Design Theory S14

Reading 3

Constructivism

“Every invention in art is a single event in time, has no evolution.”

Technical aspects are inseparable from the artistic aspect. Technical inventions are the Gutenberg press and nothing-substantial invention until the advent of photography.

Creativity is not private property.

The printed sheet transcends space and time. The infinity of the book must be transcended. The electro-library. Foreseeing the E-Book?

Rodchenko

Rodchenko is one of three original founders of the constructivist movement. Rodchenko used a simple color palate mostly consisting of red, white, black, green and sometimes blue. He is known for strong diagonal vectors. Eventually he came to love photography and photomontage.

El Lissistsky

He was greatly aware of the literacy rates in his country. He believed graphic design and art as a whole could communicate to the mostly illiterate populace.

Stenbergs

This team of design brothers were inseparable. They utilized contrast, using changes of scale and extreme close-ups. Again as with many constructivists they utilized a limited but highly vivid color palate.

Syntax Poster

Syntax

Process Poster

Changes:

-I centered the design because I feel it makes it more impactful.

-I added more radial rays to give a better sense of movement.

-I split the word Manifest black and red and created interaction with the purple shape. I also added a white stroke to both words to add visual interest and increase legibility.

-I applied gradients to everything except the train and words to imply movement.

American Father of Graphic Design

Paul Rand

Reading Two

Futurist Manifesto

Look forward, not to the past.

War is a necessity for the health of human spirit. War is purification and should be glorified for its “hygienic” properties. Futurists wanted to make a graphical representation of new technology ‘the machine.”

Marinetti

Best known as the author of the Futurist Manifesto, Marinetti was a poet that desperately wanted to defeat the past and move into the future. Thought that art could only be violence, cruelty and injustice. Broke the existing rules of typography by mixing typefaces and varying their angles and sizes. Would try to make the words look how they sound.

Edward Kauffer

Edward Kauffer was an American born artists that is best known for his success abroad; primarily in England. Perhaps best known for his work with the London Underground for which he designed over 100 posters. After much success in London, he moved to New York in 1940. This move did not go well, his designs were not well received by America’s conservative commercial art world.

El Lissitsky

El Lissitsky was a Russian designer that was influenced early on by the Suprematists. The Suprematists believed that art need not serve any function beyond its intrinsic, spiritual value. He eventually broke away from Suprematism in order to serve Russia’s new Communist state with a group called the Constructavists. Lissitsky strongly believed that visual communication had the ability to communicate to the largely illiterate masses and promote social and political change.