New visual language research document

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Form Follows Function

RESEARCH DOCUMENT

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odernism Modernism is a Philosophical Movement that was strongly influenced by the development of modern industrial societies, the development of cities and the change in social trends also largely created an impact. Modernism emerged around the early 20th century. Modernism is a response to the new technology and society changing after the industrial revolution. Artist started to take influence from the new machinery and the city environment. Then new modernist movement affected all forms of art and design. Modernism was not a ‘style’ but a movement that was influenced buy then new and ever developing environment. It would take influence from the present rather than the past or future. Modernists rejected the historical and more traditional forms of design and focused on exploring with new materials and

simplistic design. Louis Sullivan believed that design should be made round the principle of “Form follows function”.

Sullivan believed that the shape of an object or building should be reflected in the functionality of it.

Modernism design would reject historicism completely and create designs that consist of simplified shapes, Geometric patterns and minimal decoration. As modernism was surrounded by ever changing technology modernist started to explore the idea of mass production. Bauhaus is the main example of the modernist movement in practice. Walter Groupius was the Founder of the Bauhaus; aimed to teach the principles of modernist design to pupils and to reject historicism in order to unite both art and technology. This led to the use of mass production within the Bauhaus.

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auhaus Bauhaus was an art school in Germany that combined craftwork with the fine arts. Bauhaus was founded by Walter Groupius in 1919.

Groupius wanted to create a basis on which all arts would be able to come together to create work.

Walter Groupius aimed to teach the principles of Modernism to the pupils at the Bauhaus in order to create a style that could be used for all types of design such as; graphic design, Architecture, Arts and Crafts, Fine Art etc. In the 19th century art started to lose its purpose in society. The Bauhaus was created to re unite creativity and manufacturing to stop art from losing its place in society. Modernism had a large impact on the Bauhaus as they

took influence from the changing society in order to keep art up to date and to help grow with the every changing social trends. Consumerist society grew after World War 1 so the demand for material goods increased, the Bauhaus believe this was the perfect chance to get the arts back out into society.

Bauhaus understood the connection between society and technology so it aimed to unite the arts with technology, this lead to the mass production of products that had been created in the Bauhaus being made for consumerist society.

Groupius aimed for the Bauhaus to created well designed, industrially produced products to decorate the public’s homes.

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ax Bill Max Bill is a modernist artist. He follows the rules of modernism though creating minimal and structured pieces. I find Bill’s work very interesting how he uses bold colours, geometric shapes and bold outlines to make his work stand out. He uses a range of shapes and overlaps them in order to create a pattern. His work is fairly minimal but I believe it expresses itself through the use of colour.

In the images to the right you can see the Bill experiments with shape size and position to create interesting designs. Some of his work has an affect

that creates illusion. The way he positions different coloured shapes side-byside and different sizes creates a mesmerising effect.

I believe that Max Bill would be a grate artist to look at for influence whilst creating a magazine cover. His work is very eye catching and slightly memorising so people would remember the cover design. I want my magazine to stand out and to make people want to look at it and I believe Max Bills style creates that affect.

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alter Dexel Walter Dexel is another artist that follows the rules of the modernist movement. He uses geometric shapes and positions them so that they connect in order to create an effective design.

He uses bold colours and thick lines to make his work stand out. Dexel was known for his work as a painter, graphic designer and typographer.

He was well known for creating commercial art, typography, designing poster and advertisements. He is also known for creating light up advertisements for billboards. Dexel created a light sculpture (left centre image) he has used bold colours and thick black outlines for the shapes. He has positioned

them so they are stacked upon one another. This sculpture lights up and I believe is very interesting.

I find Dexel’s work very interesting how he uses bold colour and positions shapes so they overlap or connect. This restricts any chance of freedom in the design, as everything is connected in a structural shape.

I believe Dexel’s work will be a good influence during this project, as I will be able to gain inspiration whilst creating ideas for the magazine layout and I will be able to generate ideas for the cover. I will experiment with colour and shape whilst generating ideas to create an effective layout for the magazine.

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urt Schwitters Kurt Schwitters is a modernist artist that specialises in collage.

Schwitters experiments with colour, material and texture in order to create an interesting piece. He overlaps material He follows the structured style of the modernist movement as the layout of his work is positioned in a slight grid structure.

Schwitters’s work is rather minimal and he uses bold materials to create a colourful piece. I find Kurt Schwitters’s work rather interesting as he uses a mix of materials in order to create a collage.

The use of texture can be clearly see on the images of his work. I also find it rather interesting how

he sometimes combines his collage’s with text in order to communicate a message.

I believe Kurt Schwitters would be a great artist to look at for influence, as his work is fairly unique.

I find it really interesting how he overlaps materials to build up a textured background. I believe his work would be good to research into as I believe I will be able to get ideas from in so that I am able to generate a wide rang of ideas for the front cover of my magazine. I think It would be interesting to experiment with materials and texture to create a more interesting effect.

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im Crouwel Wim Crouwel is a modernist artist work focused on the Grid structure. He lays out all his work in a grid like system, not only that but his designs tend to have a solid block shape to them. Crouwel is famous for creating the designs of posters, catalogues and exhibitions. This is due to his work having such a structured formal appearance. His work is minimal and clear to see so it was best suited to these types of designs.

The images to the right are images of Crouwel’s past work. You can see that from these images he has used a grid structure to make sure all the letters are in line and the same size. He uses the grid to shape the text and also the help evenly space the letters. One Piece that Crouwel created was the typeface new alphabet.

This piece consists of straight lines this is influenced by the cathode ray tube that is used by early display technology.

He took inspiration from the limitations which the technology has by only being able to display information in a fairly grid like way. Modernist artists use grids to create a base structure for their work. This helps them to determine size and proportion and stops the idea of free design.

Crouwels use of the Grid structure will be helpful as I will be able to lay out my magazine in a similar style. I will look at how he sizes text and how he plays with proportion in order to create an effective piece. I wish to take influence from the grid like style in order to form a professional layout for the magazine.

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rid Systems The Grid system is often used by graphic designers, it is made up of intersecting lines across a page that would help to add structure to a piece. This Structure then helps a designer to organise text, images and data on a page neatly so that it can be read or viewed clearly. This helps to make the layout become more professional and will help people to view and understand a designer’s work easily.

The grid can even be used to help keep text in line so that a designer is able to separate sections of a page. The Grid layout helps designers to separate and organise their work, it is used for the layout of newspapers, magazines, posters etc.

Modernist artists tend to favour the Grid system as it adds a structure to the layout of their work. Mullerbrockmann believed that the use of the grid would help a designer to find their own unique style in the way they layout their work.

The Grid is not only used to help designers to layout their work and help them create their individual layout but it helps artists such as painters to separate an image, The grid can be used in many ways to create letters and images. One typographer, Wim Crouwel largely used the use of the grid system throughout his work to create typographic pieces.

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ostmodernism Postmodernism is a late 20th century movement, which came about in the 1960s and influenced artists well into the 1990’s.

Artist decided to come away from the strict, minimal style of modernism and they wanted to express themselves through their work. One popular style that came from postmodernism is Pop art; this style took influence from the popular culture of the present.

It used bright colours, bold outlines and had an expressive feel to it. This is very different to the grid like, minimal style of the modernist movement.

The postmodernist movement aimed to bring freedom to art and design. Postmodernists had a cynical interpretation of culture, art, history, etc. Postmodernism has been described as tacky, superficial and complex

yet elegant and cheerful.

They believed in the idea of deconstruction, they would take apart something in order to create something new.

Postmodernism took influence from most things that modernism rejected. It would take influence from both the past and present whilst creating decorative pieces of work. Fine artists tend to be large followers of the movement as they were able to go back to the traditional values of art and design that were abandoned by the modernist movement.

Modernists would produce simple product that would take influence from the technology around us, Postmodernism tended to combine multiple things in order to create a new, complex product. There was no limit to the possible outcomes from the movement.

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ene Magritte Rene Magritte is an artist that followed the values of movement Postmodernism. He was a surrealist artist who was well known for causing confusion and making people think about his art rather than it being an obvious painting. Magritte work appears almost dream like he creates unusual and slightly disturbing images. I find his work very interesting as he takes a ‘normal’ image and then adds a twist to the image. For Example he has created a painting of apples, which seems fairly traditional, but then he has added a twist and given the

apples eye masks.

The postmodernist movement largely influences Magritte as he has gone back to the more traditional style of art. He is taking influence and inspiration from historicism and then adding a twist to the paintings.

I believe Magritte would be a good artist to look at for influence during this project. I believe his work has a slight quirkiness to it and I think it would help me to generate a wide range of ideas for the cover design for the magazine.

RRauschenberg obert Robert Rauschenberg is believed to be one of the first Postmodernist artists. His work follows the rules of postmodernist art and is highly expressive.

Postmodernists tend to take influence from their cultural surroundings and reject the idea of the structured, almost mechanical form of modernist art. .

Rauschenberg used bold colours and a rather expressive technique of combining multiple images and overlapping them.

Rauschenberg’s work uses the collage method similar to Kurt Schwitters who is a modernist. Even though they both use the same method you can see a distinctive difference between the both. You can see that Schwitters’s work is influence by modernism as the use of the grid structure layout and the minimal use of decoration. Where as

Rauschenberg has a more expressive approach to his work, using bold colours and by playing around with position, size and text. Rauschenberg’s work is used to create an emotional response from the viewer, this maybe why he uses image that people can relate to such as war images and the moon landing etc.

I believe Rauschenberg’s work would be good to research into for influence during this project. I will be able to test different techniques in order to find a suitable cover for the magazine. I believe his expressive style and use of bold colours and cultural images helps to create an eye-catching piece that would influence viewers to stop and look at it. I want to create this effect for the cover of my work as it will persuade people to pick the magazine up.

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avid Carson David Carson is a popular graphic designer who follows the rules of Postmodernism. Carson is known for his innovative magazine layouts and for his use of typography throughout his work. I find Carson’s work very interesting as he uses a mix of digital imagery and typography. He combines both imagery and typography in a way that makes the look fluent on a page. He uses bold text and fonts in order to make his work stand out.

I find it really interesting how Carson uses different coloured text to make it clear on an image. He overlaps imagery and text through his work.

Carson takes influence from the expressive side of postmodernism and rejects the strict layout

of the grid system. He positions text on a page in a fascinating way as he makes it appear like its floating in some pieces, this completely rejects the structural style of modernism.

I believe Carson’s work will be perfect to research into further to gain influence from. I find it really interesting how use builds up layers of text and positions them on the page in such an interesting way. I will look at his magazine layouts so I can generate ideas for mine. This will enable me to think more about font style, position, size etc. I will experiment with text in order to create an appropriate masthead for my magazine.

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amie Reid Jamie Reid is another artist that I have looked at who is also influenced by the postmodernist movement. Reid is well known for creating the sex pistols album cover. Reid’s work often resembles a ransom note as he uses laser cut clippings from headlines and text in a newspaper to build up text in his work.

Reid tends to combine his screen-printing work with the use of collage.

This creates an interesting effect as it produces bold, block colours in a pop art style. Reid’s work is very expressive and also creates an emotional response with the viewer, his work aims to shock people. I really like Reid’s work as I find it very unique and bold. I believe it stands out well and creates an interesting effect that makes the viewer want

to continue looking at it.

Postmodernist art can be interpreted in many ways there is no true message to be seen. Reid’s work shows this idea of no true message throughout his work as people can be confused by the busyness of the images.

I think Reid’s work would be prefect to help me to think of ideas and to help me create multiple experimentations, as it is so expressive. I find the idea of using newspaper text and the effect of screen-printing really effective as it makes it stand out. I am going to experiment by putting bold colours over the top of images and play around with different types of text to create multiple pieces these will help me generate a cover design for the magazine.

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eville Brody Neville Brody is a graphic designer who also followed the rules of the movement postmodernism. Brody is well known for his work with magazines such as ‘The Face’ and ‘The Arena’, he is also known for his work designing album covers. I find Neville Brody’s work rather interesting as he uses bold minimal colours throughout his work. I like how he uses a mix of geometric shapes alongside his typography and imagery. Brody’s layout for his magazines are very interesting as well, he takes influence from the idea of a grid system but instead of it being straight and formal he changes the column’s to look like a range of shapes. You can see examples of this in the images to the right. The way he lays out his work is very interesting as he

places headings slightly askew on magazines.

Brody’s poster designs are very interesting as well, He overlays text plays around with font style, size and position. I really like how he overlaps some of the text in order to create an interesting effect.

I find Neville Brody’s work very interesting and I am going to research into his style further. I believe that his work with magazines and layout will help me to think more carefully about the designs for my magazine. I will look at how he uses columns and colour to display his work and I will also look at his twist on the layout. I am going to experiment with the different layouts that Brody’s work shows in order to create a suitable layout for my own work.

xisting ECovers These are some existing cover designs that I have looked at for inspiration. I found that most covers have one large image in the centre and surrounding text.

The masthead is mostly placed at the top of the cover but not in all cases. I will experiment by placing the masthead in different places until I find a place that is most suitable for the design.

I will also try to create a design that is simple and works well with the page. Some of these covers show elements of modernism as they show geometric shapes and bold colours.

Existing Masthead’s I have looked at some Existing mastheads so that I can look at different aspects of a good, memorable design. For some of these mastheads the cover design covers part of the masthead, this is due to the masthead being so recognisable that it doesn’t matter if you cannot see part of it as you can still tell what magazine it is. Some other mastheads cover the design on the cover so that it is the first thing that the viewer will notice. Most mastheads use a simple text, which is fairly bold across the cover. Most Mastheads are positioned

at the top of the page but the can be positioned anywhere such as the bottom, off to the side etc.

I am going to experiment with different fonts and the position of the masthead so that I am able to find a masthead that works best for my design.

MDesigns asthead These are some Masthead designs that I created for the magazine. I decided to experiment with shapes behind the text to make the text stand out, I also tried to make the designs as simple as possible so that it would be clear and so that it wouldn’t take attention away from the cover design but it would still be noticeable.

I thought the designs with the square background didn’t work as well as the simple text and the text in the circle. I wanted to

use bold colours for the designs and simple text. I used the font Helvetica, as it is simple and commonly used in graphic design publications; it is clear and easy to read. I also thought that the designs looked better with the ‘NVL’ rather than using the full masthead of ‘New Visual Language’ I was then able to make the design large enough without taking up too much space.

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Form Follows Function

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over Designs These are some cover designs that I have created using influence from the Modernist movement. I have used a range of Geometric shapes in order to create an effective design. I have made my designs fairly simple, as I wanted them to fit in with the idea of minimalist design.

The image in the top left is an image that i have taken of the city Liverpool, i have decided overlap the image with triangles and the change the opacity so that you would still be able to see the image through the overlapping shape.

The other images are just simple designes that i have created using a range of shapes, the image on the bottom right also includes text that i have created using Kandinsky for influence.

Kandinsky uses bold lines, geometric shapes and bold colours throughout his work so i decided to use these aspects from my designs.

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over Designs These are some other cover designs that I have looked at using influence from modernism. I have kept with the theme of bold outlines, simple design, geometric shapes and bold colour throughout most of my designs. I believe that a simple design will work best for the cover, as it won’t be too over whelming to look at. The simple geometric shapes and the bold colours will be very eye catching and will help me to create a design this will enable my design to be easily recognisable.

The design in the top left was strongly influenced by modernism and the

fact that the movement was influenced by the 3Dimentional industrial world. I wanted my design to appear slightly 3Dimentional, as I believe it will make it appear more interesting.

The image to the top right was strongly influence by the modernist artist Walter Dexel. I found the way that he made shapes and lines touch slightly was rather interesting I also wanted to experiment with the use of space similar to Dexel as I believe it would create an effective piece that a masthead would appear clear on.

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over Designs These are some other designs I have created using the Modernist movement for influence.

This time I have looked more specifically at Max Bill; I found that his work was very interesting as he mainly uses triangles to build up a design. I have looked at creating some simple designs whilst only using triangles. I have kept the idea of using bold colours and bold outlines for the shapes, as I believe it puts more emphasis on the design. I first looked at simply having triangles in a row on a page in different colours; I then started to experiment with colour for the design and the background. From this simple idea I decided to

look at experimenting with size and position to make the pattern look more interesting this is shown in the top right design.

I am going to experiment further by choosing some designs and combining them with mastheads to see which design will look most appropriate.

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evelopment This is one design that I looked at for the front cover. I decided to use triangle shapes sweeping the page as I thought it would show inspiration from the modernist designer Max Bill. I decided to experiment with colour and the size of the triangles to see what would look most appropriate. I also decided to use a simple masthead, as the design was fairly busy with all the different size triangles sweeping the page. I decided not to use this as the front cover design as I thought that it had too much white space and that it was too plain.

An exploration of modernism and post modernism

An exploration of modernism and post modernism

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Form Follows Function

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evelopment I thought that this idea worked well with the shapes as the cubes gave the piece a slightly 3D feel to the cover. I decided to experiment with different patterns using the same shapes. The cover with the cubes spaced apart from one another seemed slightly empty and plain so I tried creating a pyramid with the shapes.

This pyramid shape also seemed too simple but it gave me an idea to layout the shapes with a similar distance apart. I decided to cover the full page in these cubes and left the corner blank so that the masthead could go there.

I thought this design

looked most appropriate for a cover. I decided to experiment with mastheads for these cover designs, I tried a simple box masthead but it didn’t look suitable. Then I tried a simple ‘NVL’ masthead with a red underline, I thought that this looked most appropriate. I wanted a simple masthead as the design was so busy and slightly complicated.

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Form Follows Function

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evelopment This is the final idea that I chose to develop, I thought that this piece looked most professional as it shows primary photography and it also shows a link to the movement modernism.

I decided to change the Hue and saturation on the image to make the image have a blue colour overlay.

I then experimented with geometric shapes and placed them over the image, I thought triangles worked well as they appear like broken glass.

I change the opacity of the shapes so that you could still see the image through the shapes and the changed them to a contrasting colour i.e.

red. I thought that this looked fairly interesting so I the experimented with masthead ideas and combined them with the designs. I first chose a simple ‘NVL’ masthead for the design but it wasn’t very clear, I thought that it needed something added to it to make the Masthead stand out more.

I then decided to add a black circle behind the masthead and changed the colour of the text to white so that it would stand out more. I believed this worked the best and looked more appropriate for the design.

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AN EXPLORATION OF MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM

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inal covers These are the two designs I decided to choose for the cover of the Research document and the Magazine. I decided to use modernism for the influence for my covers, as I believe the geometric shapes would work best to create a simple cover design. I thought the cube cover looked rather experimental so I believed it would best suit the research document. I then chose the image of the city for the Magazine cover, as it appears more professional, I liked how the colours complimented each other and enabled the masthead to stand out

clearly. For the back cover for the magazine I used a similar image that made the magazine appear as if it was a view rather than a static image. I kept the image plain and added a simple barcode to the bottom right corner.

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evelopment This is a layout for the magazine that I decided to experiment with. I first tried using a night sky for the text and title background and then a plain white background for the images. I then realised that the text didn’t appear very clear so I decided to place the night sky as the background for the mages. This looked more appropriate and helped to separate the text from the images better. I decided to use a thick black line to separate the images from the white background

with text so that it would show a distinct different between the both. I decided to choose this layout, as the images and the text were both clearer and easier to see.

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evelopment These are two layouts for the contents page for the magazine that I experimented with. I first tried aligning all the text to the page on the right and then I placed 3 images that would link to the 3 themes ‘City in Flux’, ‘Earth Artifact’ and ‘Type Transcription’.

These images were very squashed and unclear so I tried to think of another layout that I could think of. I then decided to use to cover design and split it in two so that it would fit either side of the content

page. I thought that this looked more appropriate as the images were clearer and it was a great page for the magazine to flow on to after the front cover design. This was a nice simple idea for the content page.