Notes:
Swiss Design and International Typographic style
Swiss Design is more than just grids.
It is visual unity though asymmetrical composition.
Embraces objective photography,
Sanserif type,
Flush left and rag right,
Mathematical grids. A grid is just a game that you set up
rules for.
Design is socially useful.
More important is the appearance than the attitude.
Has it’s roots in distil, Bauhaus, the new typography.
1950 Max Bill is involved in creating a new school in
Germany called Ulm.
At the school they introduced a study of semiotics (the
philosophical theory of signs and symbols – what things mean in relationship to
other things).
Semiotics
/Syntactics–order
/Semantics–meaning or referred to
/Pragmatics–how it is used
*There is no inherent or independent meaning
Armin Hofman b.1920
Swiss design
“Design the negative space, the rest will work.”
Josef Müller Brockmann - looking for an absolute and total
graphic expression
Used intensity and clarity
Swiss Moderism vs. NYC Modernism
Paul Rand, Saul Bass & Ivan Chermayeff
1940 begin to see effects of Modernism in advertising
European - theoretical / NY- pragmatic
“The Big Idea”
Paul Rand
From New York
Studied Swiss design
Making powerful imagery and putting it in the American
landscape
Gave us the UPS logo among many other well known logos
Sal Bass (1920-1996)
Known for his movie posters and credit sequences
Also did logo design. AT&T, Minolta, United Airlines
Ivan Chermayeff
Did branding and logos for many, many companies. Educated at
Yale
Used construction paper, punched wholes, and teared edges to
make his designs.
Post Modernism
The break with Modernist ideas (structure, order, harmony)
Emphasis on feeling rather than rationale
Emphasis on surface texture and materials
Self-consciousness or self-referencing
Mixes high and low culture
Historical references
Vernacular
IE. Meta, players interacting with audience, movies
referencing itself.
“It is the hangover of modernism”
Wolfgang Weingard – Swiss Designer
Teaches in the Basil School of Design
Put things together in a seemingly random arrangement.
Uses a letterpress in a very difficult way
Easily imitated
Dan Freedman 1945-95
Student of Weingard. Coined “Radical Modernism”
Brought a the new style of typographic design to the U.S.
April Graiman
Starts the wheel going in 80’s design
Riffs off of Lissitzky
Memphis Group
Texture, color, pattern, more, more, more. Essential 80’s design. Orgy of color and
texture.
Personal Thoughts:
I thought that this was one of the most interesting eras of
design that has been discussed thus far. I always found that Post-Moderistic
design was fun but over the top. I remember having a white button-up short
sleeve shirt that had lots of colorful paint splatters. It is the most
Post-Modernistic piece of clothing I remember having. Whenever I see the “orgy
of color and texture” I think of Will Smith’s The Fresh Prince of Belair and movies like White Men Can’t Jump.
I completely agree with Dorian when he said that the big
logo designers would be spinning in their graves if they saw their logos being redesigned
into the 3 Dimensional ones we see today.
