Bauhaus (updated)

The Bauhaus school meaning "House of Building" was founded in 1919 by the architect Walter Gropious in Weimar Germany. The Bauhaus school sought to embrace the 20th century machine culture  in a way that it allowed basic necessities such as buildings, furniture, and design to be completed in a utilitarian but effective way. The Bauhaus school encouraged the embrace of modern technologies, in order to succeed in modern environment. The basic tenet of the Bauhaus was "Form follows Function".

Even though the Bauhaus has been closed since 1933, by studying the lessons of some top masters one can learn their wisdom . Some important figures from the Bauhaus were Paul Klee, Joseph Alberts, Wassily Kandinsky, Laszio Moholy-Nagy and Herbert Bayer.


Based on the research that I have done the Bauhaus operated till 1933 and other than the fact that it was founded by the Architect Walter Gropus the school did not have an architectural department for the first five years of its existence. 

The teaching of the Bauhaus was mainly influenced by the machine age and the school's aim was to combine all the arts under the concept of design. Just by looking at the Bauhaus designs one can notice that that Machine Age was not the Bauhaus only influence, the Bauhaus Movement was also highly influenced by the De Stijl Movement, Constructivism and Cubism, these influences are clearly shown on poster for the Bauhaus Exhibition by Joost Schmidt. During the first few years of the Bauhaus the typography workshop was not given a lot of importance as it was one of the core subjects but that was until Moholy Nagy and Herbert Bayer took over the than typography became increasingly important as both an expressional mean of communication and as an artistic expression with visual clarity. Later on it became increasingly connected with the corporate identity and advertising. 

The above image is the Bauhaus exhibition poster of 1923 by Joost Schmidt. the poster echos cubism, constructivism, and De Stijl provide evidence that the Bauhaus became a vessel in which diverse movements where fused into new design approaches. the poster combines geometric and machine forms reflecting the reorientation occurring at the Bauhaus. The poster also shows influences of Oscar Schlemmer. Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc pg 328

(The poster has a combination of geometrical forms and one can clearly notice that its a reflection of Gropius's Slogan "Art and Technology, a New Unity")

The above image is a page from Utopia, a page from the early Bauhaus publications by Johannes Ittens and Fredel Dicker. 

The heart of the Bauhaus education was the preliminary course established by Johannes Ittens. The preliminary course was the beginning of what we call foundation in many art programs today. Itten's aim was to to release each student's creative abilities to develop an understanding of the physical nature of materials and to teach the fundamental principles of design underlying all visual art.

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc pg 327

References

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.

Theo Van Doesberg (updated)

Theo Van Doesberg lead the artistic movement De Stijl into popularity and influenced graphic designers for many years to come. Theo Van Doesberg was highly influenced by Wassily Kandinsky. Van Doesberg shifted his style of painting from one that placed more importance on a conceptual style that favored a simplistic geometric style.

Van Doesberg drew a sans-serif modular alphabet that is constructed of evenly weightted strokes. Each character is based upon a square divided it a raster of 5x5. This makes some characters especially the K, R, and X, so unconventional that they must have been unreadable to many readers. the earliesrt version of the alphabet was made up of letterpress ruling pieces. the finished typeface was used in 1919
Theo Van Doesburg - iconofgraphics.com. 2014. Theo Van Doesburg - iconofgraphics.com. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Theo-Van-Doesburg/. [Accessed 27 January 2014]

Theo Van Doesberg was highly influenced by the painter Wassily Kandensky.
From his work one can notice that Van Doesber did not only favour but he also gave a lot of importance to geometrical forms and that is what lead him to the De Stijl Movement which was of great influence to graphic designers today and for more years to come 

One can also notice that his typeface designs and how each character is based on a square which is divided into more smaller squares. Van Doesberg developed these pixel based fonts long before Mackantosh computers.

Although De Stijl was made up of many members TheoVan Doesberg was the ambassitor of the movement, in 1922 Van Doesberg became briefly involved with the dadaism and traveled on a lecture with Kurt Schwitters. At the same time he worked with constructivists and became interested in the Bauhaus. 

Van Doesberg applied horizontal and vertical structure to the letter forms and the over all layout of the cover for Klassiek Barok Moderne. For this cover Van Doseberg used his own letterforms. Curved lines were eliminated and sans-serifs typefaces were favored. the type was often composed in tight rectangular blocks. the square was used as a rigorous module for letter form design. Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg314

References

Theo Van Doesburg - iconofgraphics.com. 2014. Theo Van Doesburg - iconofgraphics.com. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Theo-Van-Doesburg/. [Accessed 27 January 2014]

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.

De Stijl (updated)

Based on research De Stijl was a form of abstraction from the posters one can notice that the Movement was characterized by the use of the grid, black lines and filled with primary colours.

The principals that formed the basics of De Stijl whether it was for a painting or for a sculpture, architecture or for a piece of furniture or typography it was the rectangular forms with the hues red, yellow and blue. Just because the designs look very basic those simplified elements were not developed in a moment or over night as a matter of fact those simplified elements are a result of years of trile and errors on part of the painers Mondrian, Van Doesber and van der Leck





The De Stijl Movement (The Style) also known as Neoplasticism was lunched in Holland in 1917. Its founder was Theo Van Doesberg and the artist most recognized with the movement Piet Mondrian, The De Stijl Movement rejected pre-war decorative tendencies and pushed cubism to new extremes. It was total abstraction consisting of only the most basic design components vertical and  horizontal lines and primary colours.

For some time in the late 1910, paintings and designs by Mondrian, Van der Lack, and Van Doesberg were quite similar. They reduced their visual vocabulary to the use of priamry colours (red, yellow, and blue) with naturals, (black, grey, and white), straight horizontal, vertical lines, and flat plains limited to rectangles and squares. " Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.

The order was established through the reduction of elements to pure geometric forms and primary colours. De Stijl was also the name of the journal that was published by Theo Van Doesberg. The publication De Stijl is the represents the most significant work of graphic design from the movement, but the ideas of reduction of form and colours are major influences on the development of graphic design as well

Some examples 

The above image is the cover design for De Stil by Vilmos Huszar. Huszar combined this composition with type and Van Doesberg's logo to create a concise rectangle in the center of the page.

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 315

For the title pages for De Stijl Huszar presented a positive, negative figure and ground study in spatial relationships. Restrained typography marked Apollinaire's death. 

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 315

References

De Stijl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2014. De Stijl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Stijl. [Accessed 27 January 2014].

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.

Dada Artists (updated)

Marcel Duchamp

Frenchman Marcel Duchamp was a Surrealist artist. Duchamp had an enormous impact on western art after the First World War. Duchamp’s early art work lines up with post-impressionist styles. His experiments with cubism and fauvism are well known.  His obsession with absolute and unfettered freedom led him to develop a new artistic style which was nonother that a cry of protest. This led him to present a series of ready made sculptures which were intended to shock the public, which indeed happened. Such sculptures included the bicycle wheel mounted on a small wooden stool and the urinal which he very appropriately and sarcastically named “The Fountain”

The public was outraged when Duchamp painted the moustache on the reproduction of the Mona Lisa, it was an assault to the public and the tradition, it also had lost the humanistic spirit of the Renaissance.  

The Dada artist had claimed that they have invented the photomontage technique of manipulating found photographs to creating jarring juxtapositions.

Roul Hausmann

Raoul Hausmann was an Austrian artist and writer who was another key figure of the Dada Movement, He experimented photographic collages, sound poetry and industrial critiques would have a profound influence on the European Avant-grade in the after myth of World War one Hausmann was one of the young disaffected artists that began to form the nucleus of Berlin Dada around him.

The photomontage became the technique most associated with the Berlin Dada, which was used extensively by Hausmann. Hausmann started to experiment with sound poems which he called “Phonemes”. The poster Poems originally created by lining up letters by a printer without Hausmann’s direct invention. Later Poems used words were reserved, shopped up and strung out, than either typed out using a full range of typographical strategies, or preformed with basterous exuberance.

In ABCD, Hausmann created a self-portrait.When first looking at the piece, you immediately notice the its intensity. Hausmann’s mouth is open and clenched on the letters, “ABCD”, as if he is screaming and experiencing some sort of discomfort. Also found in the image is information about one of Hausmann’s upcoming poetry readings. This serves as a reference to the literary side of the Dada art movement. The movement was represented through visual and literary forms of art. Ticket stubs are cut up and scattered in various places. Hands, money, a fire extinguisher, and different words are hidden throughout the image. The value of these items could be interpreted in many different ways, but overall, Hausmann seems to be using these symbols to encourage the audience to challenge accepted beliefs and create individual opinions, and use art as means to do so.

Hannah Hoch 

Hannah Hoch’s art is very particular. Her constant experimentation with various artistic styles resulted in her pieces. Hoch experimented through collaging paintings, collages, photography and graphics. She organised and put these various styles together and eventually created her own particular style which is known as photomontage.

Pieces of “the new women” were in many of her photomontages these were German media’s admiration of the modern independent female

These women were depicted in the act of doing things which were quite socially unaccepted during that era, these included of smoking, wearing sexy clothes, voting, and working.

Hannah Hoch’s made it a point to compare women as they were expressed in the media,  and how they looked in actual life. She often would form women in her pieces from dolls, mannequins, brides, or children which were often thought of as not so important in her society. This type of art represented feminism in a unique way, relating women in the media to actual women in society.

Da-Dandy is a photomontage piece that was done in 1919. This piece includes women dressed up in different kinds of fashionable clothing that overlap each other in the piece. By looking at the photomontage, one can see that these are all different women, although their style of black and darker colours makes them all look similar.Hannah Hoch | Feminist Art Archive. 2014. Hannah Hoch | Feminist Art Archive. [ONLINE] Available at:http://courses.washington.edu/femart/final_project/wordpress/test-taylor-k/. [Accessed 25January 2014]

Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Schwitters created an offshoot of Dada that he named Merz which coined form the word Kommerz in one of his collages. Schwitters gave Merz meaning as the title of a one men art movement. Schwatters collage compositions were made up of rubbish, and found materials to compose colour against colour, form against form, and texture against texture. His designs combined Dada’s elements of nonsense, surprise and chance with strong design properties.Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 265

References

Hannah Hoch | Feminist Art Archive. 2014. Hannah Hoch | Feminist Art Archive. [ONLINE] Available at:http://courses.washington.edu/femart/final_project/wordpress/test-taylor-k/. [Accessed 25January 2014]

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.

Aleksander Rodchenko (updated)

Aleksander Rodchenko is know to be one of the most important and influential avant-gard artist. Rodchenko turned out to be like any other painter but his interaction with Russian Futurists drove me to become one of the most influential founder of the Constructivism Movement.

Aleksander Rodchenko was influenced by Vladimir Tatlin and the communist party, he was an influential constructivist who believed it was his duty within the Russian communist society to produce practical designs. Rodchenko believed in pruning the chaos of life into orderly, rational forms. His interest in geometry made his artwork measured, balanced and logical.

Rodchenko was very committed to the Russian Revolution and this commitment lead him to abandon painting and fine arts and put his skills towards the service of the industry and the state and he ended up designing almost every thing including book covers and advertisements. Rodchenko was highly influenced by Art Nouveau and the work of Aubery Beadsley. He was also influenced by Kazimer Melevich and the Suprematism. A few years after that he began working on constructivism. 

The above image contain 3 of  Rodchenko's magazine design for all fields of the creative arts called Novyi lef. The design style was based on a strong, static, horizontal and vertical forms placed in machine rhythm relationship. Photomontages were regularly employed in Novyi lef, Rodchenko delighted in constructing bold, bulky, type and hard edge shape against softer forms and edges of the photomontage. The logo of Novyi Lef No1 is printed in tight registration, with the top half of the letter forms red and the bottom half in Black. In the early photomontage of Novyi Lef No 2, the montage is crossed out, negating the old order; young children symbolize the new society. The cover of Novyi lef No 3 a biplane bearing the magazine logo drops a fountain-pen bomb at a gorilla representing the traditional arts of the czarist regime. 

Rodchenko's work was purely abstract and as for photography this was of high importance to Rodchenko when he started taking photographs him self his photographic work became very importantto European photography during the 1920's
  

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 308

Rodchenko pushed the boundaries of photography by publishing an innovative series of photos that looked for abstract motifs in the real world, an elliptical style still characteristic of the work of many contemporary photographers. 

Rodchenko's designs concentrated on the spatial relationship between text, large areas of pure colour, and geometric construction elements. The orderly design of his work was often based on a very simple theme. the designs were not meant to perplex any viewer or draw any emotional response much of his work was political propaganda. 

Constructivism (updated)

Research shows that Constructivim was manly an art and architectural movement which rejected the whole idea of "art for art sake" one of the main characteristics of the Movement the total commitment to and acceptance of modernity.

one can obviously notice that the designs were totally abstract and that the emphasis is on the geometrical shapes. The Movement's designs were rarely  emotional and the themes were very minimal when the work was broken down to the basic elements


Constructivism was primarily an art and architecture movement with origins in Russia. At that time Russia was torn by the turbulence of world war one and then the Russian Revolution in the second decade of the 20th century. Constructivism rejected the idea of "Art for Art sake" and the traditional.

The Term Constructivism was first coined by Kasimir Malevich in reference to the work of Alexander Rodchenko. Graphic design in the Constructivism movement ranged form product packaging to logos, posters, book covers and advertisements. 

The best known graphic designers around the constructivism period were Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitzky and Anton Lavinsky. 

As can be seen in the example above Constructivism in graphic design was minimalist, geometric, abstract, orderly and rarely emotional. 

"Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge" 1919 by El Lessitzky

In 1919 El Lissitzky created the above political propaganda poster during the Russian civil war. The colours and shapes symbolize the competition and political change that was going on at the time in Russia. The red symbolized the Bolshevik party and was associated with the communists and the white symbolized those fighting against the  Bolshevik party. The red wedge can be seen shattering the white form in this composition. By creating political symbolic designs Lissitzky was beginning to make a style of his own.

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg302

References

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.

A.M Cassandre (updated)

By observing the work of Cassandre one can clearly notice the strong influence of cubism these motifs are clearly shown on his work other than that fact looking at Cassandre's work one can also notice some avant-grade influences and modernism.

It is also hard not to notice that Cassandre communicated with the audience by making use of bold images actually almost all his designs are based on a bold, dynamic, shape, lines and forms which combine an attractive image with type. Based on research both lettering and images had equal importance to Cassandre and both type and image should always complement each other to be able to communicate a strong message.
 the elegant and sophisticated posters the he designed are still popular with collectors today.




A.M Cassandre was one of the most influential designers of the Art Deco movement. His advertising posters and type designs helped define the Art Deco look.

"Cassandre's simple and bold designs emphasize two dimensionality and are composed of broad, simplified planes of colour. By reducing his subject to inconographic symbols, he moved very close to synthetic cubism." Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 291

The above poster by Cassandre was for Paris Newspaper Cassandre cropped the papers name as it thrust form the upper right hand corner, leaving the often used shortened version. The poster is a pictograph image of Marianne a symbolic voice of France, urgently shouts news received over telegraph wires. Cassandre believed in total integration of word and image this is his single most important contribution to Graphic design. 

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 293

The above poster was for the North Star Paris Amsterdam night train, 1927. The magnificent abstract  design conveys an intangible aspect of travel. distant destination offer new experiences and hope for the future. Amsterdam hosted the Olympic games in 1928, and this poster advocated the rail travel for the event. 

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 293

Bifur typeface

Strokes for  each letter are omitted; a liner shaded ares restores the basic silhouette. The eye is able to to fill the missing parts and read the characters.

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 294

References

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.

Art Deco (updated)

Based on the research that i have done I found that Art Deco was an international Movement and a development of Art Nouveau although the style was mainly focused on architecture which was described as elegance and sophisticated the Movements posters and advertising were also very elegant and glamorous, The poster normally displayed typography which had a strong vertical structure which also was usually very clean ad often in a sans serif style.

One can also can notice that the Movement emphasizes on geometrical forms these forms are clearly coming from modernism. The basic geometrical shapes are coming from cubism. The rendering of colour in my opinion is a reminder of neoclassicism and the overlapping of the figures that are seen in some posters is another reminder of futurism.

One can also notice some Egyptian elements and exotic motifs of African sculptures and also Persian details appear on few Art Deco Buildings


Art deco was an international style of decoration which developed during 1918 till 1939. The term Art deco is used to identify popular geometrical works from the 1920 and the 1930. 

The visual motifs of Art Deco include: 

• geometrical shapes
• Egyptian zig-zag
• sunbursts
• lightning bolts
•  motion line
•  streamlined forms 

Art Deco flourished between the two world wars and it evolved from earlier artistic movements, and developed in direct response to the revolutionary changes in scientific, social and political events of the early 20th century. Art Deco liner symmetry was a distinct departure from the following asymmetrical organic curves of its predecessor style Art Nouveau. 

Two important Art Deco designers were A.M Cassandre and E. McKnight Kauffer.

The above elevator door has geometrical motifs mixed with Egyptian zigzags, the curviliner shapes are left over from the Art Nouveau period is now generally simplified. 

The simplicity of the Plakastil Art also influenced the Art Deco look.

The above poster is by E.McKnight Kauffer. This bellweater poster was based on the designers earlier futurist and cubist inspired print of flying birds 

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 290

References

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.

  

The Crystal Palace (updated)

The Crystal Palace attracted different visitors form different levels of society. It was a cast ion and glass structure designed by Sir Joseph Paxton and it was bilt in Hyde Park London for the Great Exhibition. 

The Great Exhibition joined more than 14,000 exhibits from all over the world the exhibition displayed many examples from the technology that was developed in the industrial revolution. It was than destroyed by fire. 

• During the 1850′s the word Victorian began to started to be used to express a new consciousness of the industrial era’s spirit, culture and moral standards.
• Prince Alpert convinced the idea of the great exhibition with hundreds of exhibits from all industrial nations.
• This became the Great Exhibition of 1851 also know as the Crystal Palace Exhibition
• This Crystal palace was an important summation of the progress of the Industrial Revolution
• It was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton
• The Crystal Palace was a 75,000 square meter, steel, and glass exhibition hall which remains a landmark in the architectural design.
• Victorian graphic design captured the values of the era
• Idealized beauty was expressed through painted images of children, maidens, puppies, and flowers
• Victorian popular graphics was chromolithography this was an invention of the Industrial Revolution.

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc pg 162

References

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.