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.

Chpater 18: International Typographic Style, & Chapter 19: The New York School

Chapter 18 covers a 1950's design movement that originated from Germany and Switzerland.  This design was very mathematical and had a scientific approach to all aspects of design.  Even though it was mathematical, generally the designs were asymmetrical and constructed through a grid.  One very important aspect of this design movement was that it helped combine the world internationally with world-wide known pictographs and glyphs.  There was an increasing need for communicative clarity, especially when it came to signs and travel information.  This Swiss design helped push these needs further. During this time, sans serif because even more popular, and all forms of propaganda were disposed of.  It was time for corporate and product advertising.  One man who helped push the Swiss movement was Ernst Keller.  He was versatile and took interest in simple forms, symbolic imagery, contrasting color and expressive lettering.  Another man of interest is Max Huber, who used very bright hues in his photographs alongside complex organized compositions.  They are borderline chaotic, but his placement of images has purpose and a comfort value to it.  Design took on a new look during this style as Anton Stankowski created visual forms that possessed some sort of physical force to it. He played with illusions and made abstract images that played with eyesight.  During the International Typographic Style, many new fonts were created.  This included Univers, Helvetica, and Palatino.  Univers was a great font, and Emil Ruder realized its potential.  Due to the consistent baseline and and x-height, all 21 different typefaces could be used together in an appealing way.  

Chapter 19 focuses mainly on the American movement during the mid-1900's. A new form of advertising arose containing a comedic effect.  Most of the designs were influenced by European design because America wasn't at the top when it came to design during this era.  However, American designers added some of their own style, forms and concepts which certainly helped it out. Paul Rand can be attributed with the credit of pushing America towards modern design.  He created influential magazine covers which stepped past usual American design traditions. The playful, dynamic and the unexpected often came into Rand's work. Bradbury Thompson emerged as one of the most influential designers in America after WWII. His adventurous personality and knowledge of printing allowed him to bring symbolics to power. Saul Bass was mentioned in this chapter as well because he was the first person to unify both print and media graphics with his work in The Man With the Golden Arm.  He is considered to be the most influential film/graphic designer due to his success and amazing approach to it.  Something I didn't know what that Yale has a highly respected Graphic Design program, and many of the leading designers taught there at some point.  A woman, Cipe Pineles, became the first woman to be admitted into the New York Art Director's Club, which broke typical stereotypes.  Design is usually male-dominated, so it's great to have a monumental mark such as this. It's also important to note that the magazines, Print and Communication Arts, became widely known during this period and inspired artists everywhere.  They are a great art magazine today so it's great to know a bit about their history.   

I was surprised to read that it took Adrian Frutiger three years to create the font Univers.  The family was huge and containing 21 different sans serif fonts.  This would explain the huge length of time Frutiger put in to create it, but it's amazing that someone worked for three years looking at the same font!

In chapter 18, it mentions a design Zapf who is responsible for creating several fonts.  Did he create Zapf Chancery, or was this font simply named after him?

For my first image which was inspired by Modern Art, I decided to mimic a piece made by Kathe Schmidt Kollwitz.  This artist designed in expressionism, and one item of focus during this time was on the poor and unfortunate.  Suffering women and children were depicted in their struggles because of the artist's experience and insight of the poor.  I decided to create my own basic poster where a young boy was shown with Save Darfur was at the bottom to give it some sort of title.  I really like the pencil strokes that Kollwitz used, so I did the same sort of thing in my sketch.  One thing I was really inspired was how you could make out the face, but there's no way you could ever give the face a name because it's unrecognizable.  It pushes the meaning further because we don't need a specific name to know that poverty is out there and people are suffering.  

My next piece was also with help from the Modern Arts.  I was inspired from the futurist period through their use of text to convey a meaning... and text alone.  I took a quote from a great song and tried to quickly tell a story based on the location of the text.  It isn't much, but I played with the terms 'far away', 'mistakes', 'contained' and 'away'.  It was fun to do this because it's a little more challenging and you really have to think about how to write something.  
And now for this image, which was inspired by Peter Behrens in the Genesis of Twentieth Century Design.  I noticed in a lot of his work that he used many borders with geometric patterns.  I made up my own poster for snow cones (?).  Don't ask my why I chose snow cones, I think it's because I saw an ad on TV for a snow cone maker,...and I want it.  I used this particular design because of his work on page 239, where he created the magazine cover for Mitteliungen Der Berliner Elekricitaets Werke.  It's a very simple and flat design, basic colors and yet has a bit of an illusion to it.  I tried to mimic the uppercase letters that were all centered in the middle.