Sagmeister and Burnett

Sagmeister and Burnett

Steven Sagmeister has be one of the coolest artists that I have heard about so far. He is daring, bold and not afraid to step across boundaries when it comes to his designs. On one of his most famous pieces, he physically carved words across his entire body, took a picture of it, and submitted it as a poster for AIGA. I can't imagine how painful that would be, but it is brilliant! Never been done before, and it certainly got him noticed. I really like how he takes a picture and digitally alters it so words are incorporated,... they look incredibly real and you have to question whether or not he found the image like that! His idea of using the inflatable monkeys was a great idea; dispersing them throughout the country, each with a specific message that can only be deciphered when put together. He is a great designer, and it's very difficult to pick just a few things about him that I really like.

Leo Burnett has a bunch of interesting characteristics that I'm trying to put together. He appears to be very simple in his work; basic colors, basic designs and etc. But the strange thing is that his simple images incorporate big meaning. Take for instance his hand and star logo. It's a very simple drawing resembling a wood cut, and it only two colors-black and white. Yet once you understand his idea behind it "When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won't get a handful of mud either," you realize that this man has done some thinking before he began drawing a hand surrounded by a couple stars. I was also surprised to see how complex his website is. It's completely interactive and has it's own unique personality to it. It was very fun to play around with, just to see the possibilities that can be done through website design.

Kalman, Carson and Carter

Tibor Kalman is an artist who isn't afraid to touch out of zone boundaries. He created an image that depicted the Queen as a black female, along with one of Arnold Swartenegger as a black male. I like how he addresses the racial issue in a nice and approving way. It could be much worse, but his perfection of it is beautiful. He incorporated typography frequently, and it was often like a 'sunburst' around the central image. Another thing he is known for is his idea of placing a dot within the center of an "O", which animates it and it then appears to be a face. Crazy!

David Carson is a graphic artist who was also inspired by music. He didn't have any schooling which was great because he then didn't follow any rules. That's what he is best known for; disobeying all rules of typography. His work is very intriguing and fun to look at, but questionable in his creditability simply because he isn't follow the rules. He wanted legibility, but at the same he wanted it to be bold, be loud and be noticed. Most of his typography has varied sizes, varied kerning 'issues', and varied colors. It's clearly a modern day use of graphic design, and I approve of it all 100 percent.

Up next is Matthew Carter, who was mainly a typeface designer. He created many different fonts that are still used frequently today. One typeface that stands out to me as very interesting is Walker. The user is able to apply serifs and other typographical designs in any place that they wish, simply by using various quick keys. This is something fun and allows designers to 'create' their own typefaces in a very unique way. Carter is also known for his multiple layering and overlapping of images/words. He also created a typeface that prints nicely on cheap newspapers by adjusting the crotches of various letter forms. This way, the ink wouldn't bleed into each other because space was given for bleeding. Genius idea!

Chantry and Thorgerson

Art Chantry is a graphic artist who was inspired by music throughout his design. He worked with clients such as Nirvana, Hole and the Sonics. His images appear to be very layered with a lot of color. They look flat and are illustrated nicely. He seems to play with bright yellows mixed with oranges and reds frequently. However, his designs are pushed along with their creative use of typography as it's loud and bold. He doesn't follow all rules of typography, which is clear in his uneven baselines and how he lines everything up.

As for Storm Thorgerson, he is a modern day graphic designer and film maker. His work reflects surrealism, and resembles Dali. His designs are very intriguing and fun to look at mainly because they don't seem real,...yet they look real. So I sit and stare for a very long time, looking for some sort of imperfection to signal fake, but I can't find any. He plays around with photography and making the images look real in a very strange composition, and they are always very fun to look at. One image that comes to mind is his garbage ball of junk, which is placed alongside a random man. It allows (gullible) people such as myself to actually believe it's real, or else it evolves into a serious debate. Storm Thorgerson's work has to be some of the best stuff I've seen so far because I enjoy the 3D aspect of it.

Greiman, Chwast and Glaser

April Greiman is a contemporary designer from the 80's. She's responsible for introducing the New Wave art movement to the United States and is well known for her knowledge in various mediums; computer graphics, hand graphics, architecture and video. One influential aspect of April is that when she first began her career in design, she did everything by hand due to the lack of technology in the early 80's. She then made a remarkable transition into the computer generated graphics and excelled in both. Her issue of the Design Quarterly entitled Does it Make Sense is considered to be a major turning point in the evolution of graphic design. She played around with photography and tried to make 2D images appear 3D.

Seymour Chwast is an American graphic designer with a bit of illustration and typographer mixed in. He designed posters, food packaging and magazine covers during the 50's. He is most widely known for co-establishing Push Pin Studios. His work was very illustrated and incorporated a bit of humor in it. The images were generally flat with multiple colors. His typography is has a very Art Deco feel to it.

Milton Glaser is very remarkable contemporary graphic designer who is also described as a modern renaissance man due to understandings, visual language, conceptual thinking and illustration skills. He is the other co-founder of Push Pin Studios with Chwast, and has had his own one person show at the Modern Museum of Art in New York. Some of his famous work includes the flat Bob Dylan poster, along with the I LOVE NY logo, which was the first time the heart symbol was recognized as love. He is one of the most famous designers in modern day. 

thesis statement regarding Neville Brody

two options:

1. Neville Brody was never inhibited by the edges of a page.

2. Neville Brody has positively changed the world of Graphic Design.

Chapter 21: Psychedelic Posters

This part of chapter 21 dealt with psychedelic posters and their affect on the United States. It first began in the 60's in reaction to the Vietnam War. There was also a huge civil rights movement as well as a civil rights movement that influenced this recognizable posters. Their purpose was to show viewpoints instead of your basic commercial messages and advertising. Most of the artists who created these posters were generally self-taught. They were part of the hippie subculture, and can be distinguished by their love of rock music, drugs and ideas of reestablishment. One of the main contributors to psychedelic posters was Wes Wilson, who created the infamous Grateful Dead posters.

I think this movement could be considered one of the most recognizable movements in our history. When you look at designs on a timeline, this one stands out the most because it's so different from surrounded styles that occurred at the same time. It's very bold, daring, unique and set apart from the norm. It shows that being the strange one gets you remembered in the design world. Never to follow another person's steps but make your own. Now I just have to find my own direction,...

I know this movement began in the 60's, but how long did it last?

Chapter 20: Corporate Identity and Visual Systems

This chapter focused  on the idea that businesses needed to create stellar logos for themselves in order to be recognized in a rapidly growing design world. They needed to unify their businesses through a solid identity system, and this began in the 50's. CBS (Colombia's Broadcasting System) was one of the first businesses to realize the importance of an identity system. William Golden was the designer who created the CBS Television trademark. Most people even today  can recognize the logo as the 'eye'. It hasn't changed much since it's creation, which is awesome. George Olden was one of the first designers to work with imagery for on-air graphics. Another notable person from this style is Paul Rand, who is known for his creation of IMB, ABC and Westinghouse logos. His creations are considered elementary, timeless, unique and simple. A few terms that I can relate to are- open and closed identity systems. An open system is where the logo changes with time due to the changes in design styles and important e events. A closed system is just the opposite; the identity systems generally don't change but remain constant throughout it's life. A good example for a closed system is the Chase Bank logo, which is also one of the first recognizable abstract logos.

I think it's crazy that some businesses keep the same, overall concept of their trademark after years and years in the business. Most of them tweek it slightly to fit within the modern day era, but it's generally nothing drastic.  I find this interesting because graphic design has changed tremendously within just a few years, let along 50+ years. I would have expected companies to change their logos to go parallel with a changing society, but that really isn't the case. It goes to show that new isn't always better.

The 1968 Olympics in Mexico was explained in this chapter because the designers wanted a universal system that can be recognized by people worldwide. This seems quite obvious, but I'm curious to know if previous Olympics didn't consider the fact that the entire viewing population wouldn't be able to understand the signs and labels.