Graphic design and Modernism - Seminar notes

Any work which engages with the modern world

Modernist GD is a 0th century phenomonen.  Some work post 1960's

Key characteristics:

• Rejection of ornament (stripped down)  See Adolf Loos Ornament & Crime 1908
• Form sollows function (Lous Sullivan 1896)
• Don't tap into 'fashion' ie Art Deco typography is very much of the 20's
• San serif fonts  - Pailrayner helvetica .Arial
• Looks ageless
• Communicates ie Road signs 
• Style separate

A lot of Modernist design is architectural
Examples
Cheret 2995  - pster design
Toulouse Lautrec  - Directly engages with modern lifestyle og the time
Parole in Liberta ( 'Words in freedom') 1914  Futurists deeply Modernist - experimental type
Typeface rejecting ornamentation
Words are pictoral
Marinetti (1905-) was the leaderof the Futurists who wrote several Futurist manifestos
Example
Fortunat Dapero - Bolted book 1927

1927 Tschichold
New typography - stripped down, unornamental fonts.  Believed GD should be neutral crticied Fraktur fonts (historic and National - Germany)

International typographic style - Switzerland Post WW2 'Neue Grafik' The modernist bible modern grid, grotesque fonts (Helvetica is for Switzerland) Flush left.  Abandoned Illustration

Boyne & Ratteris (1990)
Post modernism and society Aesthetic self reflxiveness eg Jackson pollock does not represent something, reflections on what it is to make a painting
Montage
Paradox, ambiguity and uncertainty
Loss of the intergrated individual subject
Optimism

Pre modern times people knew their roles in society ie a Farmer

Modernity shattered certainty of self, fashion, no longer as confident as they were

Optimism and utopianism - Universal font

Ele lizzitsky 1924 Advert for pelican ink as much about the image he used as about the advert

Conclusion
No essence of Modernist art and design shared by all just a 'family resemblance'
Modernism moves away from an illustionistic realistic way of depicting the world and instead relies on signs and symbols.