International Typographic Style

A new graphic design style emerged in Switzerland in the 1950's that would become the predominant graphic style in the world by the '70s. Because of its strong reliance on typographic elements, the new style came to be known as the International Typographic Style.

The style was marked by: 1) the use of a mathematical grid to provide an overall orderly and unified structure; 2) sans serif typefaces (especially Helvetica, introduced in 1961) in a flush left and ragged right format; and 3) black and white photography in place of drawn illustration. The overall impression was simple and rational, tightly structured and serious, clear and objective, and harmonious.

The style was refined at two design schools in Switzerland, one in Basel led by Armin Hofmann and Emil Ruder, and the other in Zurich under the leadership of Joseph Muller-Brockmann. All had studied with Ernst Keller at the Zurich School of Design before WWII, where the principles of the Bauhaus and Jan Tschichold's New Typography were taught.

The new style became widely synonymous with the "look" of many Swiss cultural institutions which used posters as advertising vehicles. Hofmann's series for the Basel State Theater and Muller-Brockmann's for Zurich's Tonhalle are two of the most famous. Hofmann's accentuation of contrasts between various design elements and Muller-Brockmann's exploration of rhythm and tempo in visual form are high notes in the evolution of the style.

In addition, the new style was perfectly suited to the increasingly global postwar marketplace. Corporations needed international identification and global events such as the Olympics called for universal solutions which the Typographic Style could provide. With such good teachers and proselytizers, the use of the International Typographic Style spread rapidly throughout the world. In the U.S., Hofmann's Basel design school established link with the Yale School of Design, which became the leading American center for the new style

oh oh, trouble in paradise .... ( the image is linked to the story ... )

Digital 2 Assignment 2 - Make one of these, due next week

just kidding ..

The typeface Didot
Fashionable for almost 200 years.

Modern typefaces, characterized by consistently horizontal stress, flat and unbracketed serifs, and a high contrast between thin and thick strokes, were the final step in typography’s two-hundred-year journey away from calligraphy.   

here's my schedule spring/winter 2014

AAaaahhhhh .... vacation

The original Orpheus Typeface design by Walter Tiemann (1926-1928, Klingspor) was certainly a masterpiece. Unfortunately, like so many typefaces of that between-wars era, it got overlooked when type technology changed over to film, and once again when digital type came around. But during the decade or so when it was available on the metal type market, it was quite popular in Germany. 

Tiemann was already famous for having an incomparable instinct for the construct and proportions of classic Roman caps, something that shows in spades here, but the surprising genius of Orpheus at the time was how it managed to seamlessly combine an expert vision of the traditional empire caps with a lowercase that showcases a very fine and precise infusion of that efficient rhythm of modern minimalism that was all the rage in Germany at the time, which of course lives on to this very day.

“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up & get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part & a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you." ~ Chuck Close

click me or I'll smack you ...

A native of London, England Daniel Eatock studied at the Ravensbourne College before earning an MA from the Royal College of Art. Upon completion of his degree he immediately started working for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Since then he has worked for many clients on a wide array of types of projects including graphic design, identity work, furniture design and many others in what could be called a hybrid practice. 

There were several iterations of his current company including the design section of the London-based ad agency BoyMeetsGirl and an informal collaboration with Sam Solhaug called Fonudation 33. He currently operates independently under the company name Eatock, Ltd., and is still located in London. Princeton Architectural Press published his first monograph in 2008 entitled Imprint(image above is from the cover of the book).

Eatock worked together with Jeffrey Vaska to create a web application through which he catalogues his work as his career evolves. He then made it public for anyone to use and there has been a community established to promote its use and development. This site is built using that application (with a few extras), Indexhibit.

An independent graphic design studio, Experimental Jetset is made up of only three people, Marieke Stolk, Danny van den Dungen and Erwin Brinkers. All three members are graduates of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, located in Amsterdam, and have been collaborating since right after their graduation. While their influences are wide-ranging and varied, their aesthetic is closely related to that of the Modernist movement. The resemblance is reinforced by their use of Helvetica, implemented on nearly every one of their projects, as well as their often monochromatic color palette. They have worked with director Gary Hustwit on both of his documentaries,Helvetica and Objectified. 

I'm doing a small job, (a poster) for a museum which specializes in the Decorative Arts. Anyway, they've sent me a bunch of jpegs of the art work for the poster, and amongst them, was this picture of pink silk shoes from the 1830's. Don't they look just like something you'd find today, in a chic little shop in Chelsea or Soho ? I'll take a pair...

I have just learned that this kind of heel is called a Louis heel, and, the name and style originated in the seventeenth century with King Louis XIV.  As he was only five foot three inches tall, he commissioned heels to be made for him to increase his height.  Nobody was allowed to have heels higher than his own. He declared that only nobility could wear red shoes and his shoes were often decorated with battle scenes.  They eventually became popular with ladies, especially King Louis’ mistress, Madame Pompadour.

 In the late 1700’s Napoleon banished high heels in an attempt to show equality.  High heels were associated with opulence and wealth, which was to be avoided at the time. Despite the law, Marie Antoinette went to the guillotine defiantly in two inch heels.

Today the “Louis” term refers to heels with a concave curve and outward taper at the bottom or base of the heel. They are also  rather ergonomic, as the heel is placed directly under the natural heel of the foot, thus creating balance and even distribution of weight which helps keep the back and legs aligned.  

They are, seemingly, quite popular for outdoor wear and weddings in particular, as the heels won’t sink into soft ground as they would with a stiletto heel. Not that I plan to wear that particular heel to any weedings, I mean weddings. Ok maybe ...

Recently, there have been rumors, some might say threats of new platforms or devices from Apple.... 

Perhaps, the most prominent insinuation - has been that of an Apple watch ... well, to set the record straight, that's old news really, very old news in fact.

Here's an Apple watch from the mid 60's (not literally), a decade which admittedly, I have little memory of ... the watch is by Dieter Rams, Brauns Director Emeritus of Design -who is I'm sure you know by now, the real source behind Apple's and Johny Ives' aluminum revolution.  

Of course it looks familiar !

dig it - http://pinterest.com/chrisrbentley/cabinet-of-curiosities/

" The usual aim of the fable is to teach a lesson by drawing attention to animal behaviour and its relationship to human actions and shortcomings. Animals in fables speak metaphorically of human folly, criticizing human nature. Yet it seems that the nature of Karen Knorr’s work has another aim. In  Knorr’s  “Fables”  the animals are not dressed up to resemble humans nor do they illustrate any explicit  moral. Liberated, they roam freely in human territory  drawing attenton to  the unbridged gap between nature and culture. They encroach into the  domain of the museum and other cultural sanctuaries which resolutely forbids their entry.

Indifferent, the animal remains “other”,  a stranger to the context in which it is inserted. The animal is not the real subject of the work nor is architecture.  Karen Knorr’s work shows us the incommensurable distance between two worlds: raw nature on the one hand and on the other the cultural site which allows nature entry only in the form of a representation. Although peaceful, the intrusion of the animals’ presence subverts the institution. The work highlights the “against nature” character of the museum itself.

Karen Knorr’s work  assumes this paradox fully and plays with staging the perception of nature within the domain of representation and artifice. "

Fashion as sculpture - see .... nothing changes, nothing ....

The Confessions of Robert Crumb (1987)

Monster Children magazine, now into it's 38 th issue, has become one of my favorite publications in the surf, skate, photography & design arena. Perhaps it's the magazine-meets-book binding, or the rectangular long-page format. There has been a evolutionary leap from the magazines beginnings as an Aussie surf and skate rag, but they've managed the transition smoothly while still keeping that core content/philosophy intact. 

Monster Children has consistently featured some of the finest guerilla surf photography, and their love of the wave is sincere and profound. As they've grown, that sense of the genuine has stayed with them, and it spills over into everything they do. The Beautiful Losers piece is witty and candid, a refreshingly unpretentious take on one of the most significant gatherings of Pervasive Art ever assembled. It's this ability to walk the line between art and accessibility of culture that sets Monster Children apart from the magazine-rack pack.