Wolfgang Weingart and New Wave Design Discussion

This week’s discussion for Unit 5 was based on Wolfgang Weingart and the New Wave Design. To start the session, my class and I sat through a short presentation given by a student on the same course as me, and they had researched the subject ready for this discussion so he knew what to talk about. We sat through the presentation which summed up the basics of the topic. To help us get an understanding of everything, we got shown some videos that were related to the subject which I have attached to this post.

During the presentation I took some key notes which are:

• Main designers involved were Wolfgang Weingart and Dan Friedman.
• The movement started in Germany in the late 1960’s and later spread to the US.
• The main inspiration for their designs was Swiss Typography.
• Designers such as David Carson work in a similar style.
• The aim of the designs were to break rules so they layered and collaged things.
• Punk was really popular at the time and it reflected in the designs, the idea of rebelling and being different was a key focus.
• Anti-War and Peace was very big at the time also as it was just after the war.

After watching the presentation including the videos, we then sat and thought of a question each that we wanted to ask, and we then finalized that the question should be: Why did Weingart do something different but never intend to make it a style?

To start the discussion, we looked at the question and tried to answer it for ourselves. Weingart had never intended for his style to become so big, as it was something he was doing personally for himself and he had never set out to influence other designers and designs. We then wondered why he did this or if it was that he never realised it would inspire others. That then led on to talk about this in more detail so we came to the conclusion that it was originally for his own personal reasons but it seemed to become a massive movement in design. We then discussed whether it was him that started New Wave design and the answer ended up being a yes and it was around the time of 1968 which was the very start of this design movement. We discussed the actual style of work too, and we knew from looking at designs that it was very typographic and the whole point of the designs were to break the rules and be rebellious like the influential “Punk” style going on at the time. We then went on to say that New Wave was way more expressive through their designs and were a lot more design based. There was less structure, especially when compared against designs from the international style era. Then we went on to talk about whether or not Weingart really did use any grids at all in his designs so we said that he probably started off with a grid design but used it in a less obvious way breaking the rules. Talking about the grid design, it made us think more about the content and we noticed it was very typographic which we then focused quite heavily on it. Whilst doing that, we noticed that the typography was always very different. We then thought about how Weingart would have been trained and discussed how he would have been a typesetter, meaning that he would use traditional printing blocks and leading to create the basis of his designs. After setting up the basic designs he would have printed it, cut it up and then re-arranged it into a new format, layering the designs which created a very different style to what had been done previously. By thinking about this in more depth, it made my class and I think about how this became a starting point for this technique and how it later on developed a lot further. This was the start of the collage technique and it didn’t take long for it to become a massive deal for everyone, and it to be used by loads of designers. We then thought about how Weingart would have trained. We discussed that he would have been a typesetter, using traditional printing blocks and leading. The typographic elements such as the leading was consistent in some areas of his work and he would have set up the design, printed, cut up and rearranged the design into a new format, the New Wave. The designs used layering, something very different to the international style. The starting point to this technique was to use forms of photocopying and half tone print to add surface and texture. Collage techniques had been used that were starting to be seen in art and design in the same era. The International style was very legible and used for advertising and corporate work where as the emphasis on New Waves design was not always legible. I feel that Weingart would have passed on his ideas about design, it could have been accidental by encouraging his students to try new ideas and style. His students then would have taken his ideas all over the world. We then realized that in the 1970s, punk was in fashion in the UK. The artwork in New Wave reflects some of the fashion in the punk era. Ripped up clothes pieced together. This new style was also known a Post Modernism. Weingarts students would eventually have gone on to start using some of the early digital techniques in design. Layering up images , photos and typography. David Carson a designer, went on to develop a similar style, breaking the rules of type and layout. His designs were less structured and bled off the page like the new wave design. He did not stick to the rules of grids either and he started to layer p his work.

Overall, Weingart started a new style of design and that then developed into the design we see today. His work accidently became something that influenced his students and designers throughout the 70s and 80s and his designs showed a more creative and experimental side of graphic design as it broke the rules against the international style.

Frank Pick and the London Underground Discussion

This week’s discussion for Unit 5 was about Frank Pick and the London Underground and to start the session off, I sat through a short presentation given by a student from my class who had researched the topic before to prepare for this discussion. The presentation included basic research such as the time, who done it, and why etc. To help us get a good understanding of the London Underground and Frank Pick, we got shown some videos related to the topic.

Whilst sitting through the presentation, I took the following notes:

• Frank Pick was responsible for the ideas of the underground design and was a british transport administrator
• Frank Pick was born 23rd November 1878
• Edward Johnston was responsible for the logo and typeface
• Harry Beck designed the map
• The designs were used for inspiration to other transport systems around the world, such as planes, road maps, and trains
• The map was simple and easy to read and understand using bright and bold eye catching colours
• Designs were very versatile and recognisable
• The designs got re-designed after the end of the First Wold War in 1919, it marked a change and a new beginning
• Designs haven’t changed and are still used today
• Advertising on the underground was for inner city events, this was to get people to use the underground more, by advertising London they were also encouraging people to use the underground.
• Frank Pick doesn’t get much praise for it
• Edward Johnston replaced te solid red circle in the underground logo, and made it white
• All the underground posters are underground style based
• Frank promoted the tube with posters to get people to use the underground more often

After watching all of the clips and watching the presentation, my class and I, thought of a question, that we wanted to ask. We fairly voted on our favourite question that we wanted to discuss as a group. The question we decided to discuss was: What is it about the designs that make it so successful?

We thought about the question and tried to answer it to start with and we said that the design was really simple and easy to read. The use of bold and eye-catching colours for lines and stations made them easier. And then we discussed the logo and thought about how it was successful. That final outcome was the use of contrasting colours red, blue and white mean that the logo is seen from a distance and is easily recognisable which allows people travelling on the underground notice. We then said that because the is used at every station on the system, people like it and know what to look for which is possibly why it’s so successful. The logo itself is also very versatile, it is often resized to fit where it is being placed, and this is because of the simple shapes and minimal use of colour. We then went on to talk about the map, and how it has become such a massive influence to map designs all over the world in places such as Australia and Japan. The next thing we discussed was, why was it so successful and what was it about the design that made others want to use it as well? Which we then talked about and we come up with the conclusion that it is because the simple use of lines and colours make the map so easy to follow. We went on to talk about the actual typeface and why they used that specific one. After discussing this, we found out that the typeface was designed specifically for the underground by Edward Johnston it was an exclusive typeface. It was designed by Calligrapher, Edward Johnston who designed the typeface around geometric shapes such as circles and squares which then explained why the letter “O” in the word “Underground” is a perfect circle. I think that the typeface was designed so it was legible and suitable. We all felt, that the colours and lines worked really well together on the map and created a really strong and interesting piece of information graphics. We thought that it would be quite difficult to improve the design because it is so simple and it works across a range of different themes and is so known now, so it would make it hard due to trying to change something that is so popular and known. This tells me that the logo and map is a timeless design as it has always been modern and appealing starting from its early days. The designs could have been influenced by the function of the underground, for example, the lines represent the trains and the circles represent, the stations. It was then said that the designs were very relatable and really suited the type of the transport. We then went on to say that the designs could have also been influenced by several other design movements such as the Bauhaus and Swiss Type which we have previously looked at in our discussions, we said this because they all use simple but bold and bright shapes, and were kept clean. We then went on to talk about the advertising that was used for the underground. By advertising using posters to promote the city as a tourist attraction, more and more people wanted to visit meaning that people would use the underground to go to the places advertised on the posters. Also, the underground was affordable, making it accessible for people which was a bonus. We then went on to discuss who created the posters and found out that Frank Pick got a variety of artists to design them which was a very effective method because it then promoted artists work.  The posters that were designed would promote a various range of events and places around the London Underground stations, but the designs and layouts were always very similar to the layout of the map so everything was consistant, and because of this, designs were recognisable even more.

After the discussion, we all then took some time out to think about the question: What is it about the designs that make it so successful?

I think that the London Underground designs are really successful, as it is so recognisable today as well as when it first was created. Because the designs are so simple and have included simple lines, shapes and colours, they have been able to be used across different transportation systems which tells me that the designs have spread a lot, making them more successful. I think that when you put all the designs together as an overall brand, everything works together, which shows that everything is consistant throughout the Undergound making it how it is seen today.

Swiss Style Typography Discussion

This week’s discussion for Unit 5 was about Swiss Style Typography and Jan Tschichold. We sat through a short presentation given by a student in my class, who had researched the subject ready for this discussion. Whilst watching the presentation with the clips, I took notes which are below:

• It was developed by Jan Tschichold
• Switzerland in the 1920’s
• He was influenced by Soviet Constructivism, Russian Constructivism and the Bauhaus
• His style of work changed after visiting an exhibition held at the Bauhaus
• Famous designs that we see now were designed during this era (Kelloggs cereal, Budweiser)

The clips we got shown are:

After watching all of the clips and the presentation, we then sat and thought of a question each that we’d like to ask and the question we decided to discuss was was: What did the influences of Jan Tschichold do to make him reject traditional typography at the time?

First off we talked about how Tschichold’s style changed as a result of the Bauhaus exhibition he visited, we all thought this was quite interesting as the Swiss Typography era is something that stands alone. We then said that maybe he took the Bauhaus style and developed it into his own style to create something different. El Lizzitsky was well known for Russian Constructivism and was a main influence for Tschichold so whenit came to comparing their work you can see that their designs were very similar, both using geometric shapes, and simple colours to send a message across. We soon realised that the principles of Swiss Style were very similar to those of the Bauhaus as the Bauhaus wanted their designs to be clean and structured. The main focus was to design something that could easily function, which was exactly what Tschichold wanted to do with type. Tschichold designed typefaces, but what was important to him at the time was designing typefaces that were legible for everyday use. So what he did was clean up and tidy typefaces so that they were more suitable for things like posters and signs. These typefaces were mainly sans serif as they were bold and clear and they called these typefaces “universal”. We then discussed what happened years later as the Swiss style was constantly developing and growing in popularity. When the Nazi’s came into order in Germany, Tschichold was arrested, because his ideas weren’t good enough and were rejected. He was then put into a concentration camp where he was soon released from. After being released, he moved to Switzerland as the country was not involved in the war that was going on. During the time Tschichold was in Switzerland the typefaces he designed became very popular and used more often by a variety of companies. During the time of this, businesses started using typography more to advertise. Typography in advertising then became popular. This was because the typefaces that had been used were more legible than ever. We then spoke about the International Style which we also discussed in our previous discussion on the Push pin Studios. We then went on to say how this was different to what was going on at the Pushpin as they rebelled against this design period and created their own. By talking about the International Style, it made us think more about Swiss Style because we had noticed similarities. We then realised that the Swiss Style was the International Style, and came t the conclusion that when the Swiss Style first started out in Switzerland, it wasn’t long before places of the world was using this way of design, because it was so popular it spread very quickly. We wanted to know how it spread to England in the first place, someone then mentioned that from the research they picked up that Tschichold himself actually came over to England and started working for Penguin Books. He completely re-designed the look of their books and had a set layout that was used throughout every single publication. He made a deal with the company and made them promise that they keep this design, which we know has stuck as the design is still being used today throughout their publications. In the later 50’s it was then re-named and became the International Style because of how big it got. From one of the videos we was able to pick up that the designs are heavily based on grids, which then have lines and shapes placed into them to build up the design. In another video we also picked up that the grid they did use was in fact an asymmetric one, this was “aligned left, ragged right” and they used this throughout designs to style their text. I then mentioned that the designs from this era looked very much like those being designed during the Bauhaus and Constructivist eras which then made us remember that the Swiss Style was in fact influenced by both of these.

Josef Muller Brockman was responsible for the grid system, this was in fact way ahead of his time but he designed and used this with a modern approach which quickly spread throughout the design industry. We then went on to say that we thought he did this because after the war it gave everyone a chance to change. With everything changing around him, he thought that maybe introducing something new to design would be helpful, and eventually this proved to be successful. We then discussed what happened after the war and the design changing, and we mentioned that Pop Art soon developed as a result of music and popular culture becoming a main influence to designers. Through the designs of this era we know that it is yet again another development on what was already popular at the time with bright, bold colours and shapes.

After the discussion then thought about the answer to the original question, What did the influences of Jan Tschichold do to make him reject traditional typography at the time?

After taking in the points that we all discussed, I don’t think that Tschichold rejected the traditional typography of the time and I think that he took typefaces and made it better. I also think that the Bauhaus and Russian Constructivism era’s made Tschichold realise that something needed to change in order for design to move on so he used them as an influence to improve it and make things different. Overall, I think, that what he did really helped the design industry as it created a new style and it spread around the world.

Push Pin Studios Discussion

This week’s discussion for Unit 5 was based around the “Push Pin Studios”. We sat through a short presentation given by a classmate,  she told us briefly, about what push pin do etc and showed us some youtube videos to su everything up. Below are the video clips she chose to show:

After watching all of the clips and sitting through the presentation, we then sat and thought of a question, that we wanted to ask. The question we finalised was, Why did Push Pin stick to the illustrative style and not the harsh style of the time?

We started off the discussion, talking about why we all chose that question and it was said that we wanted to discuss this because we wanted to know if this was why the Push Pin had become so successful and well-known. I already knew, from the presentation that Push Pin were all about influencing others, and that was their main aim. We then found out that Push Pin started off as just a magazine designed by four graduates who eventually decided to start up their own design agency. After watching the videos in the presentaion, we discussed the film “Grease” because a few of us thought about the film when we were watching the clips, and from this we picked out a few key elements of culture from the film that could influence the way of the push pin design, these included, music, cars, fashion, dance, juke box and diners. This then made us think about the whole idea of music and Push Pin designing record sleeves and how the music could have influenced the design of the sleeves. We then spoke about the style of design at the time of Push Pin, and from watching the videos noticed that a theme was bright, bold colours and block shapes, which then led us to discuss the “international style” and made us think about the previous design movements we have discussed previously throughout the weeks of doing Unit 5 and we finalised that this style is very similar to the Bauhaus and Russian Constructivism in terms of the colours and shapes used.

• We then thought about other designs that could have influenced the Push Pin design and Paul Rand was a popular choice, because of the IBM logo being very simple as there is only one colour and it is made up of lines.

The typography used on the posters designed by Push Pin, fit with and work within the international style as it is quite block-like and bold. Looking at a poster “end bad breath” shown below:

we came to the conclusion, that the push pin was actually about war, which then led us to discuss the war going on at the time. This poster was all about a social comment which became a common theme throughout the designs being produced by Push Pin. After discussing the poster, we then talked about other issues in America at the time, and racism was a massive issue so a lot of the designs were commenting on this from a social aspect. We then spoke about what was it about the Push Pin, that changed at the time, and it was that they became an agency and not just a magazine. Push Pin was an agency designing to sell publications which made them different to everyone else at the time which could also be why they were so popular and well known. We then briefly talked about the style they had and how it was heavily influenced by pop art and comic book strips, which you can see through the designs produced through the use of colours and shapes.

After the discussion we then took time out to think about the question and then go on to answer it for ourselves.

I would personally say, that the reason they chose not to follow the trend, was because they wanted to stand out and influence people more than others. I think that by being different and standing for what they believed, influenced others to follow in their steps and do it themselves. This is why Push Pin has become so successful in the times.

Propaganda Discussion

This weeks discussion for Unit 5 was based on Propaganda. A student from my class had the responsibility to tell us about this topic and teach us what they knew about propaganda and how graphic design influenced the method to work and make it successful. During the presentation we go told a bit about the background of propaganda and how it all started. He also spoke a little bit about the impact that it gave people at that time of when propaganda was well known and used most. Some of the notes that I took from the presentation were:

• it got known more in WW2
• propaganda tried to get people to believe in political views and help out during the war by manipulating men to join the army
• They wanted to send emotional messages to get the point across and give a bigger impact
• Graphic Design had a big influence in WW1 and the revolution of Russia
• The invention of printing press, made things easier to publisise the types of posters

“Hope” by Shepard Fairey

This is the iconic Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster Designed by artist Shepard Fairey. The poster is a stylised pencil drawing of Obama in colours very unusual to be used in modern day/politics. It was made to look from early 20th Century, in the era of the propaganda posters. The poster uses the same 3 colours used on most propaganda posters by the US Government during the Second World War. The pop art and pencil Style is what makes the poster stand out, with also the facial expression by the President making you believe that there is “Hope”.

During the presentation, we got shown a video which is below:

Looking at this video, the things that stood out to me the most, what they said was that they say all the look as if they tell some sort of story, and its quite comic book like. The message that they say propaganda tries to tell the public, is said to have

Hit hard at home

which tells me more about how the propaganda method brainwashed people in a way, to believe in what the government wanted people to think was right and what shouldn’t be aloud. Looking at another video:

I noticed that they used the propaganda method to show the City of London. They used influential sayings and quotes like propaganda in WW1 and WW2 use, and that is why I know that they used that method. The quote that stood out to me the most was

you can do it

this is because they use the same technique to persuade others and make them feel as if they can do things, which could possibly make them feel like they have achieved something, like how someone in WW1 or WW2 time, could feel like they have helped and have become some type of hero, for doing what the propaganda posters tell them.

After the presentation we thought of a question to discuss as a class to look more in depth. We decided to go for the question: Why was propaganda so effective in WW1 and WW2? Here are some of the notes and points we looked at are:

• propaganda started during WW1
• It started in Russia
• Links to our other discussion on Russian Constructivism and we thought that propaganda was influenced by this because it had similarities as it was used to get a main message across and used simular colours
• Was it used in WW1? It could have been when the printing press was invented to make things alot easier
• Russian Revolution was in 1919 and this was when propaganda was used greatly
• Propaganda made more people join the army
• Not joining the army made other people look down on them and made them feel guilty
• Everybody believed that the government was right at this time
• We thought that propaganda, must have been an effective method as it is still used today
• Propaganda makes personal persuasive arguments and messages.
• We considered that army adverts use propaganda and also poverty TV advertisements use the method aswell to get the message across to make people looking at the advert want to donate money or joining the army but nowadays we have more of an option and free will so were not made to, and would feel attacked or looked down upon if we didn’t listen to the adverts. The adverts are below:

• persuasive language is used in the adverts
• propaganda just conceals some of the truth, not all lies
• we use it today in subliminal messaging
• we thought that people are easily persuaded by propaganda
• we view things very differently now and respect peoples choices whether they want to join a war or not

Evaluation of the Website

For this project, I have been asked to design the layout of a website, and set it up using Dreamweaver. The website had to include my portfolio work from previous projects and it should give off my own personality. The target audience for my website would be the viewers who could possibly offer me jobs after seeing my work on there, or the people who want to see my work as just a normal viewer. They are more likely going to have an interest in Graphic Design as well. There was no specific client as the project was to produce a site to advertise my work and myself. The intended message was to get people to see my work and the site could be a self promotion. Having done this, It could help me in interviews for the future with clients because it will widen my knowledge on what I can do in the Graphic Design Industry.

Whilst doing this project, I have learnt a variety of new skills. The main skill, learnt was how to make a website because I had never done one before. The types of techniques that I looked at were:

• how to make navigations
• div tags

I also learnt some of the coding to create a website and how the coding works for the layouts, and look of the individual pages. After doing this project, I do feel quite confident with the coding, however I do think that I could do with improvement. To do my website, I used Dreamweaver on a Mac PC. To plan the site layout out, I sketched them on paper, and moved on to creating div tags in InDesign to make things easier for me in Dreamweaver.

Before starting the designs, I done a bit of research to see a wide range of layouts and types of websites that I liked the style of. All of my research is on this blog under the category of “Web Design”. I also looked at existing portfolio websites that students had made the year before, and also other students have made, to self promote themselves. Doing this research, I noticed that it did help me as I got to see what types of websites there were for competitors and other students trying to show off their portfolios or work. Looking at other types of sites, allowed me to get an idea of what works on a website and what doesn’t on a site, so it gave me a rough idea of what I wanted to include in mine to make mine better and more successful. While researching, I took the time to notice the structure of the sites and the typefaces or style that each one has.

I think, overall, my site works very well, however I did struggle, when it came to editing my own images to put in my actual site. I also had a bit of trouble catching up with work as it took me quite a bit of time to get the hang of each topic that I had to do for my website on Dreamweaver. The most straight forward thing was creating the layout of the site, using Indesign because I feel confident using numbers, so it was quite easy, rounding all the numbers up to the right size, for it to all fit in on a screen when the viewer views my page. If I was to do this project again, I think that my website would have looked a lot more professional because I would know roughly what to do and doing it again would also gain my knowledge on what to do for each part of the website so everything would look a lot better and I would have more time to make corrections and edits to improve it all overall. Saying that though, I still think that doing this assignment has developed my knowledge of making a site and how to create things such as div tags, and changing the text using the CSS file.

Editing text in Dreamweaver

Before doing anything in Dreamweaver it is important that you put all of your text into a word document so that you can spell check it, as Dreamweaver wont do that. You can now get your site open in Dream Weaver. You first need to select the div tag that you want to add text too, and highlight the information that is in the tag and delete it all. Copy and paste your own text taken from the word document. This will be a standard paragraph font and size. You can now use the default settings that Dreamweaver set and change different elements of the text. Say that you had a heading that you would like to make a bigger font than everything else, you would have to select “heading 1” or “h1” and this will change the way the text appears showing you options.You can do this for sub-headings and body text to make it all your own depending on the look of your website. If you want to edit your text, highlight the text you want to change and click on the new CSS rule button which is on the right hand side. This will open a pop up box. it is important to remember to change the first drop down menu to the ‘tag’ option and doing that, it will edit the tag and this setting works throughout your website. The next drop down menu is the tag you have selected so all you have to do is find the tag. Once you have selected the tag, look at the bottom and last drop down menu and make sure it is linked to the CSS file you have created for your site. Then click OK. A new pop up box will appear and this will help you change the font, size, weight, leading etc to make things look the way you want it. You will see the change on your screen once you press OK. Make sure you do this for all of the different types of headings and paragraphs.

If you want to keep things the same but change the colour on each page, you first, highlight the text you want to change and click on the add new CSS rule button. In the first drop down menu select “compound” and this will make sure that you change that text in that div tag. Now the second drop down menu will change and will have the name of the div tag and then the code. Check that the CSS page is linked and then click OK. This will open a small box where you can change all the settings of the text and once again, press OK once you’re happy. Once you have changed the text throughout your website to your liking, you can “Save All” and make sure you view it in a browser.

Dreamweaver – Editing links

Firstly,  select the link you want to change and highlight it. You need to create a new CSS rule by making an “A” tag. Then go on your CSS page on your DreamWeaver and  copy and paste that CSS rule four times, this will be so you can have different appearences for each link. For example: if you clicked the link it would turn into what colour, typeface or size and if you have viewed the page what colour or appearence should it have. Google have blue links and once you have viewed the page, it turns purple. They have done this using the same formula as this with the CSS rule. You can now change each of the “A” tags headings to the following:

a:link – this changes the general appearance of the link.

a:visited – this changes the appearance when you’ve already been on the link.

a:hover – this changes the appearance when you hover the mouse over the link.

a:active – this changes the appearance when your using that link.

You can then edit the colour, typeface and sizing of the type to what ever you want and what looks best for your type of website. Make sure that they are in that order on your CSS file otherwise it wont work properly.

The Main Influences on the work of Neville Brody – ESSAY

     

Neville Brody

Neville Brody was born in Southgate, in London on 23rd April 1957. For his education, he had attended Michenden school and studied A Level Art, as you can tell, he had started his artistic route quite young. In 1975 Neville Brody went on to do a 3 years course in a Fine Art foundation course and is now a full degree graduate at Hornsey College of Art which is now known to be part of Middlesex University in Hendon. I am going to be talking about the types of topics, styles, genres, artists, and designers that influences Neville Brody to do what he does to this day and will also be looking into what he is influenced by, to see how he gets his ideas and why they could possibly inspire him to do what he does. From briefly looking at pieces of his work before looking into it in more depth, I personally, really like the style of his work as I am really interested in the typography side of Graphic Design and how hierarchy is used strongly, to show more interesting or important pieces of text. I also like the use of colour he uses aswell and think that his work is very inspiring to me as an individual because of how simplistic, yet effective everything is and how it all works well together as an outcome. Being an inspiration to me, I based one of my projects on typography and looked at previous work that he had done, and based my designs using his style of work, and it turned out very well overall. Below is one of Neville Brody’s pieces of work that I used for my main inspiration for my designs. I love the way that the colours contrast with each other and I also like the brand he designed for which could get him more known because to me, Nike is a very large and successful brand to work with. What interests me, is that he plays with the text and uses the actual word to create a movement or look to the word such as “bounce” because it is placed as if something was bouncing which makes Neville Brody’s work unique and that helps him become who he his and his own individual thinker.

     He is said to be the best known graphic designer of his generation, specialising in typography. He studied Graphic Design at the London College of Printing and made his way into the public eye through his record cover designs and his involvement in the British independent music scene in the early 1980s, however while studying there, he was always criticised due to his creative mind and how well he thinks. In the 1980s also, Brody went on to work at “The Face Magazine”, which was a well known magazine in the in that time period. To many people it was known as

 The Fashion Bible

When he worked for them, he gained a fair amount of attention based on his work which started him off.

he began experimenting with the beginnings of a new visual language that consisted of a mixture of visual and architectural elements…

After leaving that job, in 1993 he decided to create his own studio “Neville Brody Studio” and that has become a global success to be known all over. I know this because there are studios in London, Paris, Barcelona, Tokyo and Berlin to name a few. Neville Brody had lots of new ideas on combining typefaces into design and even better, he then took this a step further and began designing his own typefaces. Throughout Neville’s career he has brought into the design industry, over 20 different typefaces. A few of the typefaces he designed are:

• Arcadia
• Industria
• Insignia
• FF Pop
• FF Gothic

One of the influences that Neville Brody has, is Punk, I know this because, by 1977 punk rock started to have a major effect in London where Neville studied and, while this had an impact upon his work and motivation, it was not well received by his tutors, as at one point during that time,

he was almost thrown out of the college for putting the Queen’s head sideways on a postage stamp design…

In spite of the postage stamp drama, Neville Brody was not only motivated by punk, he has been known to have influences from Dadaism and pop art. As Brody likes the technique used in Dadaism, he designs a lot of his work in similar ways to that style to this day, I think this because Dadaism can be typographic based and they seem to use text heavy designs with geometric and abstract images or shapes like Neville Brody himself. It seems to be quite clear that Dadaism was an influence to him, because of the obvious similarities in their work. Even though, they use text heavy based work and Neville Brody used Dadaism as an inspiration, each piece of work has a personality element to them, which separates the two styles, so they are seen as individual designs. Another one of Neville brody’s influences was clearly, Pop art because when I look at some of Neville Brody’s work, there are elements shown that pop art is an influence in his life to this day aswell. A majority of his work consists of vibrant colours and boldness which is noticed very strongly in Pop Art pieces of work. I believe that Pop art has most definitely helped him find his type of style that he enjoys doing and has given him more of a chance to develop his work and give it all a personality including small elements of his most loved influences and inspirations. To do that I think Pop Art gave him the freedom to experiment with a variety of colour and styles to make his work to a superb standard, the way it looks today.

Both influences, Dadaism and Pop art have made a great and positive impact in Neville Brody’s work and life making him, exactly who he is today and also making his work the way it looks, keeping it to a good standard, which has helped him become a world known graphic designer in typography. I’m sure that Neville is overly thankful for his opportunity that he has had having these designs influence him at this time, because things could possibly have been different if punk and pop art wasn’t as popular in the time that he was studying. What if they weren’t  Would there be such an amazing typography graphic designer if pop art and punk didn’t become known at that time period?

Everything happens for a reason…

Recources:

http://www.artinthepicture.com/styles/Dadaism/

http://www.identifont.com/show?16X

http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/designer/neville_brody/

http://www.designishistory.com/1980/neville-brody/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Brody

http://www.osnatfineart.com/pop-art.jsp

http://www-scf.usc.edu/~sniles/dadaism.htm

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/pop_art.html

http://www.researchstudios.com/

http://www.archive.researchstudios.com/home/006-neville-brody/NEVILLE_home.php

Russian Constructivism Discussion

 

This weeks discussion for the Unit 5 project was about Russian Constructivism. As I had looked into this topic recently on my blog, I had to be in charge of discussing this in the class. I got a couple of videos based on Russian Constructivism and told the class a bit about what it is etc. I used my blog to tell them the basics of Russian Constructivism and give them a brief description of the background they had. In this session I gave a short presentation to tell them this. Here is some information that I had mentioned in this session:

• Russian Constructivism was a movement that was active from 1913 to the 1940′s.
• It was a movement created by the Russian avant-garde, but quickly spread to the rest of the continent.
• A lot of straight lines, basic colours and bold shapes to make up the designs.
• Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements, of the 20th century, influencing trends such as Bauhaus etc.
• They wanted to get a message across through their designs.
• A few of the most famous designers included; Vladimir Tatlin, Kasimir Malevich and El Lissitzky.

Below are some images that I showed in my presentation and you can see the structured work, geometric shapes and also the use of colour that was kept limited.

Two of the video clips that I showed them were:

After watching the clips, we then sat and thought of a question each that we wanted to ask about Russian Constructivism overall. The question we decided to discuss in more detail was:

Why is constructivism so structured?

Some of the main key noted that I wrote from this further discussion are below:

• The whole movement started in 1913, around the time of the First World War and the Russian Revolution.
• We all automatically picked up on the fact that the designs we had looked at included a lot of straight lines and geometric shapes using block colours.
• Then we went back to talking about the Russian Revolution trying to link that to the reason why Russian Constructivism was done,by getting the vote for women and also getting equal rights and opportunities for both the rich and poor. That then lead us to talk about how Constructivism actually helped to get women the vote and change the rights
• We then briefly mentioned that this kind of design work was propaganda, but very different to that in WW2, however this type of propaganda was aimed towards the public by the them wanting the change.
• We then briefly talked about how the art and designs that were made, were practical and made their point very well sending the main message across to the audience.
• One of the Constructivism’s main aims was to give art a meaning and ‘not have art, for arts sake’. They wanted people to start taking art more seriously, and pay attention to the message behind the design. This then lead us to talk about how the structure of their designs and how the structure makes the message clear and visible, meaning people can access it and it can have an impact.
• Going from the previous point we then discussed that from this point onwards graphic design changed and overall became more for a purpose then just a piece of design, people took it more seriously and recognised the messages behind the design.
• After that, we started to discuss the music video and how there was quite a lot of industrial looking equipment, which went back to our idea of architecture and buildings.
• The class and I then found out that the colours used in the designs, red, black and white were the colours of the government party running for the revolution at the time, this then made more sense to us as to why these colours were used because they were used to represent the people fighting for their rights.

Why is constructivism so structured?
To get the main message across. Having simple and structured designs around at that time, would make people notice and pick out the key information quicker and it would seem more striking  A good design means that the message will be received fully and hopefully make an impact. A well designed and structured design lets people fully understand it what the message is and then that will have a bigger impact and make more of a change.