HISTORY OF GRAPHIC DESIGN
Research Report. By Aminath Zahuwa Siraj
SCSJ2000736
DIPLOMA IN GRAPHIC DESIGN
Michael Bierut. By Aminath Zahuwa Siraj
Michael Bierut was born in Clevland, Ohio in 1957. As a young boy, Bierut became passionate about fine art, music, and drawing. He was also fascinated with album covers and the books
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GRAPHIC DESIGN MANUAL by Armin Hofmann and Milton Glaser : Graphic Design.
Famous Designer & AIGA Gold Medalist. The medal of AIGA—the most distinguished honor in the profession of communication design—has been awarded since 1920 to individuals in recognition of their exceptional achievements to the advancement of the field of design as respected craft, strategic advantage, and vital cultural force. Michael Bierut recieved this medal in 2006
Early Life & Education.
His interest in design pushed him to pursue a degree at the College of Design,Architecture, Art and Planning at the University of Cincinnati. While attending the university, Bierut interned under AIGA medalist Chris Pullman, at the Boston public television station, WGBH. By 1980, Bierut gratuated from the University of Cincinnati and began his rst joc at the famous New York design rm, Vignelli Associates, in that same year. Bierut described Massimo Vignelli as a man obsessed with the keming, leading and space between typefaces. The studio at that time didn't have a computer or fax machine and Bierut was responsible for hand creating mechanical boards. He credits his youthful exuberance in staying up late for the progress he made as a designer while working for Vignelli. He also learned that people don't always read a company's printed materials and strives to create engaging work that people want to read. Bierut continued working at Vignelli Associates for 10 years, working his way to the position of vice president of graphic design.
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Bierut is a Senior Critic in Graphic Design at the Yale School of Art.
Design Strategy His goal is to create designs that people want to look at and read, and that are ideal for everything from logos to corporate brochures. He has given many inspiring talks throughout the years, highlighting his love of the designer/client relationship. Mr. Bierut has said that being interested in the same thing as the client is key to a successful outcome.
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He stated that “simplicity, wit, and good typography” are the keys to an iconic design. He further explained that “graphic design is the purposeful combination of words, pictures and other visual elements to support the communication of an explicit or implicit message.” While he doesn’t necessarily follow trends, he does observe them and feels that nding a balance between simplicity and complexity is at the core of the design process.
Working at Pentagram. After working at Massimo Vignelli, Bierut joined Pentagram as one of their partners for the firm’s New York office in 1990. Bierut continues to produce design work at Pentagram today. His clients include well-known companies such as The New York Times , Saks Fith Avenue , Harley Davidson , mit Media Lab, Verizon,Mastercard and Walt Disney. Michael Bierut mainly focuses on being a problem solver instead of a creative and advises other designers to remmeber who the work is being created for. He believes he can produce work that people can read, but challenges himself to create desigs that people actually want to read.
First Graphic Design work , done in 1972, When he was in High School
IDCNY. Vignelli and Bierut produced several posters, including the vividly red, black and white poster for IDCNY. Now at Pentagram, Bierut prefers deesigning in black and white, but ocassionally works with colors depending on the client.
Museum of Arts & Design. To commemorate its new home, the Museum of Arts and Design, also known as MAD, rebranded itself in 2008. MAD’s new logo contains geometric shapes to represent the building’s rectangular architechture, and its location on Colombus Circle.
Saks Fifth Avenue. Bierut and font designer, Joe Finocchiaro, redrew the cursive logo of Saks Fifth Avenue. Both designers places the logo on a black sqaure and divide it into 64 smaller grids, forming a variety of abstract compositions that would later be used Sakks Fifth Avenue’s packaging.
MIT Media Lab. Another client through Pentagram is MIT Media Lab, the research lab for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its monogram logo, redesigned by Bierut and Aron Fay, was created with a 7 by 7 grid. The giyphs show the overarching identity of the lab, while diversifying its 23 research groups.
Mohawk. Bierut also redesigned the brand and identity of the paper manufecturer, Mohawk, in 2012. Bierut and his team created Mohawk’s logo with simple lines and circles. These shapes represent the work involved in the company’s product, like paper rolls, printing process and circuit boards.
Yale School of Architechture. Michael Bierut creates his works mostly in black and white as can be seen in hid series of lecture posters designed for Yale School of Architechture. Due to the monochromatic color palette, people began to question if he was colorblind or if he was simply unable to think new ideas.
Billboard.
Billboard’s new logo, produced in 2013, contains thick, lowercase typeface, tight kerning and only one color. The logo’s one-color usage on its full-bleed magazine covers provides a bolder, more mature look to the company’s overall brand.
Mastercard. Mastercard’s new logo from 2016 was a collabration between Bierut, Luke, Hayman and both their teams. The designer’s goals in this rebrand were to optimize the logo for digital use and express the simplicity,connectivity and seamlessness offered by Mastercard’s intergrated payments systems
Michael Bierut designied Hillary Clinton’s campaign logo.
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“It wasn’t clever or artful. I didn’t care about that. I wanted something that you didn’t need a software tutorial to create, something as simple as a peace sign or a smiley face. I wanted a logo that a veyear-old could make with construction paper and kindergarten scissors.”
Interesting facts about Michael Bierut. He used to design invitations for his friends’ parties, freebies for nonpro ts, unique birthday cards and packaging for mix tapes. He received highest honor in the profession in 2006, AIGA Gold Medal. He offered his services as a design consultant to United Airlines. During late 1980s, he was appointed president emeritus of the New York Chapter of the AIGA and currently holds the presidency of AIGA national. In 2015, he was awarded Masters Series Award by the School of Visual Arts and received his first comprehensive retrospective of his work. He released a book, “How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things, Explain Things, Make Things Look Better, Make People Laugh, Make People Cry, and (Every Once in a While) Change the World.”.
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A number of his designs are currently on display in a retrospective exhibition at New York’s School of Visual Arts called Masters Series: Michael Bierut.
Characteristics of Michael Bierut’s work. Bierut produced several posters, including the vividly red, black and white. Most of his artworks are monochromatic. As he prefers deesigning in black and white. Ocassionally he works with colors depending on the client. In some of his logos he uses geometric shapes to represent the building’s rectangular architechture. He also works with a variety of abstract compositions in his artworks. Most of the logos are minimalist and monogrammatic. The font he uses mostly in designing contains thick, lowercase typeface, tight kerning , large , bold headlines and only one color.
“The problem contains the solution.” Michael Bierut
Analysis of Michael Bierut. Michael Bierut, a partner at Pentagram since 1990, is one of the 21st century’s preeminent graphic designers.His typical strategy is to deconstruct and transform graphics into unexpected micro- or macro-versions of themselves, whether it’s slicing up an old Saks logo and turning its abstracted fragments into the mainstay of the brand’s new identity, or turning the New York Times wordmark into a massive environmental graphic made up of 860 little teardrop-shaped pieces.His works are worth looking at. Drawn from his wide and rich experience, Bierut extends an affable advice to his counterparts to make the most of creative period. He rmly believes that every individual is exposed with a limited amount of creativity at any given period or time, so one should make the most of this period and use the element of scanty creativity to the fullest. Michael Bierut is an award-winning graphic designer famous for his branding and typography and is also one of the leading American graphic designers, design critic and educator.Bierut incorporates black, white, and red in his pieces, which also inspired the main color palette of this presentation. Michael Bierut’s use of large, bold headlines and also the minimalist, monochromatic and monogrammatic sense of style in design is what I admire the most about his artworks.
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Bierut does not withhold the secrets of his process and ideas behind each project. Although each project begins with a case study he elaborates further in the captions that follow along with every single image of his work. He includes visual examples of work his clients didn’t like and explains why they didn’t like it, visual examples of alternative ideas that he enjoyed, and even visual examples of how he proposed his concepts to his clients. I am really inspired by the method of work process he involves when he starts a project and the progress work which follows. His detailness and simpleness in works and creative mindset is what I aspire to follow. These are some of the main reasons why I chose Michael Bierut as my favorite graphic designer.
Lessons I learnt from Michael Bierut. • You get power by giving power away. • The real opportunity may not be part of your scope of work. • Consistency does not equal sameness. • Minimalist is not simple, bland or boring. Less is more. • Monochromatic designs can also be creative if creativity is used in the right way. • Create more artworks even though failure may come along the way. Never stop the work process.
MY HAPPY PLACE Have you ever dreamed of staying in a house in the middle of the sea, waking up to a salty breeze and the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore? The Maldives - this is the place where I was born and raised in, here you can experience yourself what a true paradise feels like, should be put on your bucket list right now. The Maldives is an island country which consists of 1192 coralline islands positioned in the Indian Ocean. Despite being the smallest country in Asia, its unique location encompassed with beautiful, crystalclear beaches is what makes the Maldives so special. Beside all of those reasons, it is the exceptionally beautiful landscape, the entertainment of water sports and a unique culture that makes Maldives such a famous tourist attraction. These are the reasons why im blessed to be born in such a place. A place where i can proudly call my home. My happy place. This artwork is inspired by the minimalist posters Michael Bierut makes. I chose his method of including black and white bold lettering with a hint of red along the way. I have used the fonts he uses in most of his posters. Michael Bierut’s use of large, bold headlines and also the minimalist, monochromatic and monogrammatic sense of style in design is what I admire the most about his artworks. Taking a deeper look at the artwork, it is based on the theme “my happy place” in this case it is my home country. I used adobe illustrator and drew the individual islands. As a part of the detail I have marked the my birthplace which is also the capital of my country. The islands represent my happy place.
ROLE MODEL Many of us have role models in our lives and to most people role models are athletes and movie stars, but to me a role model is much more. To me a role model is a person who has positively influenced someone in life, and is not a person filled with selfishness and greed. They help shape someone’s personality, and characteristics. They are people who someone can look up to for advice in a hard situation, and know that they will give those words of wisdom. They will never judge our past actions, instead only look to help because they really care. A role model is someone who we should never feel awkward talking to about our problems. A perfect role model for me is my mother. She is a wonderful human being. She’s smart, wise, ambitious, patient and such a loving person. There are no words that can describe my gratitude towards her. For my second artwork, I wanted to dedicate it to my mother. In this artwork I have decided to use the idea of the billboard magazine cover as a referrence. As Michael Bierut is known for the man who designed the logo of billboard I wanted to use the same idea on this poster. I have used minimalist approach on this one as well. Since Michael Bierut is known for the artworks mostly based on typography and the fonts he uses. I used the font he used in the billboard logo. I used the bold headlines and white and red typography. Inspired by the color pallete Bierut uses in most of his works. As the headlines I wrote some of the charactersistics of my role model.
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