospels of design to the people

Cardboard boxes

easy to ship

not heavy

Steven Heller

member of New York Mafia

takes young designers to write books and he writes the forwards

editor of New York Times

International Style

modern ideas begin to take form

typeface design, graphic design, fine art, architecture, etc

looking for universal truths

what are pure aesthetics for architecture communication

how can we make pure clean efficient works

went horribly wrong

get a terrible reputation in 60s

gets "bastardized" by corporations

from 60s - 80s no one used Helvetica

Conclusion

It's kind of interesting to see when using white space became popular. Slowly but surely design is beginning to become more and more modern. I still wonder what it was like to design back then. I'm so used to having printers and scanners and computers with all these different typefaces readily available but back then it was way harder. It was way different. Sometimes I wish I could experience it just to see what it's like.

Post Test Part 1

Well, Dorian starts off class playing some mysterious song. Reminds me of Hawaii.

KEY THINGS ABOUT THE BAUHOUSE

- how can we make everyone's life better

- how can we make the perfect life

- ideals connected to Ruskin

- how can we make things better

Bahaus 1919 - 1933

Weimar 1919 - 1925

- 1923 First public exhibition

- 1924 letter of resignation

Dessau 1925 - 1932

- 1928 Gropius replaced by Meyer

- 1930 Meyer replaced by Van der Rohe

Berlin 1932 - 1933

Short film about Bahaus - Bahaus Broken Wings

Final days in Berlin

What if people came in and told us art was against the state and destroyed everything we did? What would we do?

BAHAUS

- if you have a community that's "economically depressed" you add an art school

- higher class will want to come and buy things and the arts will flourish

- arts revitalizes the city, brings art students, artists, and builds culture

Weimar

- after WWI Germany was in shambles

- no economy

- no jobs

- completely broken as a nation

- already an art school in place

Walter Gropius - the man with the vision

- main man when it comes to the Bahaus

- involved with the Bahaus from the beginning to 1928

- second wife was the widow of a composer

- while in WWI thinks of a new school

- maybe we need to go back to the old ways (similar thoughts to Arts & Crafts movement)

pointed to cathedrals

- painting

- sculpture

- architecture

- all of these arts should be unified in one area and equally valuable

Early Years

- powerful community spirit

- people put their wholes lives into it

- during a time where utopian ideas are very important

Council of Masters

Gerhard Marks sculpture/potter

Lyonel Feringer painter

Johannes Itten preliminary courses

Itten

- his goal was to release each students creative abilities

- courses he established wanted to unearth physical nature of materials

- "medium is the message"

- taught fundamental design principles that underlined all of the arts

- what are the basics that every artist should know?

- in classes study based on contrast

- soft relative to hard round next to rigid

- leaves Bahaus in 1923

- Bahaus moves toward rationalism and design for machine which Itten doesn't like

- shifting more toward design thinking

Assemblage

- found piece of wood

- old saw blade, piece of glass

- they used these random items because this was all they had

- rummage trash heaps for material

- it's about analysis

Poster

- cubism

- de stijl

- moving from art and handicraft toward technology

1923 exhibition

- first public exhibition of the Bahaus

Itten replaced by Lazlo Moholy Nagy

- hungarian constructivist, bit of a scientist

- likes to experiment with resins

- works with photomontage

Ad for tires Lazlo Moholy Nagy

- typeophoto

- sees photography as a replacement for painting

- uses photography to develop new visual language for a new age

- similar to Lucas Bernhard's Plakishtil

- photoplastics

Tension

- tensions in city and forced to move to Dessau

- Dessau very industrial city

Building

- modern building

- windows are curtains?

Staircase

- stairs, windows, chairs

- Schelemmer/Roy Lichtenstein make painting about students using stairs

movie intermission . . .

Universal alphabet

- we have 2 sets of letters, upper and lowercase

- experimented without capitals

Bahaus explorations

- Bahaus did away with serif

- flushing to left and ragging to the right

- contrast and hierarchy

- using bars, rules, squares, and open compositions in implied grids

- strong horizontals/verticals in compositions

Mies Van der Rohe "less in more"

Berlin

- attempted to run school in Berlin

- didn't work so closed in 1933

Conclusion

I was off on what I thought the Bahaus was about. All I remembered was that they dealt with architecture and I thought that was their main thing but I was wrong. That was just a 3rd of their focus, but I should still get some credit.

I didn't remember where Bahaus was too but I thought the time it opened was interesting. There was a lot going on during the time of the Bahaus. WWI just ended, the February Revolution happened in Russia, and later on the Great Depression and WWII would occur. There's so many important historical events that happened at this time that I think had a huge impact on the school itself. I don't even know what it would be like going to school during that time. It must have been rough. That's all I kept thinking about the entire time we covered the Bahaus.

BAHAUS

I believe it was founded by Walter Gropius and dealt a lot with architecture.

Post Spring Break Part 1

Suprematism

art should not have function

it should be pure expression

nonrepresentational

Constructivist

art should be for the benefit of the state

USSR poster

still have the original photo montage for the poster

Photomontage

becomes popular because . . .

photography seen as a tool of the modern age

it's a machine so it goes along well with the upcoming age

Sergei Eisenstein

Russian guy who makes movies

socialist regime in Russia

Alexander Rodchenko

Constructivism poster child

if you are creating something for the people it has moral good

attends art school in early 1900s

the process is the significance of the work

reminds me kind of fine arts where you don't necessarily have to understand the piece or concept. That's not the point.

Pure Red, Pure Yellow, and Pure Blue

these pieces displayed in a show

"i have reduced painting to its logical conclusion"

is there a need to do more painting?

this sort of makes it have a limited shelf life, how much simpler can you get than simple?

KAKAO

you would not think of this as art

constructivism says the only true art has a function

if it is an ad it is serving the common good, it has a function, and therefore is art

moral value = function = good art

Stalin Era

at the beginning people that artists were great

art was a counter to tzarist Russia

De Stijl Duh Shhhtilll

movement developed in the Netherlands

utopian approach to aesthetic - key idea

what makes good art?

how can we create a formula to make a good art?

what is good art?

we want a utopian society . . . but it still has to be functional

characteristic:

rectilinear planes

no surface textures except pure primary hues + black and white

no trees or happy cows

we want a mathematical structure

universal harmony

not about just filling the page

Piet Mondrian

best known painter

Theo Van Doesburg

he started the Duh Shtil movement

the movement lives and dies with him

interested in working with Dada's

he published Dada poems which is kind of ironic

Why would he embrace the Dada's?

there's a philosophy at play . . .

he wants a system for universal harmony, looking at structures for order and systems

people look for these people they feel like the current system is not working

Dada's are needed to explode the system so . . .

his group could come in and steal the show

Ideas of De Stijl applied to:

architecture

sculpture

painting

graphic design

something about partridge family

Asymmetrical Balance

implied rectangle around the elements

air moves around freely

More Mondrain

his later work coincided with electrical tape

we have a trajectory of his paintings

as he developed he would paint the same tree so we could see his progression as an artist

MORE MOVIE

movie

movie

movie

Conclusion

Time to wrap it up. I'm kind of pissed I forgot to bring my Mondrian shoes at home they would have been perfect for class. I think when it comes to what is art I don't really think you need such a strict clear cut set definition of what is art and what is not. Who cares? It's such a subjective thing. People consider the Mona Lisa to be a great painting but I'm sure there's plenty of people that hate it. It's all opinionated and you can spit out all the facts you like but when it comes down to the wire it's all about what tickles your fancy.

What is art to me? Anything that a person creates in an interesting manner. And that's not just drawings, music is art, writing is art, dancing is also a form of art. Anything that pleases or entertains people is art. I don't think you need to go much more in depth than that.