6- Design History
In this module, we will we will be looking at graphic design history. In visual design, as with most disciplines, history is important. Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat is - or so the adage goes.
Graphic design has a fairly short history. Most of the graphic designers who ever lived are still alive today. (As you read, you will see that the field of graphic design didn't really exist until the art nouveau era.) Until the early-70s, the field was typically called "Commercial Art" and was the unloved, deformed child of most college art departments. Somewhere along the way though, people began to recognize that we are being bombarded with visual information. This one brief unit is a very slight overview, summarized from the 575 page Meggs' History of Graphic Design. I skipped over a few of the finer points.
Recognizing a recycled visual idea is valuable. If you recognize it, you know who its visual mothers and fathers were. You can recognize what it was communicating back during its inception. Best of all you can tweak and reinvent that message to make your visual message more effective. We have all studied Shakespeare, Dickens and Hemingway, in the hopes that doing so would improve our writing and perceptive skills. We need these same sorts of exercises in the visual arena.
Sadly, there are not a lot of articles on Graphic Design history available on the internet. I have condensed the essence of the Meggs book down to a dozen pages, which means that I have only provided the barest explanation of styles and trends. I have also included a series of short video lectures, which do a better job of explaining the periods and the styles. Please do the readings and watch the videos. Then think about where and how you see some of these styles applied in your daily life.
Readings
Note: to keep the file size small, These pdf will only open with adobe acrobat 6 or later versions. (If they don't open for you, download a newer version of acrobat).
- A Short History of Design
- Meggs History of Graphic Design - chapter 18 - International Typographic Style
- Graphic Design, A Concise History by Richard Hollis - Excerpts from chapters 19 & 20
Video Lectures
All lectures are online outside of Blackboard: http://www.ibiblio.org/vc/lectures/
- Introduction - (5:17)
- The Victorians - (6:41)
- The Art Poster - (6:39)
- Art Nouveau - (5:43)
- Art Deco - (5:45)
- Modernism - part 1 - (8:31)
- Modernism - part 2 - Constructivism - (3:51)
- Modernism - part 3 - Bauhaus, de Stijl - (9:54)
- Modernism - part 4 - America - (4:00)
- Pictorial Realism - (6:05)
- International Style - part 1 - (7:20)
- International Style - part 2 - (5:53)
- Psychedelic - (6:14)
- Pictorial Realism - (8:02)
Recommended Readings:
Timeline for Graphic Design History by Michael Kroeger (it's in the middle of the page - you'll have to scroll to find it)
Discussion
The pendulum of design swung from organic realism to stylized expressionism to streamlined analytical design between 1850 and 1930. Which of the styles of that era do you identify with and why? Provide specific examples.
Johanna Drucker, one of the few art historians to give extended consideration to graphic design, has argued that, "There is perhaps no more perverse (and successful) transformation of the formal radicality of early modernism into the seamless instrument of corporate capitalist enterprise than this progression from radical graphic aesthetics into Swiss-style modern design". Drucker is referring here to the cancellation (for it was essentially that) of the typographic experiments of such figures as Marinetti, Apollinaire, and Tzara-- artists conspicuous for their intensive engagement with the graphical technologies of their own day -- by the subsequent streamlined elegance of Jan Tschichold’s New Typography and by Bauhaus.
The Other End of Print by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
Do you agree with this viewpoint? Is graphic design merely the diluted commercialization of true creativity?
Select one style. Find and post (in the forums) a contemporary example of that design style influencing design today.
Assignment
This is the second week of Digital Scrapbook - Part 2
For full assignment details, please refer to the assignments section in Blackboard