Plakastil (updated)

Plakastil

The tern Plakastil is German for poster style, it was a German design Movement which started in the 1906 by the artist Lucian Bernhard. Just like the Vienna Sucession the Plakastil style was a reaction against all the decorations and the curvilinear the Art Nouveau style had instead it was based on large simplified images with flat backgrounds and large bold lettering. 

As one can notice the Plakastil style attracted many viewers with the bold typefaces that were incorporated and the colour combinations that were used were not seen in any other art movements. The style was more focused on geometrical forms and rectilinear rather then all those ornamentations that were used in the previous movements.

Plakastil movement employed:

•  flat background colours 
• large, simple images
• and product names
• Bold lettering 

Plakastil was a design school that originated in Germany in the early 20^th century. The meaning of the term Plakastil is poster style. The Plakastil movement was almost like the Vienna Secession and Scotland’s Glasgow school, it rejected the curvilinear in favour to seek functionalism. It all started with a poster design competition for the Preister Match Company, and Lucian Bernhard won the competition with a revaluating design. The poster features two large matches arranged simply against a dark background, with the company name staring decisively above the matches in black letters. Bernhard was a self-taught artist, and at that time he most likely did not realize that he a moved graphic communications one step further in the simplification and reduction of naturalism into a visual language of shape and sign the Bernhard's poster led to a revolution in graphic arts that dominated German advertising for the next decade. The popularity of Plakatstil design was assisted in large part by Das Plakat, a German magazine that showcased contemporary poster artists.  Das Plakat was a lavish monthly journal that included numerous colour tip-ins and inserts of original prints. The magazine brought attention to the Plakatstil emphasis on flat colors and shapes it represented the next step towards the abstraction that would concern Modernist design. From this design aesthetic came a new form of advertising.. Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc. pg 277-279

Lucian Bernhard Advertising Posters

Lucian Bernhard is known to  be the father of modern Advertising language the matches poster design catches the viewers attention in a instant in my opinion all this lays within the color combination that Bernhard used.

Lucian Bernhard Poster for Priester Matches Poster 1905

The poster design of the Matches by Lucian Bernhard has such a huge impact over the public and the artistic community that it eventually revolutionized the German Advertising and graphic design. 

• The colour became means of the projecting a powerful massage with minimal information.

Lucian Bernhard poster for Stiller Shoes, 1912 

• The advertising object is heavily outlined 
• The outline is plunked down boldly on a flat colour background
• Bold text that is kept to a minimum
• The viewer’s eye is inevitably dawn to focus on the advertisement   

Toulouse Lautrec had also started the process of The Beggerstaffs Brothers but had continued with Lucian Bernhard together they established the approach to posters by using flat colour shapes, the product name, and the image of the product and they repeated this process over and over for about two decades.

Hans Rudi Erdt

Erdt was another German graphic designer that worked with Bernhard, Erdt was another representative artist of the Plakastil movement. 

The above images shows how well Erdt was able to apply Bernhard’s formula.

The Posters demonstrates:

• Flat background colour 
• Large simple images 
• Bold text that is kept to a minimum

Erdt uses the text simply to introduce a brand name with a sense that it is the essential part of the layout which is strikingly bold, the hand written typefaces are very elegant and the compositions are balanced and monumental. Erdt was a part of a generation of graphic designers who for the first time became specialized in commercial art around the late 19^th century and the early 20^th century. Erdt worked as a commercial graphic designer for brand such as Opel automobile and cigarettes such as Manoli and Problem. The posters of Hans Rudi Erdt are created by a highly simplified composition in which every detail has been carefully erased, and the placement of his enigmatic personalities, with their cynical, detached air about them.. Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc. pg 279

War Posters 

Posters became very popular during World War 1. Their widespread use enhanced communication. The public’s use of electronic communication was still quite limited. However there was a great leap forward in printing technology. Authorities exploited posters for propaganda purposes. In the Habsburg  Empire as well as in Germany, war posters followed the traditions of the Vienna Succession which displayed the simplicity of the Plakastil movement that was pioneered by Lucian Bernhard. The words and images were integrated, and the essence of communication was conveyed by simplifying images into powerful shapes and images..  . Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc. pg 283

Lucian Bernhad Poster for Lon War Campaign 

1915

Bearnhard adopted medieval approach in his poster such as the hand drawn red and black lithographic seventh loan war poster.

• A sharp militaristic feeling is amplified by the Gothic inspiration

War Poster by Abram Games

Poster to recruit blood donors, 1942

placing the soldier inside the diagram of the blood bottle cements the connection between the donor’s blood and the soldier’s survival

Poster by Joseph C. Leyendecker

poster celebrating a successful bond drive, 1917

Leyendecker’s painting technique of slablike brush strokes makes this poster distinctive.

Ludwig Hohlwein 

References

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

Milton Glazor

Milton Glazer may be best known for the I (heart) NY logo but he is also well known for his posters that defies the style of the 60’s and 70’s

Glazer’s early influences were the prints of Felix Valloton and Art Nouveau decoration, and he particularly admired Picasso’s gift for working in both an abstract and realistic vein. In 1954 he founded, with Seymour Chwast, Edward Sorel and Reynold Ruffins, the Push Pin Studios in New York. In 1955, with Chwast and Ruffins, he became founder-editor of Push Pin Graphics magazine

Glaser introduced an eclectic, narrative style full of historical references that amalgamated illustration with vintage typography. His flattened, heavily outlined images were borrowed at random from the Italian Old Masters, 19th-century illustration, comics, advertising and all manner of visual ephemera. He designed posters, record-sleeves, book illustrations, magazine covers and small advertisements in a witty, inventive style characterized by miscellaneous juxtapositions and revivalist frivolity.

Glazer’s 1967 image of a popular folk-rock singer Bob Dylan is presented as a black silhouette with brightly coloured hair patterns inspired by Art Nouveau sources. Nearly six million copies of the poster were printed for inclusion in a best-selling record album. The image became symbolic crystallization of its time. Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc. pg 442

Glazer often assmilates spatial devices and imagery from surrealism to express complex concepts.  The poster for poppy records, the poppy blooming from the granite cube symbolizes a new, independent company breaking through the monolithic conversations of the recording industry . Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc. pg 442

The Art Is poster for 1969 has visual and verbal meanings that are explored by manifesting a hat as a photograph, a shadow, a word, a pictograph, and a written definition. Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc. pg 443

References

Milton Glaser - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2014. Milton Glaser - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Glaser. [Accessed 04 February 2014].

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

Seymour Chwast

Seymour Chwast, regarded as one of the most influential artist of the 20th century, he is the founder of the famous Push Pin Studio

Chwast had a playful expressive approach to type and layout was the paint of the new design wave based on revivalism a radical alternative to the Swiss formalism of the time.

Chwast reated a style that is synonymous with most creative and progressive aspects of graphic design.

• Inspired by naïve primitive imagery found in children’s books
• Inspired by wood blocks
• His designs were playful
• Offered an alternative to Swiss design
• Used concept and design
• Reintroduced illustration
• Appreciated and reapplied past styles and forms in graphic design
• All this will influence the psycadalic 

Chwast's designs and illustrations have been used for advertising, animated films, TV, graphics, record covers, trade and children's books, package design, posters, and magazine.

The Chwast frequently used the technique of line drawings overlaied with other colour films and experiments with large variety of media and substrata.

The Judy Poster from the 1960's shows vibrant flat coloours aptly the resonance of her singing. Chwast used his own typeface Blimp for the title.Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc. pg 443

The album cove on the right demonstrates Chhwast's ability to synthesize diverse resources the German expressionist wood cut, surreal dislocations and dynamic colour found in primitive art into an appropriate expression of the subjectPhilip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc. pg 443













Poster protesting the bombing of Hanoi 1968

A mundane advertising slogan against new life when combines with blue woodcut  and offset printing green and red areas

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc. pg 444

Chwast developed a number of Novelty display typefaces, these often began as lettering for assignment and then where developed into full alphabet. His type design echoes Victorian, Art Nouveau, Op art, and Art Deco forms. Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc. pg 444

References

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

The Push Pin Studio (updated)

The Push Pin Studio was the brainchild of Seymour Chwast, Milton Glaser, Reynold Ruffins and Edward Sorel. The said movement was founded by them in 1954 in New York 

 The studio drew inspirations from diverse historical sources such as Italian Ranaissanc paintings, Victorian Letterforms, comic books and primitave wood cut illustrations. 

The characteristics of the Push Pin Studio were bright coloured narritave illustrations, forms exaggerated, flattened and unexpectedly juxtaposed to humorous effects. Book jackets, record covers, posters and magazine illustrations were the groups speciality .The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Graphic Design and Designers, pg179

The above is the cover for the Australian Vouge by Barry Zaid. The round geometric forms of Leger and mood ernist pictorial art are evoked. 

References

The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Graphic Design and Designers, pg179

Push Pin Studios - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2014. Push Pin Studios - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_Pin_Studios. [Accessed 03 February 2014].

Andy Warhol (updated)

Andy Warhol was the most influential figure in the Pop  art Movemnt that came up in the united states and Great Britain. During his career Warhol produced paintings, Films, Print ads and other works of art.

He became a successful commercial artist and graphic designer for Tiffany's, Bonwit Teller's, Vogue, Glamour, The New York Times and other magazines and department stores. In 1960 he started a series of illustrations based on comic strips, such as Superman and Dick Tracy, and on Coca-Cola bottles.

Pop Art - the art of popular culture. 2014. Pop Art - the art of popular culture. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/pop_art.htm. [Accessed 3 February 2014].


Based on the research that I have done Andy Warhol happens to be  one of the most influential artists that existed during the second half of the 20th century. Warhal was a commercial illustrator which happened to be in New York. Worhol's art works of Marilyn Monroe,the soup cans and his news paper stories were the highlight of the pop art Movement. 

One can clearly notice that Worhol's art works were very decorative and most of his artworks were comic. Although he was the key figure of the pop art movement what mad him popular and the pioneer of almost all visual arts were his experimentation he did with images and media. 

Through the art work of Marilyn Monroe which is his most famous i noticed that Warho liked to experiment with colour. The art work of Marilyn Monroe is a silkscreen print on canvas and the same image is repeated but with different colours. 

Andy Warhol's art work Features :

• strong contrast between the main image and its background
• the use of vibrant colour
• large areas of flat colours.  

Warhol made a series of paintings paying tribute to Marilyn Monroe. Warhol based this portrait on a publicity still from the 1953 film Niagara. He painted the background gold before silkscreening the boldly colored face in the center, adding black to show her features. Even as Warhol canonizes Monroe, he reveals her public persona as a carefully structured illusion.

The poster for the Cambel soup can and other mundane objects both piqued delighted the art, public and soon enough brought him fame. Warhol was also an avant-grade filmmaker, record producer, author and public figure known for his membership in widely diverce social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrates, and wealthy aristocrats, Worhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, and documentary films

References

Andy Warhol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2014. Andy Warhol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol. [Accessed 03 February 2014].

Campbell's Soup Cans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2014. Campbell's Soup Cans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell's_Soup_Cans. [Accessed 03 February 2014].

Pop Art (updated)

The Pop Art Movement came to life during the 1950's and 60's in Britain and the America it was the style of the popular culture and the mass media. 

The mass media includes:

• paintings
• sculptures 
• graphics 
• comics 
• advertising

Based on the research that i have done pop art is a descendent of Dada and the Movement was more about removing materials from its context and isolating the objects and than combining them to other objects. 

The movement is also known to be reaction against the ideas of abstract expressionism.

The colours that were used for the Pop Art Movement were extremely bright when comparing it to other movements and the Pop Art  artists made strong use of the primary colours.

Pop Art was the art of popular culture. It was the visual art movement that characterized a sense of optimism during the post war consumer boom of the 1950's and 1960's. It coincided with the globalization of pop music and youth culture, personified by Elvis and the Beatles. Pop Art was brash, young and fun and hostile to the artistic establishment. It included different styles of painting and sculpture from various countries, but what they all had in common was an interest in mass-media, mass-production and mass-culture.

Pop art is now most associated with the work of New York artists of the early 1960s such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and Claes Oldenburg, but artists who drew on popular imagery were part of an international phenomenon in various cities from the mid-1950s onwards. Following the popularity of the Abstract Expressionists, Pop's reintroduction of identifiable imagery drawn from mass media and popular culture was a major shift for the direction of modernism. The subject matter became far from traditional "high art" themes of morality, mythology, and classic history; rather, Pop artists celebrated commonplace objects and people of everyday life, in this way seeking to elevate popular culture to the level of fine art. Perhaps owing to the incorporation of commercial images, Pop art has become one of the most recognizable styles of modern art.Pop Art - the art of popular culture. 2014. Pop Art - the art of popular culture. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/pop_art.htm. [Accessed 3 February 2014].

Associated with :

• ·         Rock music
• ·         Hippy lifestyle
• ·         Psychedelic images made to recreate the sensation associated with mind expanding drugs.
• ·         Distorted imagery and illegible lettering in garish colours applied to posters and magazine and album covers.
• ·         In the 60’s there was a populist vulgar and fanciful commercial graphic design.

Pop art Examples 

References

Pop Art - the art of popular culture. 2014. Pop Art - the art of popular culture. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/pop_art.htm. [Accessed 2 February 2014].

Pop art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2014. Pop art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_art. [Accessed 03 February 2014].

Corporate Identity (updated)

Based on the research that i have done corporate identity first came to life after the world war 2 and this started by the Modernist Movement in America. 

Although corporate identity had been in existence for centuries the visual identification started in the 1950's 

The thing that helps the viewer distinguish one company from the other is the imagery and that's why corporate identity is very important to a company it also attracts clients and visual imagery has always been very important event in the historical times, for instance in the Medieval time people used to make marks to identify their properties.

It was during the 1950's and the 70's that corporate Identity became a necessity for all corporations. Design was then seen as a major way to shape a reputation for quality and reliability. The Industrial Revolution made way for new generation of corporations across the world and they adopted varying approaches to present their brand identity. Not only were logos but brands and standards became a part of a daily life of employees and described, down to the most minute detail


Brands were constantly inventing and reinventing their visual image to adapt to society that was focused on new technological inventions and modern means of communication, travel and  entertainment.

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 412



The above image on the right is a poster design for Olivetti 1949 by Geovanni Pintori. Olivetti products are suggested by a melange of numbers.Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 410

Some examples of Corporate Identity 

The above image is the CBS Television trademark, 1951. Designed by William Golden. Its consists of two circles and two arches from a pictographic eye. Translucent and hovering in the sky, it symbolizes the great power of projected video image. Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 414

Lucky Strike logo 1939 by Raymond Loewy

Eye Bee M poster from 1981 by Paul Rand. By using the rebus principle Rand designed this poster for the presentation of the Golden Circle Awards, an in house IBM occasion. Although Rand eventually prevailed, it was temporarily banned, as it was felt that it would encourage staff IBM designers to take liberties with the IBM logo. Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 418

References

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

Paul Rand (updated)

Paul Rand was one of the pioneers of the New York School, who's career began as a promotional and editorial designer for Apperel Arts, Esquare, Ken, Coronet, and the Glass Packer. Paul Rand's magazine cover designs broke with the traditions of American publication design. Rand was highly influenced by the works of Klee, Kandinsky and cubists. Rand had the ability to manipulate visual form such as shape, colour, space, line, value, and skillful analysis of communication content, reducing it to a symbolic essence with making it sterile of dull.Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 390

One can notice that in Paul Rand's advertising designs he made use of the typeface Futura. It is alos noticeable that his designs were very simple but in the same time eye  catching more that any other advert. In my opinion his work was visually sharp and this is because they ways he played with contrast. Based on the research that i have done Rand brought intelligence to advertising and always communicated well so that the viewer will always know what the advert is about.

The sharp colours that Rand used for his designs were to attract the viewers attention he also enjoyed found objects and paper cutouts and also minimal typography and one can also notice that he liked to make use of Sans-Serif typefaces mixed with his own hand writing.

Rand's style often reflected entering puns of wordplay. Rand also liked to play with contrasts such as red against green, organic against geometric, cut or thorn edges against sharp forms, and textural patterns against white.

Rand understood the value of ordinary, universally understood signs and symbols as tools for translating ideas into visual communications. to engage the audience successfully and communicate memorably, he know that the designer needed to alter and juxtapose signs and symbols.Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 391

The hand written Christmas tag on a crisp rectangle contrast sharply with the mechanical stencil lettering of the logo on a thorn-edge collage element. A christmas present wrapped with barbed wire was a grim reminder of of the spread of global war.

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.pg 390

References

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