Notes
Swiss design and International Typographrey style is interchangeable
Swiss design
visual unity is achieved through a-semesrtical composition
imbrues object photography
embraces idea of san-serif
flush left, rag right
mathematical grids
“We create things therefore we make things that are socially acceptable”
“More important than the appearance is the attitude”
Deshitl, New typography, and Bauhaus influence Swiss Design
Max Bill and Theo Balmer - Swiss designers from Bauhaus
Max Bill - makes Ulm school in Germany about design
school introduces study of Semiotics
or
what things mean in relationship to other things
3 main parts
Syntactic - the order of things
Semantics - meaning or refereed to
Pragmatic - way to use it
Armin Hofmann - Swiss design
“Design the negative space and the rest will work”
did some work of Herman Miller
Josh Muller Brockmann
looking for an absolute and graphic expression
used intensity and clarity
Swiss Modernism vs. NYC Modernism
Paul Ran, Saul Bass, Ivan Chermayeff
Modernism starts to get into advertising design
Europe approach - theoretical
NY approach - graphic
Paul Ran - created UPS logo
does some work for container company
Saw Bass - most known for film titles
Man with a Golden Arm
Anatomy of a Murder
logo design - United Airline and AT&T
Ivan Chermayeff - designed Chase logo
“A dot has no meaning but it can become something with just to position
Post-modernism - a break with earlier modernist principles
seen in art, design, literature, and architecture
Characteristics:
emphasis on fell other than rationale
emphasis on surface, texture, and material
self-consciousness or self-referencing
mixes high and low
historical references
vernacular
Comes with super graphics
Wolfgang Wiengard - recreated how to use a led press
Students:
Dan Freedman - brought Wiengard design to America
April Greiman
Form does not follow function, forum becomes the meaning to exist
Thoughts
Today was the last lecture class of history. We still meet two more times, but one is to take a test and the other is to do presentations. I don’t know if it was that it was that fact, the topics, or that I had a bunch of jelly beans with me - but I felt like the class wouldn’t end.
Anyway, it was still good. We didn’t have a movie but we did do a a like mock visual test with him putting up different visuals and asking us what we see. Though everyone got their own image when he said, “Martha Steward killing kittens in a blander and serving it to Mother Teresa.” Now that was a disturbing image - but defiantly a way to get people’s attention.
But the class is over now, the semester nearly over with it. I still don’t really like type and the idea of bouncing up and down to see the latest poster design my a particular person doesn’t appeal to me either. I know I’m a strange artist, but it’s who I am. I don’t fault anyone who is like that, just don’t demand I join your cult.
