DESIGN IS HISTORY

A Research Task by Chris Johnson

JOHANNES GUTENBERG

Johannes Gutenberg was born in 1935 to 1939 (the exact year is

unknown) in Mainz, Germany. He later died in 1468. So why is he

so important? Without his contribution, graphic design as we know it

today would probably be completely different.

Who would’ve known that his contribution would be so important?

Certainly not this guy, as he was born into just a modest merchant

family, and originally apprenticed as goldsmith. His work with metals

and alloys proved to be helpful later, however, when he

started inventing, eventually becoming

a printer and publisher (which, by the way, probably wouldn’t have

existed the way we know it without him).

Fast-forward to the 1450’s, Gutenberg was about to complete his magnum opus invention: the

printing press (using movable type). He was already familiar with bookmaking, which helped

greatly, but he needed something more practical than carving complete wood blocks to print.

Gutenberg’s bright idea was to develop a casting system that used metal alloys where each type was

a single letter or character. Now, movable type had been used in Asia hundreds of years earlier, but

Gutenberg made the system incredibly more efficient.

Two men, named Andreas Dritzehn and Johannes Fust, helped fund the project, eventually leading

up to September 30, 1452. This is when Gutenberg’s Forty-Two-Line Bible (meaning there were 42

lines per page) became the first book to be published in volume. Thus, printing was introduced to

Europe, and amazingly, started a Printing Revolution! What is regarded as the most important event

of the ‘modern period’.

The ‘Letterpress’ technique came from this. See the example just below:

Why is it Letterpress? There’s quite a few things to suggest it.

First of all, the left and right margins are even; all of the

rows are in line with each other! This reflects the printing

technique as you would use spacers and attempt to fit all of

the letters tightly together without gaps. Another tell-tale sign

is the distressed texture. You know how when you use a

stamp, you have all these little imperfections where the ink

didn’t quite get to as strongly? That’s basically what the

letterpress technique does. It’s using real, physical, ink to

make the letters, not just a graphic on a computer that just automatically starts perfect.

Finally, the obvious one. The colours overlapping is a nice aesthetic that could be created by printing

letters over each other. And that’s it! The short introduction to Johannes Gutenberg, the Printing

Press, and the Letterpress Technique.

ALDUS MANUTIUS

Aldus Manutius was born sometime between 1449 and 1451, and

died in 1515. He studied Greek at the University of Ferrara, and was

in his mid to late teens when the new Gutenberg printing press came

to Rome in the 1460’s.

He became a tutor to two princes of the town, which started an

interest in teaching. He then moved to Venice in ~1489 with the idea

to open a print shop, as well as continuing to teach and learn. During

that year, he thought of starting the Aldine Press, a printing

company. This was because he was fascinated by the written word,

literary text and sounds of different languages. Because of this, he

published a book of Latin grammar in 1493.

In 1497 he became the first printer to publish the works of Aristophanes, and later in 1499,

his impresa (basically a printer’s emblem) first appeared: a dolphin wrapped around the shaft of an

anchor. This symbol became tied to the Aldine Press.

Finally, one of his greatest achievements were his fonts. He was actually the first printer to make an

italic roman font! The fonts were created to mimic the handwriting of two of his

contemporaries, Bartolomeo Sanvito and Pomponio Leto. A Bolognese type-cutter, named Francesco

Griffo, built the fonts for Manutius.

In addition to the new italic fonts, his collection also included 3 complete Greek fonts. The italic fonts

were quite significant though, as they were used for printing Government documents in Venice and

other Italian cities.

Now, Manutius was active during the Renaissance period. But what exactly is the Renaissance

period? Basically, it was a revival of classical architecture, literature and art that started in Italy in the

14th century. It later spread to the rest of Europe. It served as the transition from medieval to modern

times.

500 years later…

In 1985, a company named ‘Aldus’ (which, yes, is a connection to our old friend Aldus Manutius)

released the first DTP (Desktop Publishing) software, called PageMaker. It gave designers a way to

layout pages in a simpler way, instead of typing out tedious code commands for everything.

During the 1990’s Aldus was acquired by Adobe. Later, Adobe would release InDesign, which

overtook the biggest competitor, QuarkXpress (created by the company, Quark). InDesign is

seen today as industry-standard and is used by designers worldwide.

JULES CHERET

Jules Cheret was a French lithographer and painter. He has been

called “the father of the modern poster”. In 1849 he studied drawing,

and from 1859 to 1866 he designed book jackets and posters in

London.

Throughout the 1870’s and 80’s, he became fond of using Victorian

elements in his designs (especially using largely complex designs

and a large central figure to dominate the scene.)

He created many vivid poster ads for theatres, namely the Folies

Bergère and the Moulin Rouge. He also became popular for

portraying women in a positive light, leading to a cultural shift for

women’s liberation in France.

Here are 3 examples of his work:

Lithography is a method of printing. It was invented in 1796 by German author and actor, Alois

Senefelder. Lithography can be used to print artwork or text on paper or another suitable material.

Art Nouveau is a style of art (also a philosophy) that was most popular from 1890-1910. It literally

means “new art”. It brought the attitude that art should be a way of life. It was aimed at modernizing

art, and moving away from the historical styles that was previously popular.

High-production colour printing has greatly affected modern Graphic Art. It allowed mass production,

and consequently mass exposure to the public. It is especially useful in advertising, where you are

trying to get as much public coverage as possible, hence the popularity of movie and theatre posters

today thanks to said mass production.

Movie Poster Extra Task

Here’s one of my favourite movie posters:

The title itself isn’t large (and it only takes up about 10% of the poster) but your attention is brought to

it immediately. The subtle italicizing of the ‘N’ makes the title incredibly more interesting, adding

emphasis, which is greatly needed because of all the straight lines that make up “ENEMY”. The

contrasting size and formatting of “Jake Gyllenhaal” also catches your attention as your eyes move

down the image.

You are then greeted by the star of the show, the image. The graphic of Toronto is blended with

Gyllenhaal’s profile. The surrealism of the image causes you to look deeper to try and make sense of

it. Better yet, the gigantic spider standing over the cityscape adds to the strangeness, piquing the

interest of viewers, while also subtly introducing a key symbol in the movie. The empty space around

the main graphic is very well balanced and gives it room to breathe.

The colour is a mix of light browns and beige, which isn’t very attention-grabbing itself, but makes the

poster easier to look at, and easier to get lost in all the little subtleties.

The viewer is being led straight down the image, and actually ends in the bottom right corner (which

is really satisfying for the viewer) because it is where the darkest area is. It’s also the direction that

the actor’s profile is protruding from. Even better, Gyllenhaal’s line of sight brings your focus to the

branding and extra information when you look at it again.

Overall I think it is a very successful design. The intricacies are captivating, and works very well

in both a large, billboard-style size and a smaller flyer/poster size. It’s especially amazing

considering its use of a simple colour palette and a small title size.

SHEPARD FAIREY

Shepard Fairey is a famous graphic artist, street artist, muralist and

activist. Born on February 15 1970 in South Carolina, he graduated from

Idyllwild Arts Academy in 1988 and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts

from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1992.

As a teenager, Fairey became very interested in art. He began to use

his drawings on skateboards and T-shirts. While in school, he had a

part-time job in a skateboarding shop. Soon after, he entered the

skateboard community by putting his homemade stickers everywhere. It

was then that he realized his interest in the graffiti and street art culture

movement.

One of the first images he ever used was of Andre the Giant, a professional wrestler. Fairey found

the image in a newspaper ad and he chose to introduce it to the streets. It later evolved to be the

“OBEY” poster that we are familiar with today. The techniques that he loves to use include: graffiti,

stencilling and prominent use of a three colour palette; red, white and black.

Graffiti art mostly involves using spray-paint to ‘tag’ a surface, usually with a name or pseudonym.

Today, modern graffiti art has evolved to become a more accepted art form, relieving the ‘illegal’

stigma quite a lot. Stencilling is using a cut-out to apply a pattern or a graphic to a surface by

applying ink, paint or other colouring substance over the top. It makes it incredibly easy to reproduce

a pattern multiple times.

Why the three colour palette? Anthropologists and art historians have discovered that culturally, the

human perception of colour begins with three primary colours: black, white and red. These three

colours are so basic and primal, even the words for them are similar across language families. The

reasoning is still debated, but certainly adds another layer of meaning to Fairey’s work.

Here are 3 examples of his work:

ROY LICHTENSTEIN

Roy Lichtenstein is an American artist who became the leading

figure for the Pop Art movement in the 1960’s. He was born in New

York City in 1923. His artwork brightly parodies American culture

and also art culture itself, taking inspiration from comics and

advertisements.

Before starting with Pop Art, Lichtenstein’s art took a more tradition

approach, often focusing on American folklore and history.

In 2006 (which was after his death in 1997), one of his paintings,

‘Woman with Flowered Hat’, sold for $95,216,000! This is record-

breaking amount for Lichtenstein!

From the 1970’s onwards, he took a different approach, creating art

more reminiscent of the early 20th century. He also started to work with sculpture.

Lichtenstein’s style of art is best described as Pop Art. It also has a very distinct ‘comic-book’ style

(which he took a lot of inspiration from), and often parodies comics. This has actually sparked some

controversy too as many accused him of just stealing artwork from comics. The rebuttal is that he

changed the source enough that it became his own. Some of his artwork also seems to take a lot of

inspiration from Cubism and Surrealist art, with a lot of Picasso undertones.

In our Graphic Design class, we have been working on the halftone technique, which is a common

feature in Lichtenstein’s art, and also Pop Art in general.

Here’s three examples of his work:

SAUL BASS

Saul Bass is an extremely famous graphic designer. He

branded many major corporations with minimalist and

stylish designs, but this isn’t what he is most known for.

Bass is most known for his movie titles, including The

Man with the Golden Arm, Psycho, North by Northwest,

Anatomy of a Murder, Vertigo and many, many more.

His career spanned for 40 years, and in that time he

made a name for himself in the film industry.

During the 1940s, Bass worked mostly in advertising.

This was until his first major break: a poster for the 1954

film, Carmen Jones. The directors and filmmakers were so

amazed by his work, they actually invited him to design

the title credits as well! This decision changed his life.

Before Bass, film title sequences were basically ignored. They were drab and uninteresting. When he

brought his revolutionary minimal title designs that capture attention to the screen, film title

sequences were finally seen as important.

Here’s two examples of movie posters he has made:

And here’s a YouTube link for one of his title sequences:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1A7bJD3atk

It’s an interesting and attention-catching sequence. All themed around the globe graphic, the

sequence does more than just display names. You can see why he was so commended for his work!

DAVID CARSON

David Carson was born in Texas, but he spent a lot of his childhood and

adolescent years in southern California where he was a teacher for a high

school before becoming a designer. He now lives in New York.

Carson was heavily interested in surfing culture from the south end of

California. During the mid-1980s, he started to experiment with graphic

design. When 1989 came around, not only was he a graphic designer, but

also qualified as the 9th best surfer in the world! His interest surfing and

surfing culture gave him opportunities to work with design. Some of the

primary publications he worked on are, Transworld Skateboarding, Beach

Culture, How Magazine and Ray Gun.

Out of that list, his work with Ray Gun achieved the most recognition. Ray Gun is an alternative rock-

and-roll magazine, which Carson was the founding art director of. Its design was abstract and

chaotic, which it was most notable for, but also was known to be very ahead in terms of music artists.

Musicians would feature in the magazine long before it hit the mainstream media and corporations.

His design style had a distinct “dirty” type which follows basically none of the standard practices of

typography. Often, it’s actually quite illegible! After the success of Ray Gun he formed his own studio,

“David Carson Design”, in 1995.

To the left an example of one of the Ray Gun covers. I chose to

feature Aphex Twin in my choice because of a few reasons. First

of all, his style of music is probably the closest to my taste out of

most of the artist’s features. Secondly, I really respect artists that

experiment with music, and his music is heavily experimental. He

has an eclectic style raging from neo-classical all the way to IDM.

The typography is quite simple. It’s purely left justified and has the

signature grunge/distressed look that is typical of the Ray Gun

brand.

The image is also quite simple, showing what is assumed to be

Richard James (Aphex Twin) himself. The image also implies

movement, especially to the bottom right (which is a great thing to

do in design), and also quite oddly, outwards. To me, this makes it more intriguing.

The photo and the colour together complement the grunge theme. It’s washed, minimal, dull and

perfect for the mood the design is trying to set. The great use of colour works well to be eye-

catching, hence causing people to pick up the magazine. Finally, here’s a link to a video of a TED

Talk he did about design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFpANOqSdi8

BAUHAUS

The Bauhaus building was an art school founded by

Walter Gropius. Compared to most art schools, this one

had a vision to bring all arts together. A place for the

unity of art and industrial design, fine art and applied

art.

The school was so influential that it actually spawned

its own movement, and also helped the Arts & Crafts

movement gain popularity. The school had a different

approach to teaching, one which immersed the

students, and created a bridge from “Art to Industry”.

Unfortunately, the school was closed down because of pressure from the Nazi-led government,

who claimed that it was a hub of ‘communist intellectualism’. But, even though the school was

closed, the staff and students continued to spread the Bauhaus ideology around the world.

One of the artists at the Bauhaus was Lyonel Feininger, who was the master artist in charge of the

printmaking workshop when it was first founded. He was mainly a painter, specializing in

Expressionism, but he also worked as a comic strip artist and caricaturist for 20 years. He also

experimented with composing for piano and photography.

Here’s an example of his work:

I think I would have loved to study at the school. I like the idea of unifying art, and it seems a lot more

hands-on and more interesting than just learning art from textbooks or research. It put a lot of

talented artists together to form the perfect environment for the creation of art and design, and taught

things that are still relevant today. So yes, if I was alive (and also interested in following art as a

career) during the time, I would love to take the opportunity to study there.

SOURCES

Johannes Gutenberg http://www.biography.com/people/johannes-gutenberg-9323828

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Johannes-Gutenberg

http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventors/a/Gutenberg.htm

https://www.flickr.com/photos/typoretum/5181634886

Aldus Manutius http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Renaissance

http://www.designtalkboard.com/design-articles/desktoppublishing.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldus_Manutius

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Aldus-Manutius-the-Elder

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Aldus_Manutius.aspx

http://www.designtalkboard.com/glossary/software/p-glossary.php

Jules Cheret https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Ch%C3%A9ret

http://www.jules-cheret.org/

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Jules-Cheret

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_%C3%89poque

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poster

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-art-nouveau.htm

Shepard Fairey http://people.southwestern.edu/~bednarb/su_netWorks/projects/granger/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_Fairey

http://arthistory.about.com/od/namesff/p/fairey.htm

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/theme,1478,Shepard_Fairey_Biography

http://www.streetartbio.com/#!shepard-fairey/cd7u

http://www.stencilrevolution.com/profiles/shepard-fairey/#HOPE_Fallout_and_Current_Works

http://www.graffiti.org/faq/stowers.html

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stenciling

https://nexuszine.wordpress.com/2008/09/10/black-red-and-white-colour-symbolism-throughout-cultures-by-jess/

Roy Lichtenstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Lichtenstein

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can_See_the_Whole_Room…and_There%27s_Nobody_in_It!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_with_Flowered_Hat

http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-lichtenstein-roy.htm

http://www.biography.com/people/roy-lichtenstein-9381678

Saul Bass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Bass

http://www.saulbassposterarchive.com/

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000866/

http://www.artofthetitle.com/designer/saul-bass/

https://99designs.com/designer-blog/2012/06/12/saul-bass-graphic-designer-of-a-century/

David Carson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Gun_(magazine)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Carson_(graphic_designer)#Ray_Gun

http://www.davidcarsondesign.com/

http://www.designishistory.com/1980/david-carson/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/371476669240702540/

http://robertmars.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/10-fine-examples-raygun-magazine-and.html

Bauhaus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyonel_Feininger

http://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/the-bauhaus-building-by-walter-gropius.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus#Bauhaus_artists

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus.htm