Monday, April 27, 2009

David Carson // helvetica // "grunge" era

Carson is considered one of the most influential graphic designers of the nineties. when doing my own work, I really like to use different fonts to express what the piece is about or exaggerate what the words are trying to say and it seems like Carson does that very well. The author of this article seems to be annoyed by Carson's work. I guess some people just want everything standardized! The first picture I posted is from a 1994 Ray Gun magazine which Carson was the art director for. Carson decided that because the article he had to print in the magazine was so boring he would print the entire thing in dingbats, which is hilarious and creative at the same time. The next two posts are just spreads out of the Ray Gun magazine that I think best exemplify Carson's work. The last post is of the cover of Carson's 4th book, Trek, that was released in 2000.


Monday, April 13, 2009

Leonetto Cappiello // Art Nouveau

Leonetto Cappiello is associated with the art nouveau movement. He was born in Italy and lived in Paris and is considered the father of modern advertising because of his design ability with posters. Cappiello had the ability to create a creature, that had nothing to do with the product, and yet somehow it all worked in his poster design. One of the first posters Cappiello made for a merchant product was Amandines de provence in 1900. 
In 1906 Cappiello did a poster for Maurin Quina featuring this green devil creature. 
Isolabella is a poster for a vintage french liquor that Cappiello did in 1910.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Neville Brody // helvetica











Brody is a british designer and art director who founded research studios in 1994. His style is so inspiring because it is so non-traditional. The dirty faces poster is a poster for a font that brody designed. Brody also created FUSE which is a fuse of a magazine, graphic design, and font design. He designed this FUSE poster to promote that project. The "handgloves" another font that brody designed called FF Blur. I also found a couple of THE FACE magazine covers that brody designed.

Joseph Muller Brockman // international style


Brockman was simply a graphic design genius way ahead of his time. I have posted two examples of concert posters that were both done in 1955 by brockman for the Zurich Tonhalle. I really like the Beethoven one because of the unique way the lines mimic an old concert hall. The Strawinsky one is also great beacuse of how modern it is. It looks like a poster you would see around somewhere today. Around the time that he did the concert hall posters he also made a series of posters for the Swiss Automobile Club supporting their "Watch that child!" campaign. The example here is great because of the size relationship between the motorcycle and the child being so exaggerated.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Marcel Duchamp//Dada


Duchamp was involved in the dada movement. Dada was an anti-art cultural movement. Duchamp's work is unconventional and usually involves some kind of humor. The Fountain was unveiled in 1917 and is one of Duchamp's "readymades." I have always found the Fountain interesting because it is so simple and it has the ability to really anger and confuse people. Duchamp's glass piece is called The bride Stripped by Her Bachelors, Even. He worked on the piece from 1915 to 1923. This piece is interesting to me because when the glass was accidentally broken while being transported he did not fix it...and in a weird way it actually made the piece better. In 1942 Duchamp created an instalation called A Mile of String. This piece has suspicion surrounding it because it is known that Duchamp purchased 16 miles of string for the instalation and then only ended up using one mile of it...what happened to the other 15 miles? and why didn't he use it? The whole unknown about this piece is what makes it interesting.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Saul Bass//Movie Posters



Dimitri Bruni // helvetica




Bruni co-founded NORM in 1999 which is a Zurich-based graphics team that does commercial work as well as experimental projects. I like the work that i have seen of NORM's because it is so diverse... they create posters, book covers, entire books, and fonts... it seems like they pretty much do it all. NORM designed this book cover and Poster for Bruce Lee. I have posted an example of one of their fonts named Purple. This font looks sophisticated, yet fun! NORM's work and typefaces are all for sale on lineto.com.

paul renner//bauhaus



Paul Renner was a German typeface designer.  He is most known for the Futura typeface that he created in 1928. According to wikipedia, Renner was interested in fusing the gothic and roman typefaces therefore creating a bridge between the traditional and modern.  The orange and black brochure and poster were created by carol king. I chose to include her piece in my research because i think her piece really showcases Renner's style. I have also included a cover shot and link to a preview of the Art of Typography, a book about paul renner. 

Thursday, March 5, 2009


Betty Boop 1930's








Bratz 2001







Monday, February 16, 2009

Paul Rand//Logos



U.S. Satellite Broadcasting 1995//I like this logo because the colors and the way the letters are positioned immediately make you think about a satellite. 




Enron 1996//This logo seems to present Enron as a large corporation because of the way it is a building/capitalE







Ford Motor Company 1966//I think this logo positions Ford as racing brand. 




William Bradley//Catalog of the Overman Wheel Company



















William Bradley is an American credited with being apart of the creation of the Art Nouveau Movement. This was the 1899 catalog and the last that Bradley designed for the Overman Wheel Company. I like this piece because it is an art piece with Art Nouveau characteristics, but it also serves the logical function of advertising the new Overman Victor Bicycle. 

Friday, February 6, 2009

Saul Bass//Casino Title Credits


















































Bass was associated with the International Style. These are the title credits from the 1995 movie Casino. This is one of the last works completed by Bass. I really like this piece because of how appropriate it is for the movie. Bass was very skilled at picking out the important themes in movies and expressing those themes creatively. This website has info about other movie credits that Bass created.