William Morris was born in Walthamstow, Essex, on 24 March 1834. The son of a wealthy businessman, he enjoyed a comfortable childhood before going to Marlborough and Exeter College, Oxford.

He originally intended to take holy orders, but his reading of the social criticism of Carlyle, Kingsley and Ruskin led him to reconsider the Church and devote his life to art.

After leaving Oxford, Morris was briefly articled to G. E. Street, the Gothic Revival architect, but he soon left, having determined to become a painter. His admiration for the Pre-Raphaelites led him to be introduced to Dante Gabriel Rossetti whose influence can be seen on Morris's only surviving painting La Belle Iseult.

Arts and Crafts Movement

In the 1860s Morris decided that his creative future lay in the field of the decorative arts. His career as a designer began when he decorated the Red House, Bexleyheath, which had been built for him by Philip Webb.

The success of this venture led to the formation of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1861. The 'Firm' (later renamed Morris & Co) was particularly well-known for its stained glass, examples of which can be seen in churches throughout Britain. Morris produced some 150 designs which are often characterised by their delightful foliage patterns.

Among his many other works were Icelandic and classical translations, Sigurd the Volsung, The Pilgrims of Hope, and a series of prose romances which included A Dream of John Ball, News from Nowhere, and The Well at the World's End.

Politics

Morris entered national politics in 1876 as treasurer of the Eastern Question Association. This was a post he was to occupy in two further radical organisations: the National Liberal League and the Radical Union.

He soon became disillusioned with the Liberals and in 1883 joined the socialist Democratic Federation. After disagreements with the Federation's leader, H. M. Hyndman, he formed the Socialist League, and later the Hammersmith Socialist Society.

During the 1880s he was probably the most active propagandist for the socialist cause, giving hundreds of lectures and speeches throughout the country.

The Kelmscott Press

In 1890 Morris founded the Kelmscott Press in premises near his last home at Kelmscott House in Hammersmith (now the headquarters of the William Morris Society). Morris designed three typefaces for the Press: Golden, Chaucer, and Troy. These were inspired respectively by fifteenth-century Italian and German typography. In all, sixty-six volumes were printed by the Kelmscott Press, the most impressive of which was its magnificent edition of Chaucer which was published in 1896. Morris died at Kelmscott House on 3 October 1896.

Classic "moderne" watch design, the first - circa 1910, the other a WW2 pilots watch, circa 1938. Notice if you will in the first, the round robust case and bezel and as well, the wonderful over sized winder, the Art Nouveau numbers, and in the second, the groovy glow in the dark Radium all black face dial.

In such an interesting way, the stylistic differences immediately obvious between the two watches, echos the similar distinctions found between the two so very different worlds of pre & post war Europe itself.

The former was enthusiastically decorative, rather benign and likely hand made, the latter watch - simple, formal and much more utilitarian, and mass produced. just like Lady Gaga

Steve Jobs on Creativity

"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”

– Steve Jobs, Wired, February, 1995

Christian Küpper, who adopted the pseudonym Theo van Doesburg, was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on August 30, 1883. A Dutch artist - practicing painting, writing, poetry, typography and architecture, but he had been more successful writing about art than working as a studio artist. Quite adept at making new contacts due to his flamboyant, impulsive personality, he had many productive connections in the art world.

In 1917 he founded the group De Stijl and the periodical of the same name together with the architects J. J. P. Oud and Jan Wils, Vilmos Huszár, Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck, and Georges Vantongerloo. The periodical propagated the group's theories.

The term De Stijl has come to represent their common aims and utopian vision.

The essential idea underlying De Stijl’s radical utopian program was the creation of a universal aesthetic language based in part on a rejection of the decorative excesses of Art Nouveau in favor of a simple, logical style that emphasized construction and function, one that would be appropriate for every aspect of modern life.

They simplified visual compositions to the vertical and horizontal directions, and used only primary colors along with black and white.

THEO VAN DOESBURG
The Netherlands, Utrecht, 1883 - 1931
"There is an old and a new consciousness of time. The old is connected with the individual. The new is connected with the universal. The struggle of the individual against the universal is revealing itself in the world-war as well as in the art of the present day." - Theo Van Doesburg

I wish I was in this band, I think I'd fit right in, just like Ronnie Wood. Where's my bloody hat ?

When Selfridge's (the London Dept. store ) opened in 1909 it displayed the Bleriot XI, the first airplane to cross the English Channel from Dover to Calais, ushering in an era of glamorous association between travel, technology and luxury goods. The Concorde brought this era to its pinnacle, and its grounding and removal from service also brought the era to a close.

(btw. the pictures above are of the Selfridges in Birmingham ... quite amazing ! especially so, if you knew Birmingham ...)

The fastest commercial plane ever engineered couldn't keep up with political and economic changes that made it untenable to operate, relegating it to the status of technological dinosaur for use only in museums and books.

Olympus is a celebration of the tremendous technological feat of Concorde and also a eulogy for the elegance and aspirations that died with it.

Using a maintenance manual purchased on Ebay for £6 (12$) and a lot of styrofoam, paper and glue, designers PostlerFerguson engage in a bit of recent-past archaeology to construct a full-scale model of the Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593 jet engine from the Concorde.

Taking the form of an abstracted, three-dimensional technical drawing, it balances the beautiful technical perfection of the engine against the distance between today's budget-airline reality and the era of technological optimism it comes from.

Creative Review highlighted this new issue of stamps from the Royal Mail by Hat-Trick, celebrating the 50 year anniversary of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The stamps feature images of David Tennant as Hamlet, Anthony Sher as Prospero, Chuk Iwuji as Henry VI, Paul Schofield as King Lear, Sara Kestleman as Titania, Ian McKellen and Francesca Annis as Romeo and Juliet accompanied by a line from a play rendered in gorgeous expressive lettering. I know that lettering has been applied to portraits for centuries, but these have a particularly graphic novel feel about them — the expressiveness, the iconic phrases used, the packing of text into white space, these are all ideas best known (to me at least) from the world of comics. Makes a lovely change from your usual setting of Shakespeare for stuff like this in an antique revival type — and is perfect for a company like the RSC. Get them from Royal Mail here.

Were five stolen masterpieces worth
£400m crushed in rubbish truck after
'art heist of the century'?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047140/Five-masterpieces-stolen-Paris-museum-art-heist-century-crushed-rubish-truck.html

the MUSEUM of Obsolete Objects

click if you dare

Yakov G. Chernikov (1889–1951) Yakov G. Chernikov (1889–1951), was a Russian artist, designer, and architect learned in classical and modern styles. As a draftsman he was on par with Piranesi and Rembrandt; his most forward-thinking drawings resemble the style of Yoshitaka Amano. This combination of knowledge and skill made him one of the most accomplished Russian Constructivist writers and architects; Chernikov designed sixty buildings—although most were not built—and wrote numerous books about architecture and graphic design.

















In the late 1920s the state-controlled world of Soviet architecture began to turn against the Constructivists. In 1932 Stalin tired of the pointless political debate between Constructivism’s remaining supporters and many critics. He barred architects from political speech and limited Soviet architecture to classical revival. Unable to practice in his Constructivist style, Chernikov began drawing architectural fantasies that were usually not intended to be built. But he still needed work free from politics and in the 1940s he began to study and draw typefaces, an activity unlikely to draw attention.

Intended for used in an architecture textbook Chernikov’s typeface drawings are examinations of historical alphabets. These are not the overly rationalized alphabets of the renaissance, although Chernikov did examine the alphabets of Durer and Tory. Chernikov’s letters are modeled on historical forms, drawn onto grids with notation about proportion and geometry. The grids are arranged as tables for easy comparison. Consistent with Chernikov’s belief that graphics are superior to words these tables can be understood without Russian literacy. Most of the alphabets are Russian Cyrillic but there are also examinations of Slavonic, Latin, Greek, Phoenician, Persian Cuneiform, Cypriot, Demotic, Hebrew, Burmese, Samaritan, Tibetan, Syriac, Ethiopic, Palmyrian, Manchu, Arabic, Formosan, Iberian, and Georgian alphabets.

















Chernikov also excelled at non-objective drawing, leading him to develop complex ornaments in a new constructed style. His ornamental drawings reveal a powerful imagination and great technical skill. Chernikov achieved accuracy and beauty that rival great Islamic ornamentation without aping it. At a glance these ornaments resemble Spirograph drawings; examination reveals myriad circles painstakingly drawn along a path combine to form lively gestures. Chernikov drew by hand what today can seem only possible with a computer.

These days we too often use terms like original and visionary indiscriminately,

but here, sadly, is a rare instance where those words actually seem to fit. Steve Jobs was both those things, and like Edison and the Wrights before him, he re-shaped the universe. In this world of coal, he was a diamond.

Bauhaus in Tel Aviv series 2002

Designed by Saharr Aharoni.

The other day I had nice visit with a former student who came by to catch me up. He's returning to design school again after a couple of years working freelance in the fashion industry - doing print and web design. He's done quite well, and it was, he felt - the right time for him to go back to school and finish this phase of his studies.

Whilst a student - he had, I'd noticed - something about him ? A rare skill as it turns out. Sure he was gifted, but that's not really that uncommon - no, that wasn't it, and he was also, despite his relatively young age - quite sophisticated, but that wasn't it either.

Nope ... what made him unique was - he knew something all on his own, something that takes years to develop really, if it ever develops at all. It's something that most designers never really understand - or if they do suspect its existence - they're afraid to let it out of the box.

He knew when to stop.

He understood how to let a material, a simple line, or a discreet concept - speak for itself. He rarely overdid things. He knew when to sit back, when to push himself away from the table, he knew how, and most importantly - when to finish....

It's something that you need to always keep in mind - because it's as important to design, as silence is to music.

Here's a link to a personal project that he and his brother are collaborating on. Cheers

Collaboration with Braun

Midway through the decade of the 50s, the HfG and Braun, began a phase of cooperation. Braun needed to stand out from the competition and asked Otl Aicher, Hans Gugelot, and students to work on new designs for the company. Dieter Rams, who was a newly hired Braun designer, collaborated with HfG on developing the forward-looking Braun product design approach. With this partnership the "Braun style" was developed, and according to Thomas Maldonado, "the style differed from Olivetti who sought unity in variety, while the style of Braun sought unity in the product and its coherence with other products. Because of this, the Braun-HfG collaboration was a formidable test bench for the design of "honest" form and coherent identity as an alternative to the random "styling" of individual objects.

btw. doesn't the radio's styling remind you of another, now rather ubiquitous entity ? extra marks you slackers !

D1&2- click on the image to enlarge it. and if you can .....

notice the bold yet balanced composition, and the overall elegance of

the pages proportions, the lovely sinuous line of the letterforms, and

particularly see the way some descending letters extend beyond the text

block - so as to better balance the pages dense blackletter body type.

This is accomplished by the letters descenders reaching out like a blackbirds

tail - beyond the text grid into the empty space and do note - the singular

hidden beauty, of the rather obscured ornate scroll work found just behind the

Capital h on the right or (recto) page...

bloody remarkable ... you can't do this on your iPhone punk

"The International Typographic Style, also known as the Swiss Style, is a graphic design style developed in Switzerland in the 1950s that emphasizes cleanliness, readability and objectivity.^[1]Hallmarks of the style are asymmetric layouts, use of a grid, sans-serif typefaces like Akzidenz Grotesk, and flush left, ragged right text. The style is also associated with a preference for photography in place of illustrations or drawings. Many of the early International Typographic Style works featured typography as a primary design element in addition to its use in text, and it is for this that the style is named.^[2]"

dig 1 und 2 please visit der links

Ulm School of Design

the Design two- "it's not what you know ... ,

BUT who you know", list "

Walter Gropius

Edgar Brandt

Harley Earl

David Carson

The Eames

Norman BelGeddes

Weiner Werkstatte

Arne Jacobson

Marcello Nizzoli

Wesley and Sean

Tangerine Studio

Joseph Hofmann

Henry VanDerVelde

Gerrit Reitveld

Rudy Van derLans

George Jensen

George Nelson

Dieter Ram

Adbusters

Georg Kleeman

Richard Sapper

Peter Saville

GTF

William Morris

Charles Rennie Macintosh

the Bauhaus

Hoefler & Frere Jones

Micheal Graves

Frank Lloyd Wright

Phillipe Starck

Norman Foster

Alvar Alto

Milton Glaser

R. Buckminster Fuller

Eric Gill

Brad Holland

Memphis Group

Herbert Mayer

William Van Allen

Marrianne Brandt

Jonathan Ive

Alvin Lustig

Chip Kidd

Tangerine

Paul Rand

Henry Van de Velde

William Morris

Welles Coates

Raymond Lowey

Robin and Lucienne Day

Wally Olins

Mies van der Rohe

Emigre

Ellen Lupton

Tobias Freres

Joseph Muller Brockmann

LeCorbusier

Seymour Chwast

Pentagram

Push Pin Studios

Aubrey Beardsley

the Dadaists

John Heartfield

Ettore Stottas

the Constructivists

Hector Guimard

Firmin Didot

Jasper Morrison

Christopher Wren

Bruno Matheson

Victor Horta

Antonin Gaudi

Alexey Brodovitch

Alphonse Mucha

Fredric Law Olmstead

Alessi

Rene Lalique

Johannis Itten

Richard Neutra

The incredible 3D Drawing Machine from Florence

Imagine a machine that lets you draw in perfect perspective

with nothing but your own eyes and a pen? Artists Ryan and

Trevor Oakes have invented a machine to draw realistic scenes

in perspective. Their unique machine helps them use a technique

which splits the ocular system allowing them to create views

that match the field of view of human vision.

Here's the video link http://vimeo.com/26633949

the brilliant work of Krzystof Domadrdzki. Here's the link. Thanks to Davido

from the department of " the profoundly stupid ",

here's a nutter from Norfolk England - 'wheres

Waldo ? tattoo. btw in England - he's called Wally,

rather than Waldo, and in a stunning instance of

staggering cosmic irony, in England a "Wally" is

also the word for an utter idiot. Careful what you tattoo

click to enlarge, where's Wally ?

a very talented former student recommended this item, Mr.Charles DeFleuvio, aka Chuck

Hey smelly..Wanna win a free trip to Hawaii ? ( in your mind ) who's this ?

by Steven Heller

Anon, short for anonymous, is as common in art history as Smith is in American telephone directories. Yet for a specific work to have its maker buried in an unmarked grave in history’s Potters Field is a sad epitaph indeed.

Credit implies ownership and accountability. Around the eighteenth century art became more commonly a function of individual creators who received credit. The term Anon is less commonly found in art histories of this era. In fact, the signature became an important component of a work, even for lesser artists.

While not on the lowest rung of the art hierarchy, illustrators and cartoonists of the nineteenth century started signing their wares as much for their personal satisfaction as for the recognition it afforded them in an increasingly competitive marketplace. And not only did the illustrator’s signature appear, so did the engraver’s and printmaker’s — akin to the lengthy acknowledgments found in contemporary graphic design annuals. By the mid-nineteenth century credit on a printed work was even given to the printing firm. Yet amid this flurry of credit only certain artists were actually allowed to sign what was rightfully theirs. The leading illustrators and cartoonists made their marks, but many lesser ones were prohibited from doing so owing to rules established by the client. Moreover, while the printing companies affixed their imprimaturs, usually the individuals who set the type, made the layouts, and probably even “designed” the page on which artwork was a component, did not.

Arranging type was merely a skill considered unworthy of individual credit. And to a certain extent this was appropriate, for as the earliest practitioners of graphic design, most printers and compositors blindly followed the styles dictated by a few leading commercial artists and promoted by “art service agencies,” the so-called sweat shops of design which began to have influence around the turn of the century. It was in this way that graphic design began to develop into an anonymous profession.

However, to assert that all graphic designers during this formative period were anonymous would nevertheless be a distortion. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the initial surge of graphically designed things began, the exemplars who created posters, magazine covers, and trademarks, regularly signed their names — or identifiable pseudonyms — on all their works. In the chicken and egg history of graphic design it remains unclear whether these artists made the profession or vice-versa. But during this period in the expansion of Western commerce many graphic designers actively competed for business by developing personal styles which they promoted in trade magazines and throughout other media, which they did every bit as aggressively as a product they might be commissioned to advertise. Nevertheless, for each designer with a recognizable signature scores of anonymous ones were regularly churning out the overwhelming majority of commercial art for art service agencies, printers, sign painters, and display shops.

The ethic of American individualism was irrelevant to this service-oriented profession. Graphic design was an adjunct to advertising, used to focus, position, and make an idea or product more appealing. The purpose of design was to shed light on the product, not the designer. In addition to the benign indifference of design directors and practitioners, the commercial art field echoed some of the progressive, yet nevertheless dehumanizing, developments in American industry. Old photographs of art service agencies showing row upon row of mostly men dutifully sitting at their drawing boards suggest a veritable production-line procedure that eliminated the individual’s role in a total creation.

Anonymity was perpetuated by the profession itself. Even the trade magazines from the teens and early twenties routinely neglected to publish the names of the makers of work selected for publication as examples of the best of a particular discipline. While some commercial artists did earn fame and fortune, they represented a small percentage of the entire working population. Conversely, in Europe, especially the great industrial nations — England, France, Germany, and Italy — anonymity was not as common owing to commercial arts magazines and advertising trade shows which not only aggressively touted the profession as a whole but promoted the leading stylists as stars of the popular culture. Names of the masters, like the Beggerstaffs, Lucian Bernhard, Ludwig Hohlwein, Jean Carlu, A.M. Cassandre, Leonetto Cappiello are known today, but at the time, even designers on the second and third levels were known by name – if not by the general public, then within the field.

The anonymity of American practitioners further fostered American mediocrity. When compared to the average European poster and magazine, American graphic design of the teens and twenties was decidedly lackluster. Arguably an anonymous designer is neither held accountable or feels responsible for bad work. Taking credit forces adherence to certain standards.

American commercial art was anonymous yet it was also a profession on the rise. A number of trade schools and correspondence courses began before World War I (many were located in the Midwest). And while not promising fame they did offer fortune in the fields of advertising, posters, book jackets, brochures through the mastery of lettering, story-boarding, as well as fashion and product illustration. With an influx of people entering the field it wasn’t long before clubs and societies organizing exhibitions and annuals were founded. Of course, this kind of recognition fueled egos and forced designers to demand due credit for their work.

During the twenties competition for jobs increased as well, and in addition to agency and studio positions graphic design became a profession largely of freelancers. Promotional books like The Graphic Arts Yearbook, similar to today’s Creative Black Book, published listings and ads for hundreds of eager practitioners. Given that prior to World War I the field was comprised overwhelmingly by anonymous printers and compositors the scores of display ads in the 1928 Yearbook, for example, promoting the services of named designers, letterers, calligraphers, layout artists, and so on, indicated a move away from anonymity as an accepted convention. However, today the number of commercial artists represented in that and subsequent Yearbooks ring few bells of recognition in the profession’s memory.

History sifts out all but the most notable designers. Yet while plenty of time has passed since graphic design’s infancy, little history was recorded. So despite the fact that more and more practitioners were beginning to sign and advertise their work in the late twenties, the society as a whole refused to acknowledge them as anything more than equivalent of migrant cultural laborers. The only graphic designers who rose above the anonymity imposed on them by apathetic cultural pundits and historians were those who either transcended the limitations of graphic design, such as the so-called Designers for Industry including Walter Dorwin Teague, Raymond Loewy and others, who in the 1930s practiced industrial, interior and product design as well as graphics, and the European emigrés, including Herbert Bayer, Laslo Moholy Nagy and others, who came to the U.S. bearing the torch of Modernism.

These design luminaries did not simply make images that might have been popular only in their day — and are currently revived as vernacular — but developed a canon with long lasting influence. Design became less anonymous, and virtually well known, when the results of the designer’s labors had lasting effects. Some of the American followers of the Modern movement also realized the deleterious effects of anonymity on their professional standing too.

Paul Rand admited that the only reason he signed his work consistently from a very early age was to advertise himself. “Having my name on an ad or magazine cover in the public’s eye,” he told this interviewer, “was the best promotion I could ever get.” Likewise, other great names and original design thinkers, such as Lester Beall, Alvin Lustig, Leo Lionni, Cipe Pineles, among them, were recognized both by clients and their peers because they routinely signed their wares. However, the act of signing one’s work did not insure commissions or immortality — quality has always been the deciding factor — but it did indicate that an individual was responsible and took pride for the work.

Today everyone in the collaborative design process wants some of the glory when its offered. But has graphic design, far from being anonymous, become too individual? Style versus no-style? Does one serve the client or oneself? And who should really be served?

In an ideal world all designers with passion and conviction should be recognized for what they do, but in the real world, graphic design is still a service to businesses and institutions. Nonetheless, designers should not be Anon.

(Illustration above: Albrecht Durer’s monogram has become one of the most well-known designed signatures in art and design history.)