Friday, May 15 was the last day for our influential designer presentations, as well as the last day of class. There were only two left and we heard about Kyle Cooper and Shepard Fairey.
Kyle Cooper is a title sequence creator who was influenced by Saul Bass, famous for his innovative design for movie titles, and Stephen Frankfurt. Frankfurt did the title sequence for the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird". Kyle has done the titles for all three Spider-Man movies, Seven, Dawn of the Dead and Curious George to name a few. He uses experimental type, montages, cartoons, and smooth transitions. He really gives the viewer an introduction to the movie they are about to see and he does it well. He has a company called Prolouge and also does TV animation for commercials and TV stations/channels.
Shepard Fairey was born in South Carolina and was influenced by skate parks, punk music and pop culture. He started out making stickers for skateboards and continued that tradition later on. He is part poster designer, part vandal and likes to make a statement. One of his biggest projects is "Obey" with his Andre the Giant drawing. He also does posters for bands and political and social issues. The posters Fairey designs have an Art Deco influence with dark images, bold fonts, sunbursts and hidden messages.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Influential Designers: Day 4
On Wednesday May 13, we had our second to last day of influential designer presentations. We learned about Stephen Stagmeister, Clement Mok, and Leo Burnett.
Stephen Stagmeister was for sure a very unique and unconventional designer. I enjoyed hearing about him and his work very much. He was born in Austria and studied in New York. He worked with Leo Burnett and Tibor Kalman, who was his greatest influence. He appreciated Tibor's typographic style and the support he gave social issues, as well as things he believed in. Stephen did a lot of handwritten work and photography. He liked using the human body a lot in his images because it's familiar and relateable. One of the most interesting ways he used the human body was in an image of his own body where his intern cut words into his skin. Most of his works were for music groups or for social issues like the True Majority Initiative.
Clement Mok started out working for Apple and designing software for the Mackintosh computer. The skills he acquired there helped him in his own business later on where he had the capabilities to meet any need a client may have, including web design. He did a lot of idenity systems for companies like Adobe, IBM, and Sony. He work sometimes has an Art Deco feel to it, but is mostly freehand and drawings. It's geometric and bold and he likes to use symbolism and abstract images.
Leo Burnett was an advertising executive that was responsible for many of the cereal box characters that we grew up with, like Tony the tiger and Tucan Sam. He had started out working for Cadillac Motors, but joined the ad industry later on. In 1935 he opened up his own company in Chicago. He got some criticism and some people told him he'd never do well, but he did and proved them wrong. His personal logos are based off of what he believes and how people told him that he would fail and wind up selling apples in the streets. They are an apple, for obvious reasons, a hand reaching for stars, for his famous quote about reaching for them even if what you get isn't a star, and a black pencil to represent humanity and hard work.
Stephen Stagmeister was for sure a very unique and unconventional designer. I enjoyed hearing about him and his work very much. He was born in Austria and studied in New York. He worked with Leo Burnett and Tibor Kalman, who was his greatest influence. He appreciated Tibor's typographic style and the support he gave social issues, as well as things he believed in. Stephen did a lot of handwritten work and photography. He liked using the human body a lot in his images because it's familiar and relateable. One of the most interesting ways he used the human body was in an image of his own body where his intern cut words into his skin. Most of his works were for music groups or for social issues like the True Majority Initiative.
Clement Mok started out working for Apple and designing software for the Mackintosh computer. The skills he acquired there helped him in his own business later on where he had the capabilities to meet any need a client may have, including web design. He did a lot of idenity systems for companies like Adobe, IBM, and Sony. He work sometimes has an Art Deco feel to it, but is mostly freehand and drawings. It's geometric and bold and he likes to use symbolism and abstract images.
Leo Burnett was an advertising executive that was responsible for many of the cereal box characters that we grew up with, like Tony the tiger and Tucan Sam. He had started out working for Cadillac Motors, but joined the ad industry later on. In 1935 he opened up his own company in Chicago. He got some criticism and some people told him he'd never do well, but he did and proved them wrong. His personal logos are based off of what he believes and how people told him that he would fail and wind up selling apples in the streets. They are an apple, for obvious reasons, a hand reaching for stars, for his famous quote about reaching for them even if what you get isn't a star, and a black pencil to represent humanity and hard work.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Influential Designers: Day 3
We had our third day of influential designer presentations on Monday May 11. The class heard about Tibor Kalman, David Carson , and Matthew Carter.
Tibor Kalman was born in Hungary, but grew up and attended school in New York where he spent an isolated childhood. He put all his time alone to good use in his designs, though. He did a lot of designs around social issues and making sure his ideas got out there. One of the major things he did was for Benetton magazine and their campaign "The United Colors of Benetton". This project lead to Tibor's own magazine called "Colors". On top of this project he had a studio with his wife, Maria, called M&Co. where he did many things including odd objects like paperweights and watches. He has a very quirky, fun style and you can see that in the work that he does.
David Carson is another designer that I really enjoyed learning about. He did a lot of experimental typography in his designs and had no formal classes. He didn't believe in a grid system and didn't have a theory about his work. He really just let it be what it was and expressive. His most famous saying was, "Legibility should not be mistaken for communication," which meant that just because the viewer could read the message didn't mean that it was compelling. He was the art director for 5 different magazines and was most well known for his work for "Raygun".
Matthew Carter is a typographer and type designer. He learned young how to make the type from his father, who influenced him a lot. He was also influenced by other type designers like Andrea Mantegna and Robert Granjon. Some of his well known type faces are Bell Centenial, which is still used today in the phonebook, and Walker. He also came up with the ink trap in his letters where the ink would have somewhere to bleed and still have a sharp corner. He is known for redesigning the Museum of Modern Art logo so that it would be easily recognisable to even those who couldn't read the letters in it, and he also owned the largest type foundry, Bitstream, Inc.
Tibor Kalman was born in Hungary, but grew up and attended school in New York where he spent an isolated childhood. He put all his time alone to good use in his designs, though. He did a lot of designs around social issues and making sure his ideas got out there. One of the major things he did was for Benetton magazine and their campaign "The United Colors of Benetton". This project lead to Tibor's own magazine called "Colors". On top of this project he had a studio with his wife, Maria, called M&Co. where he did many things including odd objects like paperweights and watches. He has a very quirky, fun style and you can see that in the work that he does.
David Carson is another designer that I really enjoyed learning about. He did a lot of experimental typography in his designs and had no formal classes. He didn't believe in a grid system and didn't have a theory about his work. He really just let it be what it was and expressive. His most famous saying was, "Legibility should not be mistaken for communication," which meant that just because the viewer could read the message didn't mean that it was compelling. He was the art director for 5 different magazines and was most well known for his work for "Raygun".
Matthew Carter is a typographer and type designer. He learned young how to make the type from his father, who influenced him a lot. He was also influenced by other type designers like Andrea Mantegna and Robert Granjon. Some of his well known type faces are Bell Centenial, which is still used today in the phonebook, and Walker. He also came up with the ink trap in his letters where the ink would have somewhere to bleed and still have a sharp corner. He is known for redesigning the Museum of Modern Art logo so that it would be easily recognisable to even those who couldn't read the letters in it, and he also owned the largest type foundry, Bitstream, Inc.
Influential Designers: Day 2
On Friday, May 8 we had our second round of influential designer presentations. The class heard about Neville Brody, Art Chantry, and Storm Thorgerson.
Neville Brody grew up and attended school in London. He was highly influenced by the punk music scene and it shows in his work. The type is really bold and streamlined and the total layouts of many of his designs hold a lot of energy. A lot of people disapproved of his work, calling it rebellious, but he continued on and became very successful. Neville worked on record covers and t-shirts, several magazine publications, as well as his own called "Fuse", and his own studio, Research Studios.
Art Chantry grew up in Washington state with his mother and abusive father. When Art and his mother left, they had very little funds and Art had to grow up in a rough nieghborhood. When he finally made it to college there were difficulties there for him too. He had started out attending a private religous school, but he didn't feel comfortable there. However, he did find out that he wanted to be a designer and started classes at a community college. There he felt like he didn't fit in. Many of the classes were fine arts based and didn't want advertisements or messages in the works. Art finally settled in at Western Washington State University. He didn't like working on the computer with digital images and preferred recycling actual pieces and making them something new. He even printed his type by hand. I really enjoyed his work because of how he would find images and just manipulate them by hand. He used what he had and could find and made something really cool out of that.
Storm Thorgerson is also a designer that I enjoyed. He is also an English born designer who never actually had any design schooling. He's mostly known for the album covers that he's done for Pink Floyd, as well as many others, but he also did some TV and commercial work. He tried to work with music videos, but they didn't turn out as successful as he would have liked. Storm works with photography for the most part and likes to layer pieces of pictures together. His images contain a large central object or figure, with a smaller secondary figure, and he likes to make his images so that you look and ask questions. They hold a surreal feeling to them and they always seem to make you think about what's going on because they are strange in the sense that they are different than anything that is out there now. Storm also had a couple of his own studios, one of which was "Hipgnosis". It was a creative photography studio that he started with his partner Aubrey Powell. Currently he is still working for many rock artists and freelancing from another studio, StormStudios.
Neville Brody grew up and attended school in London. He was highly influenced by the punk music scene and it shows in his work. The type is really bold and streamlined and the total layouts of many of his designs hold a lot of energy. A lot of people disapproved of his work, calling it rebellious, but he continued on and became very successful. Neville worked on record covers and t-shirts, several magazine publications, as well as his own called "Fuse", and his own studio, Research Studios.
Art Chantry grew up in Washington state with his mother and abusive father. When Art and his mother left, they had very little funds and Art had to grow up in a rough nieghborhood. When he finally made it to college there were difficulties there for him too. He had started out attending a private religous school, but he didn't feel comfortable there. However, he did find out that he wanted to be a designer and started classes at a community college. There he felt like he didn't fit in. Many of the classes were fine arts based and didn't want advertisements or messages in the works. Art finally settled in at Western Washington State University. He didn't like working on the computer with digital images and preferred recycling actual pieces and making them something new. He even printed his type by hand. I really enjoyed his work because of how he would find images and just manipulate them by hand. He used what he had and could find and made something really cool out of that.
Storm Thorgerson is also a designer that I enjoyed. He is also an English born designer who never actually had any design schooling. He's mostly known for the album covers that he's done for Pink Floyd, as well as many others, but he also did some TV and commercial work. He tried to work with music videos, but they didn't turn out as successful as he would have liked. Storm works with photography for the most part and likes to layer pieces of pictures together. His images contain a large central object or figure, with a smaller secondary figure, and he likes to make his images so that you look and ask questions. They hold a surreal feeling to them and they always seem to make you think about what's going on because they are strange in the sense that they are different than anything that is out there now. Storm also had a couple of his own studios, one of which was "Hipgnosis". It was a creative photography studio that he started with his partner Aubrey Powell. Currently he is still working for many rock artists and freelancing from another studio, StormStudios.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Influential Designers: Day 1
Wednesday, May 6 was the first day of our influential designer presentations. The class heard about April Grieman, Milton Glaser, and Seymour Chwast.
April Grieman went to school at the Kansas City Art Institute, where she learned about modernism, and attended graduate school at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland. At Basel, she discovered New Wave design with the help of Wolfgang Weinhart, one of her professors, and began to design in that style. New Wave had mostly to do with the way the typography was designed, which was unconventional and innovative. She later became involved with photograpy and digital imaging. April inspired the beginning of digital design with the images she was creating, especially with the Design Quartery #133 image. It wasn't like what anyone else had done before or even seen and she became very influential to this way of designing.
Milton Glaser attended an art and music high school and Cooper Union with Seymour Chwast and the other members of the Push Pin Studio, which they formed in 1954. Both have a similar cartoonish way of designing and drawing, using thin black lines and art nouveau influences. Milton had a more simplistic and direct style and tended to leave out details, allowing the viewer to fill them in, while Seymour explored typography more and had a very distinct sense of humor in his pieces. After Milton left the Push Pin studio he worked on several different projects. He had a couple of his own companies, one of which was Milton Glaser Inc, where he worked with many periodicals or did his own print graphics. Seymour stuck with the Studio and expanded it and published the Studio's own periodical that lasted for about 5 years. He became well known for his poster designs and wrote and illustrated around 20 of his own children's books.
April Grieman went to school at the Kansas City Art Institute, where she learned about modernism, and attended graduate school at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland. At Basel, she discovered New Wave design with the help of Wolfgang Weinhart, one of her professors, and began to design in that style. New Wave had mostly to do with the way the typography was designed, which was unconventional and innovative. She later became involved with photograpy and digital imaging. April inspired the beginning of digital design with the images she was creating, especially with the Design Quartery #133 image. It wasn't like what anyone else had done before or even seen and she became very influential to this way of designing.
Milton Glaser attended an art and music high school and Cooper Union with Seymour Chwast and the other members of the Push Pin Studio, which they formed in 1954. Both have a similar cartoonish way of designing and drawing, using thin black lines and art nouveau influences. Milton had a more simplistic and direct style and tended to leave out details, allowing the viewer to fill them in, while Seymour explored typography more and had a very distinct sense of humor in his pieces. After Milton left the Push Pin studio he worked on several different projects. He had a couple of his own companies, one of which was Milton Glaser Inc, where he worked with many periodicals or did his own print graphics. Seymour stuck with the Studio and expanded it and published the Studio's own periodical that lasted for about 5 years. He became well known for his poster designs and wrote and illustrated around 20 of his own children's books.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Seymour Chwast
He is thought of as one of the greatest graphic designers of his time, well known for his commercial works and typefaces. Seymour Chwast’s unique design got him the nickname “the left-handed designer” and numerous awards. His life, involvement in the Push Pin Studio, and the commercial art that made him famous are each elements of Seymour that continue to influence designers around the world.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Psychedelic Posters
Psychedelic posters were identified as such because the media and most people related them to the rebel cause and psychedelic drugs. They were characterized by curves like in art nouveau, warped lettering and complementary colors that ranged very close in values. Most often these posters were social statements versus advertisments, which were influenced by events such as the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and the women's liberation movement. A majority of the artists that contributed to the psychedelic poster movement did not professionally taught and designed mostly for band concerts and dance clubs. Robert Wesley Wilson was at the head of the movement as the innovator and among one of the strongest self-taught designers. Other designers were Peter Max, who experimented often with printing techniques and different mediums, and David Lance Goines. He was kicked out of the University of California at Berkeley and worked for a press and later owned it and called it the Saint Hieronymous Press. He combined lithography and graphic design to create effective communications for both himself and the public. His work is characterized by the simple lines and contours, flat color, and symmetrical design. By the 80's, the poster was printed for decoration and photos and painting became posters for the masses with the artist's names and the work title printed as part of the piece.
I just like this style in general. It is so unique and different from previous movements and it wasn't used for advertisements outside of band concerts. I just like the self-expressionism of the style and the incorporation of art nouveau with the combination of bright colors. I also like Goines' individual style. I feel like you could pick his work out very easily since it is so distinct.
Why was the psychedelic poster movement so short?
I just like this style in general. It is so unique and different from previous movements and it wasn't used for advertisements outside of band concerts. I just like the self-expressionism of the style and the incorporation of art nouveau with the combination of bright colors. I also like Goines' individual style. I feel like you could pick his work out very easily since it is so distinct.
Why was the psychedelic poster movement so short?
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