Madalin Bartholomew
PLP
Introduction
In this document, I have explored a variety of different art styles and artists across many eras, throughout history. Doing this will helps to gain a better understanding of why the history of art is so important and how it has influenced the contemporary art of today. It also shows how art can be seen throughout some of the biggest and most significant moments in history, for example, the cold war, and the rise of black rights. Not only this but I will be exploring various art styles including the Swiss style, Psychedelic art and expressionism.
Lastly, I will be exploring some of the most significant and influential graphic designers and going into detail about how and why they were influential to the graphic design industry.
Paula ScherMap art
Paula Scher is one of the most celebrated graphic designers in the world, some of her most successful designs are with brand like Tiffany & Co., Citibank and Microsoft. She is the principle of the design studio ‘pentagram’ after she joined in 1991.
In the 90s Scher began designing and painting typographical maps of the world, she included continents, countries, islands, oceans, cities, streets and neighbourhoods in her designs making them feel very detailed and intricate. All the paintings that she created were collected and displayed in a book called ‘Paula Scher: Maps.’ The book contains 39 paintings, drawings, prints and environmental installations, including Scher’s commission for New York City’s Queens Metropolitan Campus. Scher was inspired to create this series by her father who was a photogrammetric engineer that worked for U.S. Geological Service in the 1950s, he worked on aerial photography. She stated that her father taught her that maps were never completely accurate. I think that this series is really interesting and original.
Expressionism, the emotions behind the art
Expressionism is not about depicting reality, the artists focussed on expressing emotions and sometimes the responses that the artists had to a certain object or event. They achieve this style of art through the use of exaggeration and distorting elements of the artwork. Expressionism was one of the prominent art styles in the late 19th century and early 20th century, it is and was very subjective and personal to the artist. Some of the more successful expressionism artist and artworks include; Vincent Van Gogh and his painting ‘A starry night’ and Edvard Munch and his painting ‘The Scream.’
I personally really like this style of art because it provokes a wide range of emotions in the viewer and it allows the artist to have full freedom and creativity in their practice, to express what they think and feel. It also has a sense of authenticity which I think is a good trait to have when you are producing art of this nature.
My design
Adolf Strakhov: One of the founders of the Social Realist art movements
I personally like Strakhovs artwork and the distinct style of propaganda art from the 19th-20th century. I think that it is a good indicator of history and although he was making artwork many years ago, the conventions of propaganda posters and art are still intact today.
For example, the use of the colour red is striking and connotes urgency and importance, this contrasted with the use of black and white images creates a bold and bright poster/image conveying the persuasiveness that is intended by propaganda posters.
Adolf Strakhov, born on the 18th of October 1896, was one of the leading founders of the Social Realist art movements. During his designing time, he created many posters and paintings dedicated to the Russian revolution and the Russian civil war.
One of his most famous paintings is of a Russian woman who is a factory worker, it is called “The Emancipated Woman is Building Socialism”, the image represents the women as an “integral” part of the class struggle. At the time the soviet communist party was very patriarchal and did not agree with the liberation of women and women’s rights, especially during the war. Strakhov opposed this as well as the many conventions of Russian society at the time in his artwork.
Konstruktive Grafik - Swiss Style
Swiss style art consists of many conventions, including, in terms of composition, the use of geometric shapes and the use of an asymmetrical composition. There are also conventions regarding colour palettes, Swiss design mainly uses bright and vibrant colours as well as block colours, the use of gradients is not very common in Swiss design unless it is a block gradient. This style of design is all about clarity, readability and cleanliness.
This is one of my favourite styles of graphic design, I like the minimalistic design and the fat that clarity is very important, I am also a fan of the colours that Swiss designers use.
Massimo Vignelli
Massimo Vignelli was an Italian designer, he was born in Milan, Italy in 1931. At the age of 16 he worked for the Castiglioni brothers (Italian architects and furniture designers) until he was 22, he then went off on his own to do freelance graphic design, packaging and exhibit design. Throughout his career he worked in the studios of great architects including Achille Castiglioni, Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Giulio Minoletti, Giancarlo De Carlo, Franco Albini and Ignazio Gardella.
Vignelli was said to be one of the most important designers in the history of design. Vignelli worked strongly in the realms of modernist design, he believed strongly in the use of grids, and he stated that “you must first search for the meaning of whatever you are designing” he said that this allows you to better understand the nature of the project and will help you in your design process and with ideas. He sadly passed away in 2014 in New York, where he spent most of his life designing everything from furniture to logos.
Knoll International poster
This was one of Vignelli’s favourite designs he ever made, he was hired to create the entire graphic identity for the furniture company ‘Knoll’. He designed everything including, posters, brochures, advertisements, stationery and the logo. He used the grid in every one of his designs for this company, he believed strongly that grids were very important in design.
American Airlines
This was one of Vignellis biggest comisions in his career, he was hired to design the logo for American Airlines. He wanted to keep it simple with two A’s, one in black and one in red. However, the company wanted it to symbolise the american culture more so he designed and added a geometric eagle, the eagle is symbolic of America.
The Stendig Calendar
Being a true modernist, Vignelli was a fan of “radicle simplicity” and the grid, he believed that these two were the main basis of graphic design. We can see his beliefs and ideologies clearly in The Stendig Calendar, created in 1966 and purchased by the Museum of Modern art soon after, the museum wanted it for its design collection.
Heller Ware and The Handkerchief Chair
Vignelli believed that “if you can design one thing, you can design everything.” Staying true to his word, with his wife, he opened ‘Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture’ in 1960. Vignelli did this to show that he was more than just a graphic designer, some of his most famous designs were the Handkerchief chair and the stackable dishes called Heller Ware.
Victor Moscoso -
Psychedelic Art
Victor Moscoso, a Spanish-American graphic designer and poster artist, born on July 28th, 1936. Throughout the 60s and 70s, Moscoso was mainly creating psychedelic rock posters, underground comics and advertisements. In 1966 Moscoso started using psychedelic designs in his posters, this included “intensely stylized lettering and images in vibrant colours.”
He is known for being one of the first rock poster artists with formal education and training. Moscoso attended cooper union, yale and later San Fransisco Art Institute. In his art, Moscoso frequently used photographic collages and he was one of the first rock poster designers to do this.
This style of design is very interesting to me because it is almost like an optical illusion, I also like the culture behind psychedelia and the inspirations for the artwork.
My design
The Black Arts Movement
The black arts movement, founded in 1965, was inspired by the revolutions in China and Cuba, as well as the rise in black power in the United States. After the deaths of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and the watts uprising (riots in LA due to high unemployment, poor school and bad living conditions) resulted in many opportunities for radical black arts and politics. Many of the artists that participated in the movement focused on portraying and addressing the issues of black liberation and identity.
In the 1970s the movement reached its peak, with artists producing some of the most radical art, music, poetry and drama. There are many famous artists that are associated with this movement including; Benny Andrews, Wadsworth Jarrell, Carolyn Lawrence, Marie Johnson Calloway and Kay Brown. There are many conventions to this art style including the bright, vibrant colours and the abstract text that is embedded in the image, the style is quite similar to psychedelic art.
AdbustersSpoof Adverts
A spoof advert is a fictional advert created to mock, make fun of or expose someone or something, this could be a company, a product, a person or an ideology. Adbusters, founded in 1989 in Canada by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz is a non-profit organisation that fights back against capitalism and consumerism. They are a pro-environmental, anti-consumerism and anticapitalism organisation, they are left-wing anarchists and have very strong opinions about today’s society. The Adbusters magazine is widely known for its spoof adverts, they describe themselves as “a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age.”
The image above is one example of a spoof advert that they created, it depicts their parody of a Balenciaga advert, the imagery and the text is essentially saying that big companies and conglomerates control how people feel about themselves. They sell you a product just to tell you that that product isn’t good enough a few months later so that you buy the new, updated and ‘better’ version, they brainwash people into consuming more and more just so they can profit off of them.
Tomato Underworld
The Tomato is a studio formed in the 1990s, in Soho by a group of artists, musicians and designers. In the years that followed their work was said to be “era-defining”. They branded themselves on not having a creative leader or “overarching creative visionary” but rather being a group of singular people all working together as a network. The studio worked on exhibitions, campaigns and identities with many companies including Nokia, Nike, Renault, Channel 4, Microsoft Sony and Samsung.
During their time together at Tomato, the designers (Simon Taylor, Dirk van Dooren, Graham Wood, Michael Horsham, and Dylan Kendle among others) worked in a way that avoided ego, catering to their clients and customers on their terms instead of the designers (their own).
I personally really like the art created by the designers of the tomato studio, it is very unique and I think that the heavy contrast between the black and white gives the art a grunge feel that isn’t seen too often.
Jean MichelBasquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat, born in Brooklyn in 1960. In his teenage years, Basquiat left home to live in Manhattan where he played in a noise band, painted and doing odd jobs to support himself. In the late 1970s, he became known for his graffiti. Basquiat’s art began to attract attention from the art world in the 1980s after a group of people from the punk and graffiti underground scene held a show at times square. Throughout his career Basquiat showed his endless creativity, he produced approximately a thousand paintings and two thousand drawings. This was until he sadly passed away in 1988, at the age of 27 due to an accidental drug overdose.
The study of Basquiat’s work has led to a better understanding of the 1980s and the “Black experience against an American and global backdrop of the white supremacist legacy of slavery and colonialism.” Basquiat’s art also reflects and celebrates the history of black art, poetry and music as well as the religions and the everyday beliefs of black life. In 2019 a man by the name of Chaédria LaBouvier became the first black person to create a show at the Guggenheim, the show he created was called ‘Basquiat’s “Defacement”: The Untold Story’.
Conclusion
After completing this document and researching many different artists, eras and styles I have learnt many things. The main takeaway from completing this project is how important art has been throughout history. I found it interesting to look at and learn about how art has changed and developed over the years and learn about the many artists that helped push the industry of graphic design forward and in new directions.
A common theme in the research that I conducted was the use of art at major moments in history, for example, the black arts movement, looking at the art in this movement helps us to gain an understanding of the issues and struggles that the black community were going through at that point in history, we can correlate this with the struggles they are facing today, by doing this we can see the differences or similarities and how it has or hasn’t changed over time.
Bibliography
Paula Scher
Gamolina, J. (2020). A Life in Her Work: Pentagram’s Paula Scher on Ideas, Invention, and Learning. [online] Madame Architect. Available at: https://www. madamearchitect.org/interviews/2020/7/16/paula-scher. https://www.facebook.com/pentagramdesign (2019). ‘Paula Scher: MAPS’ — Pentagram. [online] Pentagram. Available at: https://www.pentagram.com/ news/paula-scher-maps.
Expressionism, the emotions behind the art
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica (2019). Expressionism | Definition, Characteristics, Artists, & Facts. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/Expressionism.
Adolf Strakhov: One of the founders of the Social Realist art movements
Spartacus Educational. (n.d.). Adolf Strakhov. [online] Available at: https:// spartacus-educational.com/Adolf_Strakhov.htm.
Konstruktive Grafik - Swiss Style
Budrick, C. (2020). Swiss Style: The Principles, the Typefaces & the Designers. [online] PRINT Magazine. Available at: https://www.printmag.com/featured/ swiss-style-principles-typefaces-designers/.
Massimo Vignelli
Esposito, C. (2020). Masters of graphic design: Massimo Vignelli | Pixartprinting. [online] The Pixartprinting blog. Available at: https://www.pixartprinting.co.uk/ blog/massimo-vignelli/.
Designculture.it. (2013). Designculture • Massimo Vignelli. [online] Available at: http://www.designculture.it/interview/massimo-vignelli.html.
99designs. (2014). Remembering Massimo Vignelli, modernist master. [online] Available at: https://99designs.co.uk/blog/famous-design/rememberingmassimo-vignelli-modernist-master/.
Victor Moscoso - Psychedelic Art
The Museum of Modern Art. (n.d.). Victor Moscoso | MoMA. [online] Available at: https://www.moma.org/artists/4117.
The Black Arts Movement
Tate (2017). Black arts movement – Art Term | Tate. [online] Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/b/black-arts-movement.
Adbusters - Spoof Adverts
www.adbusters.org. (n.d.). Adbusters Media Foundation | Journal of the Mental Environment. [online] Available at: https://www.adbusters.org.
Adbusters (2019). Spoofs | Adbusters Media Foundation. [online] Adbusters. org. Available at: https://www.adbusters.org/spoof-ads.
www.definitions.net. (n.d.). What does adbusters mean? [online] Available at: https://www.definitions.net/definition/adbusters [Accessed 8 Dec. 2022].
Tomato Underworld
www.itsnicethat.com. (n.d.). ‘Their work was a feeling, not an instruction’: A visual history of tomato, the era-defining collective of the 1990s. [online] Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/tomato-richard-turleyguest-edit-graphic-design-150822 [Accessed 7 Dec. 2022].
Jean Michel-Basquiat
The Broad (n.d.). Jean Michel Basquiat - Bio | The Broad. [online] www.thebroad. org. Available at: https://www.thebroad.org/art/jean-michel-basquiat.
WNYC. (n.d.). Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 60th Birthday | All Of It. [online] Available at: https://www.wnyc.org/story/jean-michel-basquiats-60th-birthday/ [Accessed 8 Dec. 2022].