Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Main Headline:
Divine Intervention
Then is Now
Everything Old is New Again
Sacred Passage
Deck: Sampling the past for today’s graphic inspirations
Designer’s note: You may choose to write your own headline and deck, just keep it
appropriate for the goal of the story, and that is “Everything Old is New Again.” Styles
and art movements from the past play a huge roll in today’s design.
Intro Paragraph:
It may be a cliché, but it has never been as true as it is today. Trends in fashion, movies,
and television clearly tell us that retro is in. Television has perhaps carved out the biggest
niche, particularly among the baby boomer generation with popularity of retro networks
such as Nick at Nite and TVLand, both of which regularly air programs that were popular
fifty years ago. Why? Perhaps a longing for the simpler days, or, is it in fact another cycle
of history simply repeating its self?
The Industrial Revolution would be a good parallel to today’s technological
advancements. The era known as the Industrial Revolution was a period in which
fundamental changes occurred in transportation, printing, economic policies, science and
social structure. It is in this era that the birth of Advertising emerges. Although the word
“Revolution” implies, “abrupt change”, it was a slow evolution. The same could be said
about the revolution—evolution we find ourselves living in today. For the thread, which
joins all the isms in the twentieth century, is its slow evolution from one period to
another.
Graphic designers today take full advantage of mixing the past with the present.
Although not a completely new concept—an aware designer is connected to culture, and
trend, both past and present, and having a strong historical background will only enrich an
artist’s ability to visually communicate.
This historical retrospective is designed to enlighten you to the many influential
design movements and their significant traits. In order to reproduce the past one must first
be knowledgeable of it. We will also examine how art movements have built, borrowed
and used theory’s and principals that have evolved throughout time to either enhance the
design evolution or in many cases rebel against the norm, and in doing so— illustrate how
art is not created by living in a vacuum, but that art is a refection of the times, socially,
technologically and economically.
THE BEGINNING OF THE 20th CENTURY
Throughout the entire one hundred years of the 20th century there were developments and
achievements that have had profound implications, in part by the tumultuous first 30
years; the ModelT Ford, neon lighting, the vacuum cleaner, the assembly line, the first
airplanes, were all invented during the first twenty years while TV came into being in
1924.
During this period, advances in technology, manufacturing and mass production
elevated industry to idolatry status, and gave increasing power and affluence to many
countries.
Scientific breakthroughs established new ways of seeing the world, Einstein’s'
theory of relativity, the atom in 1911 and the psychoanalytic investigations of Sigmund
Freud, which expanded our understanding of the mysteries of the human mind and
prompted artists, writers and poets to gaze more inwardly.
Politically—in Europe at least—monarchy was largely replaced by democracy and
socialism. Revolutions and World War I rattled the foundations and status quo of Western
civilization. Machines and technology changed everything.
In the midst of all this evolution, chaos, and violence, it’s no wonder that visual
artists and designers questioned their aesthetic role and values.
Remarkable artistic developments, and advances in technology led to changes in
methods of mass communication. America and Europe became more consumerdriven
and advertising loomed as an important cultural force. Print was a primary means of
communicating to the masses, and considerable effort was made to improve the medium.
With increased traffic on city streets, strategic locations along them for selling messages,
the marriage of type and image was an invaluable tool in its success.
Designer note: These sections are opptional. They can accompany the specific time
periods or run as flow copy around the timeline. (sidebars, facts, tips and additional
information)
AVANTGARDE MODERN
“The New Typography”
After WWI, paradigm shifts in the form and function of art, architecture, and even
photography. A utopian view held that art was not an entertainment for the elite, but a
utilitarian product for the masses. Type, which became both a symbol and a tool of
transformation, was one of the first indicators of this “new spirit.” Russia, Germany,
Holland, Italy and Eastern Europe rejected the ornamentation styles of Art Nouveau and
were inspired to reevaluation typography. The New Typography rational was legibility
and readability. It is through a crosspollination of different designers and the sharing of
their typographic conceits that gave rise to the “New Typography.”
…………………………………………………………….
SWISS DESIGN
“International Typographic Style”
During the 1950’s a design movement emerged from Switzerland and Germany called
Swiss design or, more appropriately, the International Typographic Style. The objective
clarity of this design movement won converts throughout the world. It remained a major
force for over two decades, and its influence continues on to today.
The visual characteristics of this international style include a visual unity of
design achieved by asymmetrical organization on a mathematically constructed grid,
using only sansserif type.
In this paradigm, the designer defines his or her role not as an artist but as an
objective conduit for spreading important information between components of society.
Achieving clarity and order is the ideal.
The roots of the International Typographic Style grew from de Stijl, Bauhaus, and
the New Typography of the 1920s and 1930s.
…………………………………………………………….
MODERN
Art Deco characteristics are diverse and far ranging and include elements pulled from
Modernism, Russian Constructivism, Art Nouveau, GrecoRoman classicism, and a
myriad of exotic cultural influences. Though it was a contemporary of Bauhaus
Modernism, Art Deco distinguished itself by its romantic and elegant notions that
opposed the plain, unadorned, "form follows function." At times the style is contradictory.
The populist evocation of a simpler time, a less industrial world, was often at odds with
the technological form of the object which evoked the raw energy of new technology and
the speed of new transportation with its sleek and energized lines. "Streamlined" is a term
often used to describe the Art Deco.
An era of contradictions that encompassed both the Roaring Twenties and the
Great Depression, it imbued everyday life with elegance and sophistication.
Type was a major component of this trend, and the late 20’s and 30’s was a time when
type design accelerated to meet the immense needs of advertising. Like other mass
consumables, typefaces were promoted through specimen sheets as fashion accessories.
Art Deco was the style of hedonism, of indulgence, and of mass consumption.
The poster again was the testing ground for new lettering, and various foundries
began to design, copy and pirate original alphabets. It’s interesting to note that during this
time the mass production of available typefaces raised issues about the tendency to design
with undisciplined abandon and faced the threat of type pollution. The majority of type
was created for novelty. With the advent of computers and accessibility to software we
face the same issues today.
…………………………………………………………….
Postmodernism 1970 to Present
The social, economic, and environmental awareness of the period caused many to believe
the modern aesthetic was no longer relevant in an emerging postindustrial society.
Though this term can refer to many different things, it generally represents a shift away
from modernist ideals of reductiveness and uniformity in art and art theory. Postmodern
artists are often interested in recognizing and appropriating art of the past.
The major thrust of postmodern graphic design is a spirit of liberation, a freedom
to be intuitive and personal, and to go against the moderndesign so dominant through
much of the twentieth century.
During the 1980s a movement based on historical revival first emerged in New York and
spread rapidly throughout the world— called retro by some designers, it was based on an
uninhibited eclectic interest in modernist European design from the first half of the
century, a flagrant disregard for the rules of proper typography, and a fascination with
kinky and mannered typefaces designed and widely used during the 1920s and 1930s.
A number of designers began to experiment with more radical approaches that
sacrificed easy legibility for visual appeal. Some contemporary designers rarely use a
consistent layout, preferring to create each spread as a new composition. Text might be
scattered, run upside down or at an angle, or made to disappear into a photograph. To
detractors who claim that such work is chaotic and illegible, many modern designers
point out that legibility and communication are not the same thing. Communication
begins by attracting and engaging the viewer's attention. Readers attracted to the
mood of the design will be willing to make an effort to decipher its message.
…………………………………………………………….
2000 and Beyond
The variety of materials and formats that contemporary artists use to make their work
reflect the diverse and complex ways in which they experience and respond to American
life and the issues and concerns of our times are in contrast very similar to the explosive
turn of the century. Today, art is influenced by technology, global networking, war, and
the ability to alter and transform human appearance through plastic surgery. Hypertext
has become a new medium, and cyberspace a new public space for art. As the millennium
progresses, the questions of what is art and what is American continue to preoccupy
artists and society at large.
Milestones
1455 Gutenberg’ 42 line Bible is printed using innovative letterpress techniques.
1480 Intaglio, gravure printing
1798 Stone Lithography
1814 Joseph Nicéphore Niépce achieves first photographic image with camera obscura
1828 Chromolithography
1846 Rotary, sheet fed presses
1865 Web, roll fed presses
1880 Photoengraving
1885 Halftones
1886 Linotype
1900 First massmarketed camera—the Browning
1905 Offset Lithography
1960 Phototypesetting
1970 Digital Type
1984 Mac
1985 Postscript
1985 Desktop Publishing
1994 World Wide Web