The Modern Movements of Graphic Design

In the 19th century the Art Nouveau was in its peak, but after that, in the 20th century new styles were evolving and started to get popular at those times.

Some of these modern movements that influenced the Graphic Design and that I am going to talk a bit about them are:

Futurism:

This Italian movement started to appear in 1909 with its leader being Filippo Marinetti who was a prose writer, novelist, poet and dramatist.

Filippo Marinetti

The aim of this movement was to emphasize on the speed, energy, the power of machine, and modern technology; rejecting harmony and order. With this movement Marinetti’s had some other artists/painters who liked his idea of this modern art and joined him in this movement.

Some of these artist were:

Umberto Boccioni: an Italian painter.

Umberto Boccioni

Umberto Boccioni Artwork (The city rises)

Carlo Carra: an Italian painter.

Carlo Carra

Carlo Carra Artwork (Swimmers)

Giacomo Balla: an Italian artist.

Giacomo Balla

Giacomo Balla Artwork (Pessimism and Optimism)

Gino Severini: an Italian artist.

Gino Severini

Gino Severini Artwork (Ballerina Bow)

Graphic Design Examples:

Futurism Style Poster

Futurism Style Poster

Dada:

This movement began in 1916 as a reaction to the World War 1. It began at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland with the founder of this movement being Hugo Ball.

Hugo Ball

The aim of this movement was to rebel against what they saw as cultural snobbery, bourgeois convention, and political support for the war. It was a movement of satire with the main things used to spread their message were the making of photomontages and typographies were also used. The name of this movement is said that was chosen randomly from the dictionary.

Some artist within this movement:

Jean Hans Arp: a German-French sculptor, painter and poet.

Jeans Hans Arp

Jean Hans Arp Artwork (The Lion)

Tristan Tzara: a Romanian and French poet, playwright, and avant-garde performer.

Tristan Tzara

Tristan Tzara Typography

Dada ended in Zurich with a riot that was caused because of the Dada 4-5 event. After this, Tristan Tzara went to Paris, and there he met Andre Breton. They started formulating theories that Breton started to call them Surrealism. From here Dada started to evolve in the European cities with one of these countries being Berlin, Germany; and here it included some artist, such as:

Johannes Baader: a German writer and artist.

Johannes Baader

Johannes Bader Work

George Grosz: a German artist.

George Grosz

George Grosz Artwork

Hannah Hoch: a German artist.

Hannah Hoch

Hannah Hoch Artwork

Raoul Hausmann: a German artist who was among the first together with Hannah to work in photomontage.

Raoul Hausmann

Raoul Hausmann Artwork

Graphic Design Examples:

Dada Style Poster

Dada Style Poster

Art Movements, n.d, Futurism (online):- http://www.artmovements.co.uk/futurism-htm (Accessed 28th October 2015).

Britannica, 3-2-2015, Futurism (online):- http://www.britannica.com/art/Futurism (Accessed 28th October 2015).

Britannica, 9-3-2015, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (online):-http://www.britannica.com/biography/Filippo-Tommaso-Marinetti (Accessed 28th October 2015).

The art story, 2015, Dada Movement (online):- http://www.theartstory.org/movement-dada.htm (Accessed 28th October 2015).

Elements of a Poster (Mr.R.Caruana)

Basically this is a poster of a campaign against smoking.

Objective:

The information that the designer needs to pass to the audience is simple; he is saying to who smokes, that they are damaging non-smokers health with their cigarettes, and he is telling them to stop damaging their lives, therefore to stop smoking.

Hierarchy:

The only kind of text that this poster has to say, it’s actually the message which says “Stop Burning our Life”.

Flow:

This poster is combining the cigarettes (which are the subject) with a view given a great space for the sky (air). The cigarettes are on the side of the poster with a huge size given to them to be visible. The smoke that is getting out from them is done in a way that it is making damage to the air, which apart the nature it also represents the non-smokers. The colours used are light which represent the purity of the non-smokers, with the smoke coloured in a bit of grey which represent the damage they are making. Then there is the text (message) which is written in capital letters with some of the word also in bold to show the emphasis being done.

Audience:

Without doubt it is clearly enough that this poster is a message to all smokers which makes them the audience. Also non-smokers can be the audience together with the general public so they will know the damage cigarettes do.

Computer Devices (Mr. R.Caruana)

Pascal Calculator.

This device was considered as the first type of mechanical calculator. It was developed by Blaise Pascal in 1642.

Because of its parts used for this machines its cost was too expensive and therefore it wasn't affordable for most of the people at those times. Also because of this reason, only 50 machines were made and nowadays the ones left (about 8 in total) are being kept in a Museum in Paris.

Pascal Calculator 'Pascaline'

How it used to work?

This devices used to calculate with 8 figures. The main part used in this device to work was the gear. There was a gear for every figure with ten teeth each (one for each number) and when it completes one rotation, the gear next to it will move to one tooth until it makes one rotation (rotate ten times) and the other gear next to it will move, and it keeps on going like that until all figures are used if needed.

For addition:
At the bottom, the turning discs set up the numbers which will be added and the answer will be shown in a window.
For subtraction:
The machine had to be changed to count backwards.
For division and multiplication:
The addition and subtraction had to be done and repeated.

Reference:

http://www.thocp.net/hardware/pascaline.htm

Styles and Movement (Art Nouveau)

Art Nouveau

This type of art was the innovation of a new style mixed with past styles and future styles that could follow; infect it was known as the modern art because of its own style, even the name itself means ‘New art’.

It was popular between 1890 to the First World War, where it became part of everyday life, and it wasn't just used for one type of art such as fine art, but it was also used in applied art, decorative art and even in architecture.

Applied Art Work

Fine Art Work

Architecture Work

Decorative Art Work

As you can see in the pictures above it is very notable that nature was a big influence to the finalized product. Infect nature is one thing art nouveau was influenced by. Of course, for the modern art to evolve in the way it did, it was mainly influenced by other type of arts, and these were; the Japanese art, the Celtic art, and the Egyptian art.

Japanese Art

Celtic Art

Egyptian Art

Originally ‘art nouveau’ was part of a gallery’s name in Paris, of an art collector Siegfried Bing (1838-1905). The name of this art gallery was ‘La Maison de l’Art Nouveau, and basically it showcased the type of work that was worked in the Art Nouveau style. The name of the gallery became the name of the actual style after the Exposition Universelle (a world’s fair) in 1900. Thanks to this, both the gallery and more even the style were boosted and started to get more popular.

Siegfried Bing

La Maison de l'Art Nouveau

After this, the style started to get its popularity in Europe and even in America. It was evolving in America because of the people that were emigrating from Europe to go there, infect there are some designs which are a bit similar to each other from the different regions. In some countries where this style was promoted, the name Art nouveau wasn't used, but instead they were using different names. Also there were countries that used to refer for the same style in a different name. Few of these names are; ‘Jugendstil’ in Germany (meaning young style), ‘Le style Moderne’ in France (meaning modern style), ‘Arte Nuova’ in Italy (meaning new art). Basically the majority of the names used, had the meaning that the style is new/modern. In America the name used was ‘Tiffany Style’ and it was part of a movement with the Art Nouveau glass-maker and jeweller Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Some Artist of Art Nouveau and their work.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh: a representative of Art Nouveau in the UK. He was born in Glasgow (Scotland) he was a designer, an artist, water colourist and an architect.

Mackintosh Work

Victor Horta: an art Nouveau architecture. He was from Belgium and is one of the most important artists in Art Nouveau architect.

Horta Work

Joseph Maria Olbrich: was from Austria. He was an architect and was also the co-founder of the Vienna Secession (the Union of the artist in Austria).

Olbrich Work

Henry van de Velde: originally he was from Belgium. He was a painter, architect and interior designer and was considered one of the main representatives of Art Nuveau in Belgium. He spent most of his time in Germany and this effected the architecture and design in there.

Van de Velde Work

Graphic Design Examples:

Art Nouveau Stylish Poster

Art Nouveu Stylish Poster

Visual Arts Cork, n.d, History of Art Nouveau (online):- http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/art-nouveau.htm (Accessed 15th October 2015).

Ranker, 2015, Charles Rennie Mackintosh (online):- http://www.ranker.com/review/charles-rennie-mackintosh/704427?q=global_nodematch&ref=mainnav (Accessed 15^th October 2015).

Ranker, 2015, Victor Horta (online):- http://www.ranker.com/review/victor-horta/2335642?q=global_nodematch&ref=mainnav (Accessed 15^th October 2015).

Ranker, 2015, Joseph Maria Olbrich (online):- http://www.ranker.com/review/joseph-maria-olbrich/1324000?q=global_nodematch&ref=mainnav (Accessed 15^th October 2015).

Ranker, 2015, Henry Van de Velde (online):- http://www.ranker.com/review/henry-van-de-velde/1152613?q=global_nodematch&ref=mainnav (Accessed 15^th October 2015).

What is Graphic Design?

William Addison Dwiggins

Some History:

The first person who called these two words out was William Addison Dwiggins in 1922, when he referred for himself as a ‘Graphic Designer’. Book design, lettering, typography (the visual component of the written word) and calligraphy (a beautiful handwriting) are included in his work he did.




The first ever design that was made was actually much more before William. It goes back to about 40,000 years ago. At this time Cave Paintings (known as rock art for today's time) were used as a way of visual communication at that time.

These Cave Paintings are divided into two categories:

• The Petroglyph; which basically are the engraving in the rock.
  They were made by removing the surface of the rock by craving/scratching, most probably with small pieces of rocks because at that time tools were limited.

Petroglyphs

• The Pictographs; which are paintings/drawings on the rock.
  They had to use natural things to provide the painting, such as hematite, limonite, charcoal, egg white, animal fat, blood, plant oil, fish oil and by mixing those up they could do a pictograph. 

Pictograph

As time passed the writing started to evolve in the Mesopotamian to keep record of the information mainly for religion and for trade. This was called cuneiform, which were specific marks done in wet clay with a reed implement, and done in a wedge-shaped style. The name cuneiform comes from the word 'cuneus' from the Latin language which means 'wedge'; referring to the style of writing cuneiform used. Another writing type as cuneiform is hieroglyph, but this is nothing apart a type which was developed by the Egyptians.

Cuneiform

By time the writing continued to evolve more than just cuneiform or hieroglyph; which consisted of some complicated signs that won’t be read if not trained. But these signs were decreased to thirty by the Egyptians and here the alphabetic system started to be used until the Greeks and Romans adopted this system to their way, basing their system on the square, circles and triangles, and over time they passed it slowly to all the nations of the Western World.

Alphabet

To write something on a paper wasn't a possible thing back in time because the paper as we know it today wasn't evolved, but they used a very similar thing to a paper. They used to use what is called a papyrus to write on it; it was a weed of about 10 feet high which grew wildly. They used this papyrus for almost do everything such as; blankets, medicines, clothes and much more daily used things.

Papyrus

To have the book as we know it today, posters etc.… it was a very important think that the printing had to start to evolve and thanks to Johannes Gutenberg the printing system was introduced and perfected in 1450s in Germany. The system Gutenberg perfected was already being used in china which basically was the block printing which is a picture that was craved into a wooden block, inked and after that transferred to the paper. Of course this was expensive to print a book and/or a paper with letters because each word was on a separate block, so thanks to the perfected system Gutenberg introduced, printing changed and was made easier to the people using it.

Johannes Gutenberg

Block Printing

Design is History, n.d, William Addison Dwiggins (online):- http://www.designishistory.com/1850/wa-dwiggins/ (Accessed 8th October 2015).

Geology, n.d, Petroglyphs (online):- http://geology.com/articles/petroglyphs.shtml (Accessed 8th October 2015).

Arkarcheology, April 9, 2007, How are Pictographs made (online):-http://arkarcheology.uark.edu/rockart/index.html?pageName=How%20are%20pictographs%20made? (Accessed 8th October 2015).

Ancient, April 28, 2011, Writing (online):- http://www.ancient.eu/writing/ (Accessed 8th October 2015).

Ancient, April 28, 2011, Cuneiform (online):- http://www.ancient.eu/cuneiform/ (Accessed 8th October 2015).

English, n.d, The Development of Alphabet (online):-http://www.english.imjnet.org.il/page_985 (Accessed 8th October 2015).

Egypt, n.d, Papyrus (online):- http://egypt.mrdonn.org/papyrus.html (Accessed 8th October 2015)

History Guide, April 13, 2012, Printing Press (online):-http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/press.html (Accessed 8th October 2015)