kingy graphic design history

Philippe Starck | Designer

2010-06-11T01:22:00.000-07:00

S+ARCK

If you hadn't heard of him before, you would certainly know him now, due to his recent appearance in the BBC tv program Design for Life. However there are few people interested in design that would not know the name Philippe Starck.

Philippe Starck is a French product designer and probably the best known designer in the New Design style. Unlike most other New Design artists, his work does not concentrate on the provocative and expensive single pieces. Rather, his product designs are of usable household items which are marketed for mass production.

His designs range from spectacular interior designs to mass produced consumer goods such as toothbrushes, watches, houses and interiors. He recently designed wind turbines, beginning a new direction based on ecology. Starck's products are often stylised, streamlined and organic in their appearance and are often constructed using unusal combinations of materials (eg. glass and stone, plastic and aluminium etc).

In the 1990s much of his work was inspired by fashion and novelty. Now, however, Starck is promoting the ethos that honesty and integrity should be at the core of design. He believes that products should not be created as throw-away artifacts only surviving for as long as they are in fashion, but should ideally have longevity and durability.

www.starck.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Starck

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n47xq

http://www.pramac.com/lang.php

http://www.artandculture.com/users/90-philippe-starck

PENNY: Post 8: Zines

2010-06-08T00:15:00.001-07:00

A zine is a publication of texts and images, usually circulation is 5,000 or less, more commonly in editions of less than 100. More broadly, the term relates to any self-published work, usually of interest to a minority. Commonly reproduced with a photocopier. Profit is not the primary intent of publication.

Long Live Mutiny! Pirate Tactics
"Borrowing from what I assume to be traditional pirate customs, the authors of this guide explain how to create secure conditions for Black Bloc activists to get together to organize and carry out direct action. Topics addressed include "How do pirates organize", "Radical Defense", "How do I become a Pirate", "What the hell is a swagger", and more. The guide gives good directions on how to maintain anonymity and avoid infiltration by state agents and others, how different groups should connect together, how information can be safely distributed, etc. If you want to
get involved in covert direct action, this is a good place to begin. "

Zine format can be computer-printed text, comics or handwritten text. Topics covered are broad, including fanfiction, politics, art and design, ephemera, personal journals, social theory, single topic obsession, or sex; with content far enough outside of the mainstream to be prohibitive of inclusion in more traditional media.

"Zines are about diversity, creativity, innovation, and expression. As a group, zines deliberately lack cohesion of form or function, representing as they do individual visions and ideals rather than professional or corporate objectives. With zines, anything goes. Anything. They can be about toasters, food, a favorite television show, thrift stores, anarchism, candy, bunnies, sexual abuse, architecture, war, gingerbread men, activism, retirement homes, comics, eating disorders, Barbie dolls - you name it."
Julie Bartel

Zines can be sold, traded or gifted,from zine symposiums and publishing fairs, record stores, book stores, zine stores, concerts, zine 'distros', mail order, websites, social networking profiles or through direct correspondence with the author. As zines are usually sold for relatively little money, from one fan to another, the time and materials used to create a zine are seldom matched by income from sales.

Zines have been around for hundreds of years in one form or other, however, it was only in the 1930's that 'zine' became a common term. Science Fiction fans began to write their own magazines commenting on the validity/probability of SF storylines and writing their own stories (The Comet, was published in 1930 by the Science Correspondence Club in Chicago). Zines stayed in the realm of SF, branching only as far as comics (The Comic Collector's News, was the first comics fanzine, in October, 1947) and horror ('Trumpet', was a 1960s SF zine that branched into horror film coverage), until the 1970's when 'Punk'happened and zines sprung up everywhere. (The first UK punk zine Sniffin' Glue, ran for 12 photocopied issues. The first issue was produced by fan Mark Perry immediately following the London debut of The Ramones on July 4, 1976).

"Around 1975 the price of duplication went down dramatically,"..... noting that Xerox went from approximately 50p a sheet to 10p. "Copy shops started to spring up all over Britain. At the same time Kodak introduced instant printing. The combined effect of these two things was dramatic, really on a par with the arrival of the internet."
Joly McFie
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/feb/02/fanzine-simon-reynolds-blog

'Maximumrocknroll is a widely distributed, monthly not-for-profit fanzine based in San Francisco. Maximum RocknRoll is considered to be one of the most important presences in punk, not only because of its wide-ranging coverage, but because it has been a constant and ideologically influential presence in the ever-changing punk community for two decades.'

The 1990's saw zines head into the territory of 'Riot Grrrl' and 'Queercore', both offshoots of punk, but entirely different in attitude and agenda.
Queercore is distinguished by a discontent with society in general and a complete disapproval of the gay and lesbian community and its 'oppressive agenda'. Queercore zines covered political agendas along with music and Queercore musicians were often but not exclusively homosexual.

Riot Grrl was an underground feminist punk movement often associated with third-wave feminism. The Zines were often related to music but also to the same topics the music embraced including sexism, mental illness, body image and eating disorders, sexual abuse, racism, rape, discrimination, stalking, domestic violence, incest, homosexuality, and sometimes vegetarianism.

Fanorama is a Rhode Island-based zine and zine-distro produced by journalist/activist REB (Richard E. Bump). It is the "grand-daddy of the queer zine scene". First published in 1992, it was initially a punk-edged collage of gay porn and commentary.

Applicant
"This is best described simply by quoting from the introduction:
One night while rooting through the recycling bin for magazines, I found all the confidential Ph.D. applicant files for the biology department at an Ivy League university from the years 1965-1975. Stapled to many of the yellowed documents were photographs of the prospective students. They were treasures! I tore through the folders and rescued every portrait I could find. I had to have them. The recommendation forms supplied accompaniment, via their "strengths and weaknesses" or "personality" sections. The quotes below each photo are actual things said about the pictured students by their formed professors or employers, not intended to be seen by anyone but the application review committee. My selections are often unflattering, but perhaps insightful into these students, as well as their referees. "
http://greatworm.ca/catalog/index.html

Zines allow open creativity in any area the author chooses, this has created some amazing work, authors, designers and artists. Contributors to Zines were/are often hired by paying magazines, some zines themselves moving up from unpaid to paid as a whole. Notable among these are Giant Robot, Bust, Bitch (magazine) and Maximum RocknRoll.

"Just before punk kicked off, broadcaster/critic-to-be Paul Morley did one issue of Out There, an attractively designed zine that was attacked by Sniffin' Glue's Mark P for "looking like fuckin' Vogue", then received the proverbial telegram from NME. Everett True went from doing rebarbative indie zine The Legend to becoming Melody Maker's champion of grunge and is currently the publisher/editor of independent music magazine Plan B. Most meteoric of all was the ascent of James Brown – in the 80s he was the mouthy git behind Attack on Bzag! before he became the creator of Loaded and a magazine-publishing magnate-about-town."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/feb/02/fanzine-simon-reynolds-blog

In recent years the traditional paper zine has begun to give way to the webzine (or "e-zine") that is easier to produce and uses the Internet to reach an ever larger audience. Nonetheless, printed fanzines are still produced, either out of preference for the format or to reach people who don't have convenient Web access.

Giant Robot is a bi-monthly magazine of Asian and Asian American popular culture founded in 1994. The publication grew from its original format—a small, photocopied zine, foldedand stapled by hand—to its current full-color format.

Johnathan Barnbrook

2010-06-07T18:30:00.001-07:00

Jonathan Barnbrook is one of the most renowned and provocative graphic designers working in the UK today. Originally part of the 'new wave' typography movement in the 1990s, Barnbrook has since worked with the likes of notorious, anti-advertising magazine Adbusters; designed record covers for David Bowie; and collaborated with Damien Hirst. He has also maintained a personal poster project, and created a number of ubiquitous font designs, released through Emigre and his own company Virusfonts. His contribution to graphic design was recognised through a major exhibition at the Design Museum, London in 2007. Barnbrook has also created the visual identity for the 17th Biennale of Sydney and is one of the participating artists.

Barnbrook is a pioneer of the notion of graphic design with a social conscience. He makes strong statements about corporate culture, consumerism, war and international politics. Working in both commercial and non-commercial spheres, Barnbrook combines originality, wit, political savvy and bitter irony in equal measures. Ironically for a designer who consciously challenges capitalism through his work, his commercial success both as a type designer and typographer in general has made him one of the most influential voices in typography in the 90s.

Barnbrook is arguably most-recognised for his work on the cover artwork of David Bowie 's 2002 album Heathen which featured the debut for his 'Priori' typeface. Other well known fonts designed by Barnbrook (and released through 'VirusFonts' ) include Bastard, Exocet, False Idol, Infidel, Moron, Newspeak, Olympukes, Sarcastic, Shock & Awe, and Tourette. Many have emotive and controversial titles reflecting the style and themes of Barnbrook's work.

He has also worked with Damien Hirst – for whom he designed the visual identity of his monograph “I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now”

He has also worked with the anti-corporate design and culture jam magazine Adbusters and on the First Things First manifesto The First Things First manifesto, backed by over 400 graphic designers and artists which rallied against the consumerist culture that was purely concerned with buying and selling things and tried to highlight a Humanist dimension to graphic design theory

Barnbrook himself argues for a new design based on ethical principles – one of sustainability and social conscience. One that isn’t divided from the individual who creates it by the rules of free-market economics. His own political posters have been illegally pasted up around London and elsewhere.

1990 PlayStation Claire

2010-06-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

The PlayStation brand is a line of video game consoles created and developed by Sony Computer Entertainment, it was first introduced by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, 1994

"Live In Your World, Play In Ours." (The PlayStation face button icons were used to denote certain letters: Live In YOur WXrld, PlAy In Ours)

Controversial advertising campaigns
The PlayStation brand has gained a rather infamous reputation of occasionally utilizing extremely unique and often controversial advertising campaigns throughout various regions in the world.
PSP
Sony admitted in late 2005 to hiring good graffiti artists to spray paint advertisements for the PSP in seven major U.S. cities including New York City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. According to Sony, it is paying businesses and building owners for the right to spray paint their walls.
In 2006, Sony ran a poster campaign in England. One of the poster designs with the slogan "Take a running jump here" was removed from a Manchester Piccadilly station tram platform due to concerns that it might encourage suicide.

In July 2006, Sony released an advertising campaign in the Netherlands featuring a Caucasian model dressed entirely in white and a black model dressed entirely in black. One ad in particular featured the white model clutching the face of the black model; with the words "White is coming" headlining the ad. Critics have viewed the ad as racist. A Sony spokesperson responded that the ad does not have a racist message, saying that it was only trying to depict the contrast between the black PSP model and the new ceramic white PSP. Other pictures of the ad campaign include the black model overpowering the white model.

PlayStation 3
In September 2009, Sony revised one commercial in their "It only does... EVERYTHING" campaign after a complaint was made by the Nigerian government. Prof Dora Akunyili, Minister of Information and Communication, said that the advert was a "deliberate negative campaign against the country's image and reputation". The commercial showed one man trying to convince another that the rumours about the PlayStation 3 selling for the lower price of $299 were true. The man replies "You can't believe everything you read on the Internet otherwise I'd be a Nigerian millionaire by now." referencing the common 419 scams originating in Nigeria. Sony issued an apology and a new version of the advert with the offending line changed.

This was an interesting and mildly seen advertisement from Malaysia back in 2005. While small in scope and not particularly impactful on the industry, this unconventional approach did provide a very clever and unique way to get products into the minds of potential consumers. What we're seeing here, at first glance, is a relatively inconspicuous bus stop with a plain PlayStation 2 logo adorning the rooftop. Upon further inspection, however, we can see billboards lined with PlayStation-themed bubble wrap.

The campaign appeared around July last year; it gave students an amusing solution to classroom tedium by allowing them to hide their PSPs behind disguised cutouts of Dante's Divine Comedy. On the backside, there are photo instructions showing how to use the disguise during a lecture, while a CliffNotes summary on the classic poem is provided to save students from surprise questions that may come their way.

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/sentry/top-10-worst-best-playstation-advertisements-from-ps-fanboy/30-8836/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation

1990 - SWATCH WATCHES - PAM

2010-06-07T18:01:00.000-07:00

Swatch is a brand name for a line of Swiss watches and other related products. Initially Swatch needed to re-capture their entry level back into the market share after the introduction of Japan's "Delirium digital watch", and once again popularize the "analog" watch. The directors understood that by offering the concept of simply a good watch was not enough and moved to attractive, cheeky and good fun designs to regain their place back into the market share.

The key factor for the Swatch's success was related to the artistic designs used for the appearance of the watches. Swatch realized that if they varied the designs they could show the public that swatches were of good quality at a low price and that you could own more than just one with the different fun designs available also marketed as an affordable accessory for the latest fashion. Swatch looked at art for inspiration through the artists themselves and took on board artistic designers such as Vivienne Westwood (famous fashion designer), Keith Haring and Sam Francis to name a few. The designs were influenced by the pop generation of the 80's along with renaissance, celestral and oriental influences over the years. Today Swatches dedication to modernist timeless designs and as a daily commodity as a popular fashion accessory, but as a collectible cultural piece of art. Designs overtime have wondered away from it's center every 15 years or so and with designers following fashion trends, these trends typically go too far and designers end up pulling back to the core definitions of good designs and quality branding.

http://www.swatch.com/zz_en/swatchart/artists.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch

www.idsa.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/timeless_design.pdf

http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/hist100.96/weldeproject/heatherlynn.html

http://www.switzerland.com/en.cfm/business/offer-Economy-Companies-318597.html

History and Advertising of Nokia Phones 1990's-Today - Rosie

2010-06-07T17:16:00.000-07:00

Mobile phones went handheld in 1987

Original mobile phones were heavy, bulky and usually permanently installed in cars. 1987 saw a breakthrough when Nokia launched the Mobira Cityman, the first handheld mobile phone, a model that was to become a classic.

On July 1, 1991, Finnish Prime Minister Harri Holkeri made the world’s first GSM call, using Nokia equipment. Nokia was one of the key developers of GSM technology. The Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) was adopted in 1987 as the European standard for digital mobile technology. GSM’s high-quality voice calls, easy international roaming and support for new services like text messaging (SMS) laid the foundations for a worldwide boom in mobile phone use. By the end of the 1990s, Nokia had supplied GSM systems to more than 90 operators all over the world.

By 1998, Nokia’s focus on telecommunications and its early investment in GSM technologies had made the company the world leader in mobile phones. For most of its history the company had exported to Europe, other Nordic countries and the Soviet Union. After the strategic change of 1992, Nokia saw a huge increase in sales to North America, South America and Asia. Between 1996 and 2001, Nokia’s turnover increased almost fivefold from EUR 6.5 billion to EUR 31 billion.

In 1999 The Internet went mobile Nokia launches the world's first WAP handset, the Nokia 7110.

Nokia launched its first 3G phone, the Nokia 6650, in 2002. The launch of 3G ("third generation") technology meant mobiles would never be the same again. 2002 also saw the launch of Nokia’s first phone with a built-in camera, the Nokia 7650, and its first video capture phone, the Nokia 3650. 3G meant you can use your phone to
download music
make video calls
watch TV on the move
browse the web

A new generation of multimedia devices was born in 2005 with the launch of the Nokia Nseries. The easy-to-use devices combine state-of-the-art technology with stylish design, creating complete entertainment and communication packages. Some of the features of the Nokia Nseries are taking your music collection mobile, shooting and editing feature-length video and watching TV

www.nokia.com/about-nokia/company/story-of-nokia

erik spiekermann, in the last 20 years, briefly, (ian)

2010-06-07T16:54:00.000-07:00

Erik Spiekermann calls himself an information architect.

In 1979, where, together with two partners, he founded MetaDesign, Germany’s largest design firm, with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco. The firm’s projects included work for Audi, Skoda, Volkswagen, Lexus, Heidelberg Printing, Berlin Transit, Düsseldorf Airport and many other clients.

In 1988, Spiekermann started FontShop, a digital typeface foundry and distributor of fonts.

His book, Stop Stealing Sheep, first published in 1993, has sold over 150,000 copies and is currently in its second edition.

.
In 2000, work on a new project: The United Designers Network, a collaboration of many designers he has worked with over the years.

# ITC Officina Sans (1990)

# ITC Officina Serif (1990)

# FF Meta (1991-1998)

# FF Govan (2001)

# FF Info (2000)

# FF Unit (2003)

# FF Meta Serif (with Christian Schwartz and Chris Sowersby, 2007)

www.fonts.com
en.wikipedia.org
www.fontshop.com
www.idi-design.ie
www.identifont.com

Peter Saville

2010-06-07T16:26:00.000-07:00

The Peter Saville principle “Music covers are not graphic design, they communicate nothing”

Peter Saville is the famous creator of cover sleeves for highly regarded musical artists such as New Order and Joy Division.

A graphic designer in fashion and art projects as well as in music, his work combines a definite flair with an amazing ability to identify images that epitomise the moment.

Coming Up album for Suede, 1996

Peter Saville inventively adapted his designs directly toward the musician’s cultural aspirations and identity. His simplicity and focal point were rewarded with loyalty and freedom from musicians that were traditionally not given to graphic designers.

Saville created a long standing identity within the field of cover design however he struggled through financial hardship and at times becoming frustrated in the nineties with what he saw as a “frenzied overload of boring stock images”. Frustrated he would find stylized images and throw big words such as 'GAME OVER ' over the top of them.

With plenty of freedom sometime Saville’s designer brilliance would create difficulty when his points would overwhelm a brochure or poster in which he would leave out the actual content on which he was designing for. Once Saville found his niche within the nineties, loyal bands reapproached him for more album covers enabling Saville to combine his political views and history with photo collaboration, colour, as well as themed focal points toward the albums and as usual a great blend of clean capturing trouble free work .

Blue Monday single for New Order, 1983

Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Saville_%28designer%29
http://designmuseum.org/design/peter-saville
http://www.tosq.com/petersaville/disc/
http://www.cerysmaticfactory.info/designed_by_peter_saville.html
http://blog.eyemagazine.com/?p=166

2010-06-07T16:25:00.000-07:00

David Carson

David Carson is an American graphic designer. He is best known for his innovative magazine design, and use of experimental typography. He was the art director for the magazine Ray Gun. Carson was perhaps the most influential graphic designer of the nineties. In particular, his widely-imitated aesthetic defined the so-called "grunge typography" era.

"he changed the public face of graphic design" -newsweek

David Carson started out working as a teacher in San Diego California and started to experiement with graphic design and found himself submerged in the bohemian culture and artistic flare of Southern California. By the late eighties he had developed his signature style, using "dirty" type and non-mainstream photographic techniques. He would later be dubbed the "father of grunge."

Being a professional surfer and qualifying 9th in the world Carson's background has come from surfing. After working for Ray gun magazine Carson set up his own studio doing promotional work for several big time companies. His quirky style and creative use with type makes advertising of any products very eye catching.
These included Microsoft in 1998, as well as advertising for Giorgio Armani (Milan). His client list includes, but is certainly not limited to, American Express, Apple Computers, Atlantic Records, Budweiser (1995 Superbowl spot), Bush, CNN, Cuervo Gold, Fox TV, Kodak, Levi’s, Meg Ryan, Mercedes Benz, MGM Studios, MTV, NBC, Nike, Nine Inch Nails, Nissan, Pepsi, Quiksilver, Ray Ban, Sony, Toyota, Warner Brothers and Xerox .

links

www.davidcarsondesign.com
http://raygun.com
www.ted.com
http://www.chapter19.com/biographies/david-carson
http://new.myfonts.com/person/David_Carson/

ROXY: 1990's - Björk "Post"

2010-06-07T16:20:00.000-07:00

Post is the third studio album by Björk - singer-songwriter and musician from Iceland. It was released in June 1995.

Originally, the album cover for Post was to be a photo of Björk surrounded by silver balls.

The photograph origionally planned for Björk's album.

This idea was dropped and Bjork decided that the album should be a portrait of her surrounded by her important possessions from home. These possessions were to represent the themes in the album’s music – her isolation from family and friends from Iceland.

Paul White of Me Company suggested surrounding Björk with massive postcards, indicating the communication with her friends and family through the post.

Finally, the cover image for the album was photographed by Stéphane Sednaoui in the London streets.

The booklet and packaging were designed by the collaborator Me Company who also designed the artwork for the album’s singles.

Singles from Post.

Orange featured heavily in the album's artwork as White felt the colour matched the album's personality. The typeface used for Björk's logo during the Post and Debut eras was a modified version of DIN, which is used on German road signs.

Martin Gardiner modelled the lotus flower used in the album's booklet and packaging, while the jacket Björk wears on the cover of Post, crafted from envelope paper called Tjvek, was designed by Hussein Chalayan, who Björk modelled for in September 1995.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_%28Bj%C3%B6rk_album%29

http://languages.oberlin.edu/courses/2010/spring/cine110/ebooth/files/2010/02/bjork-post-album-cover-bjork.jpg

http://unit.bjork.com/specials/albums/post/

2010-06-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

PHOTOSHOP

In 1987, Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, began writing a program on his Macintosh Plus to display grayscale images on a monochrome display.

This program, called Display, caught the attention of his brother John Knoll, an Industrial Light & Magic employee, who recommended Thomas turn it into a full-fledged image editing program. Thomas took a six month break from his studies in 1988 to collaborate with his brother on the program, which had been renamed ''ImagePro''.

Later that year, Thomas renamed his program (Photoshop) and worked out a short-term deal with scanner manufacturer Barneyscan to distribute copies of the program with a slide scanner; a "total of about 200 copies of Photoshop were shipped" this way.

During this time, John traveled to Silicon Valley and gave a demonstration of the program to engineers at Apple and Russell Brown, art director at Adobe. Both showings were successful, and Adobe decided to purchase the license to distribute in September 1988.While John worked on plug-ins in California, Thomas remained in Ann Arbor writing program code.

Photoshop 1.0 was released in 1990 for Macintosh exclusively.
The program was intended from the start as a tool for manipulating images that were digitized by a scanner, which was a rare and expensive device in those days.

http://creativebits.org/the_first_version_of_photoshop

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop
http://www.storyphoto.com/multimedia/multimedia_photoshop.html
http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/logo/adobe-photoshop-1990-eye-logo

Jerome Quinert :)

1990 TO NOW

2010-06-07T01:51:00.000-07:00

erik spiekermann- meta desgn, rick valicenti, designers republic sheffield england, malcom garrett, david carson, fuse magazine, peter saville, jonathon barnbrook, world wide web, tomato, tetra pak, mobile phones, sony playstation, jim nature tv phillippe starck, canon ixus, apple imac and ibook, multi media kiosk, 'raygun', terry jones, 'i-D', 'vibrations', 'blue lines massive attack, michael nash, 'screamadelica' primal scream, paul connell, 'post' by bjork, sonia greteman, swatch twin phone, video phone, photoshop, dvds, Carol Twombly, zines, graphics tablets, iphone, ipad, computer games

PENNY: Post 7: Atari

2010-06-01T03:13:00.000-07:00

Taken from the Japanese game 'Go'.
Also, in Japanese, atari is taken from 'ataru', meaning "to hit the target" or "to receive something fortuitously".

The Atari company was started in 1972 by engineers Bob Brown and Harold Lee. The first product being Atari Pong; Codename: "Darlene"; Model # C-100,

it was based on the coin-op arcade game designed by Al Alcorn with the same name. This was based on the Magnavox Odyssey's Tennis arcade game; the "Odyssey" was the first home video game console. However Pong had superior full color graphics, a score counter and excellent sound effects.
Distributed and supported by Sears Roebuck & Co.'s Tom Quinn, Atari ended up doing nearly $150,000 in total for the Christmas '75 season. People waited two hours in line, just to get on a list to get Pong.
Later Atari consoles had rainbow colours and a catchy inbuilt "PONG" sound.

Pong set a precedent for home device games; if a game performed well as an arcade game it was redesigned as a console game. For example, Space Invaders started life as a Japanese coin-op game. However when Atari redesigned Pac-Man, the result was so bad that customers became disenchanted with Atari.

Centipede was designed in 1980 by Ed Logg and Dona Bailey, one of the few female game programmers in the industry at this time. It was also the first arcade coin-operated game to have a significant female player base.
The artwork from the Centipede 'cabinet' is used for the CD single cover artwork by the band The Strokes.

There are, to this day, centipede tournaments.

The 10 biggest selling games for the Atari 2600 were:
1. Pac-Man
2. Pitfall!
3. Missile Command
4. Demon Attack
5. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
6. Atlantis
7. Adventure
8. River Raid
9. Kaboom!
10. Space Invaders

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_ioo5G7Olc
review of centipede released 1980

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600

http://www.atari.com/about

http://www.atarigames.com/

http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?letter=C&game_id=7299

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Video_Arcade_Games

http://www.videogamecritic.net/2600bb.htm#Battlezone

http://www.videogamecritic.net/2600.htm

http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/

http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-ads.html

http://www.theoldcomputer.com/Libraries/tv_adverts_summary.htm
tv ads

http://www.8bitrocket.com/newsdisplay.aspx?newspage=4185

April Greiman - Judy

2010-05-31T19:00:00.000-07:00

April Greiman is regarded as one of the most influential graphic artists in digital media. Massimo Vignelli described her as the most daring and meaningfully experimental graphic designer in the world.
She was one of the first to embrace computer technology as a design tool in 1984. She is also credited with bringing New Wave design to the US. As a student of Armin Hoffman and Wolfgang Weingart in the early 1970s, Greiman explored the International Style in depth, as well as Weingart’s personal experiments in developing an aesthetic that was less reflective of the Modernist heritage and more representative of a changing, post-industrial society. New Wave was a more intuitive, eclectic departure from the stark organization and neutral objectivity of the grid that sent shock waves through the design community.

In 1984 Grieman designed “Iris Light” This poster is significant due to its innovative use of video imagery and integration of New Wave typography with classical design elements. This work incorporated a still video image, which at a time meant shooting a traditional photograph off the monitor using a 35mm camera. It was the first hybrid piece incorporating digital technology. Greiman said “Instead of looking like a bad photograph, the image was gestural. It looked like a painting; it captured the spirit of light.” Click here to view image: http://madeinspaceshop.com/lrgposterimages/Iris_Light_Web.jpg

In 1985 "Design Quarterly" invited Grierman to design an issue about her work. Her piece challenged existing notions of what a magazine should be. Rather than the standard thirty-two-page sequence, she reformatted the piece as a poster that folded out to almost three by six feet. On the front is an image of Greiman’s digitized, naked body amid layers of interacting images and text. On the back, colorful atmospheric spatial video images are interspersed with thoughtful comments and painstaking notations on the digital process — a virtual landscape of text and image. Beyond considering whether digital technologies made sense, the Design Quarterly poster seemed to embody the disillusionment of a nation deeply wounded by the Vietnam war and shaped by the growth of feminism, spiritualism, Eastern religion, Jungian archetypes, and dream symbolism. “Does It Make Sense?” was also an astounding technical feat. The process of integrating digitized video images and bitmapped type was not unlike pulling teeth in the early days of Macintosh and MacDraw. The files were so large, and the equipment so slow that she would send the file to print when she left the studio in the evening and it would just be finished when she returned in the morning.

Before the appearance of “Does It Make Sense?” designers widely considered bit-mapped type and imagery not only unorthodox but unacceptable, straying too far from the clean, crisp precision of the Intermational Style. The computer itself was viewed as cold and unfriendly, wildly expensive, and a harbinger of the demise of fine design. After the publication of Design Quarterly #133, many designers felt compelled to reconsider the role of the computer in design practice. Greiman’s willingness to ask the question, and to place it at the center of the design community, triggered countless debates about computers, context, and creativity.

LINKS

http://www.artandculture.com/users/36-april-greiman

April Greiman's blog: http://blog.aprilgreiman.com/

http://www.mkgraphic.com/greiman.html

http://aprilgreiman.com/home.html

1970's Seymour Chwast

2010-05-31T18:32:00.000-07:00

Seymour Chwast shaped the evolution of graphic design and illustration, designing innovative designs that gained international recognition for his playful expressive approach to type and illustrative layout. His unique designs in illustrations began a new design wave, based on revivalism (a radical alternative to the Swiss formalism of that time). Chwast's colourful and witty designs have been used on packaging, children and adult books, magazines, advertisements and 100’s of posters that displays a captivating sense of humour next to a strong understanding of traditional design methods.

Chwast's passion for the historical design movement has reintroduced the knowledge, appreciation and reapplication of past styles and forms. The 1970's Chwast designs drew extensively on the 19th century illustrations as seen in posters for the sensational Houdini poster in 1973 along. In 1971 he worked together with Phyllis la Farge to produce the book “The Pancake King”. He also frequently worked in woodcut and monoprint, using thick bold outlines as seen in "End Bad Breath poster from 1976.

Chwast’s creative style that had a distinct influence on contemporary visual communications was later hired by McDonalds to design the packaging for their new product line of Happy meals.

Along with Chwast many different contributions to graphic design, his co-founders for his company Pushpin Studios, Milton Glaser and Edward Sorel together designed their own line of candies. Presenting a whimsical, cheeky style of candies. Mints in the shape of caviar, almonds as pearl candies, lavishly proportioned chocolate bars and martini flavoured candy olives, producing creative designs for packaging for each.

http://pushpininc.com/seymour.html

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/medalist-seymourchwast

http://www.answers.com/topic/seymour-chwast

http://containerlist.glaserarchives.org/index.php?id=78#body

http://www.graphic-design.com/DTG/chwast/index.html

2010-05-31T18:18:00.000-07:00

V e r ne r Pa nton

Verner Panton 13 February 1926 – 5 September 1998 is considered one of Denmarks most influential 20th-century furniture and interior designers. During his career, he created innovative and futuristic designs in a variety of materials, especially plastics and in vibrant colors. His style was very "1960s" but regained popularity at the end of the 20th century; as of 2004, Panton's most well-known furniture models are still in production.

One of Panton's well known pieces

Panton was trained as an architectural engineer in Odense, he studied architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen, graduating in 1951. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Verner Panton experimented with designing entire environments: radical and psychedelic interiors that were an ensemble of his curved furniture, wall upholstering, textiles and lighting. He is best known for the design of a German boats interior, now a famous museum. He is also known for a hotel in Europe that utilized circular patterns and cylindrical furniture.

United Colors of Benetton 1980s

2010-05-31T18:03:00.000-07:00

United Colors of Benetton

United Colours of Benetton is a globally recognised clothing label, created in 1965, but whose popularity soared in the 1980s when, under the creative direction of Oliviero Toscani, they began to build brand awareness through controversial print advertisements that centered on the 'colors of the world' and the ideas of difference, reality, freedom of speech, and the right to express it.

Featuring powerful (and sometimes graphically disturbing) images representing racism, death, world strife, and social taboos, the ads from these campaigns had little to do with the clothes that United Colors of Benetton sold (ie. knitwear), and the Benetton logo (stylized balls of yarn with knitting needles) was the only way to tell what these images were advertising.

One campaign featured a black woman breastfeeding a white baby, another a family stricken by grief at the bedside of a loved one dying from Aids. There was much debate over the ethics behind the 1980s campaigns, and some publications did not run the ads. Despite criticisms, the company stood by the campaign and continues to use similarly controversial images in their advertisements, stating that the images used reinforced Benetton as an enterprise that invests in research, is modern and projected towards to future, and highlights it's most important characteristic - its uniqueness.

Today many of us know the Benetton brand, not for its line of knitwear, but for the social activist print ads that shocked and raised awareness of social issues, unity and equality.

1980s Apple Claire Sewell

2010-05-31T17:31:00.000-07:00

The Apple II (often rendered Apple ][ or Apple //) was one of the first highly successful mass produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.)

During 1980 Apple went public. Within a year, the stocks' value increases by 1700%!

Throughout the years, a number of different models were introduced and sold. By the end of its production in 1993, somewhere between five and six million Apple II series computers had been produced^.

The Apple II became one of the most recognizable and successful computers during the 1980s and early 1990s. It was aggressively marketed through volume discounts and manufacturing arrangements to educational institutions which resulted in it being the first computer in widespread use in American secondary schools. The computer was especially popular with business users and families^.

At the height of its evolution, towards the late 1980s, the platform had the graphical look of a hybrid of the Apple II and Macintosh with the introduction of the Apple IIGS.

Despite the introduction of the Motorola 68000-based Apple Lisa system in 1983, and its more successful cousin the Macintosh in 1984, the relatively unsophisticated Apple II series was Apple's primary revenue source for most of the following decade: with its associated community of third-party developers and retailers it was once a billion-dollar-a-year industry.

The Apple II was designed to look more like a home appliance than a piece of electronic equipment. The lid popped off the beige plastic case without the use of tools, allowing access to the computer's internals, including the motherboard with eight expansion slots, and an array of random access memory (RAM) sockets which could hold up to 48 kilobytes worth of memory chips.

Apple released the Apple IIc in April 1984, billing it as a portable Apple II, because it could be easily carried, though unlike modern portables it lacked a built-in display and battery. The IIc even sported a carrying handle that folded down to prop the machine up into a typing position. It was the first of three Apple II models to be made in the Snow White design language, and the only one that used its unique creamy off-white color.

The next member of the line was the Apple IIGS computer, released in September 15, 1986. A radical departure from the existing Apple II line, the IIGS featured a true 16-bit microprocessor, the 65C816, operating at 2.8 MHz with 24-bit addressing, allowing expansion up to 8 MB of RAM without the bank-switching hassles of the earlier machines (RAM cards with more than 4 MB were never directly supported by Apple). It introduced two completely new graphic modes sporting higher resolutions and a palette of 4,096 colors; however, only 4 (at 640×200 resolution) or 16 (at 320×200 resolution) colors could be used on a single line at a time, although a technique known as dithering was often employed in software to increase the number of perceived colors.

The Apple II series of computers had an enormous impact on the technology industry and on everyday life. The Apple II was the first personal computer many people ever saw, and its price was within the reach of many middle-class families. Its popularity bootstrapped the entire computer game and educational software markets and began the boom in the word processor and computer printer markets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series

http://www.theapplemuseum.com/index.php?id=56

2010-05-31T16:48:00.001-07:00

Emigre Magazine.

One of the greatest influences on Desktop Publishing was without doubt the ''Emigre Magazine''. It was first published back in the 80's

Emigre was a graphic design magazine published by ''Emigre'' Graphics between ''1984'' and ''2005'' it was first published in 1984 in San Francisco, California, USA. Art-directed by Dutch-born Rudy VanderLans using fonts designed by his wife.., Czechoslovakian-born Zuzana Licko.

Emigre was one of the first publications to use (Macintosh) computers and had a large influence on graphic designers moving into desktop publishing Its variety of layouts, use of guest designers, and opinionated articles also had an effect on other design publications.

The first magazine came out in 1984 with a focus on the émigré. The first eight issues were concerned with boundaries, international culture, travel accounts and alienation (as the issues' titles suggest). The first eight issues also incorporated a dynamic aesthetic that caught the attention of designers and led to the next stage in the magazine's evolution…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigre_%28magazine%29
http://www.emigre.com/index.php
http://designhistorylab.com/?p=1127
http://typophile.com/node/12457

jerome Quinert :)

1980's Sportswear -Rosie

2010-05-31T16:35:00.000-07:00

A bit of Background
In the 1980s, fashion was influenced by the western economic boom. The dominant market was getting older and was also financially secure. Designer labels and branding gained impetus. Brand names became status symbols especially in the area of for sports gear and sportswear.

By 1979 exercise had become a routine part of many people's lives. Some played squash, others tennis, some jogged, others joined health clubs and took on the whole package. Dance studios with jazz tap exercise and step classes mushroomed. As the craze grew so did a practical need for sports clothes that were up to the task of being easy care for busy people.

1983 ad for Sears clothing featuring tennis player Evonne Goolagong

Synthetic fabrics with their easy care, strong and often stretch properties were the ideal choice for most sports. Synthetic materials such as licra could also be dyed in strong vibrant colours which were the hallmark of the 80s. Colours were bright and often combined with a contrast secondary colour and white. Typical combinations were navy and white or sea green, sea green and purple, purple and pink, purple and mauve, purple and yellow, peach and sea green, sea green and pastel aqua, royal blue and pale blue, black and white, red black and white or multi computer generated prints of all those colours with just about every colour in the design.

Hip Hop and Sports wear in 1980's
During the 1980s, hip-hop icons began to wear clothing items such as brightly colored name-brand tracksuits, and brand name sneakers usually Pro-Keds, Puma, and Adidas-brand shelltoes. Other clothing brands such as Reebok, Kangol, Champion, Carhartt, and Timberland were very closely associated with the hip hop scene,particularly on the East coast with hip hop acts such as Wu-Tang Clan and Gangstarr sporting the look.

If you look closely at the shoes on the front left hand performer you can make out a air Jordan symbol

Nike
The Nike capture of soon-to-be superstar basketball protege Michael Jordan from rivals Adidas in 1984 proved to be a huge turning point. It launched a massive and very effective advertising campaign and began to dominated the urban streetwear sneaker market in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

www.fashion-era.com/1980s_lifestyle_and_fashion.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_fashion

sneakernews.com/2009/06/11/michael-jordan-spike-lee-vintage-nikeair-jordan-ads/

www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=2396781

www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Air-Jordan--Famous-Line-From-Nike/659071

tibor kalman.........(ian)

2010-05-31T16:30:00.000-07:00

For a decade he was the design profession’s moral compass and its most fervent provocateur.
The few graphic designers whose accomplishments were legend within the field and widely known outside as well.

Tibor had, by the late 1980s, become known as (or maybe he even dubbed himself) the “bad boy” of graphic design.

Tibor Kalman’s impact could not have been foreseen when he opened M&Co out of his Greenwich Village apartment on the proverbial kitchen table in 1979. Kalman entered the profession through happenstance, bringing with him none of the prejudices of design school training, and little of the expertise. He had a belief that graphic design could provide a stage for his broader concerns. Fusing modernist social responsibility and post-modernist introspection, M&Co developed not only a style but also an ethic that raised the bar of graphic design thinking and practice.

His wife Maira had the nickname “M,” and he called his concern M&Co. Bolstered by an influx of work, Kalman’s sense of the funky and absurd began to kick in. He built “a goofy-looking office, with a goofy, triangular-shaped table that fit into a goofy-shaped conference room.” In the post-modern manner, the office was “very dressed up,” yet the reception window was a hole smashed out of the wall with a sledgehammer. “You could bring a bank client or a rock group there for a meeting,” Kalman explained. “It sort of cut both ways.”

By 1989, Kalman had transformed M&Co’s promotions into a soapbox for arguing the efficacy of social responsibility. “We went along a piece at a time, each time trying to figure out how to make a political children’s toy or how to introduce politics into our products, identity work, corporate work, and music work.”

In 1989, as co-chair with Milton Glaser of the AlGA’s “Dangerous Ideas” conference in San Antonio, he urged designers to question the effects of their work on the environment and refuse to accept any client’s product at face value.

In 1979 Kalman, Carol Bokuniewicz, and Liz Trovato started the design firm M&Co, which did corporate work for such diverse clients as the Limited Corporation, the New Wave music group Talking Heads, and Restaurant Florent in New York City's Meatpacking District.[5] Kalman also worked as creative director of Interview magazine in the early 1990s.

Tibor saw himself as a social activist for whom graphic design was a means of achieving two ends: good design and social responsibility.
“Everyone can hire a good photographer, choose a tasteful typeface and produce a perfect mechanical,” Tibor once railed. “So what? That means ninety-five percent of the work exists on the same professional level, which for me is the same as being mediocre.”

While editing pictures for the photographer Oliviero Toscani, who had created the pictorial advertising identity for Benetton, the Italian clothing manufacturer, Tibor helped produce a series of controversial advertisements focusing on AIDS, racism, refugees, violence, and warfare that carried the Benetton logo but eschewed the fashions it sold.

"He was keenly passionate about things of the American vernacular because he wasn't American," Chee Pearlman, editor of I.D. magazine, remarked shortly after Kalman's funeral. "In that sense, he taught the whole profession to look at things that they may not have seen as closely or taken as seriously." For example, M&Co incorporated images of coffee cups, chairs and delivery trucks culled from the Yellow Pages into a menu Kalman designed in 1985 for Florent, a Manhattan restaurant.

“ We’re not here to help clients eradicate everything of visual interest from the face of the earth. We’re here to make them think about design that’s dangerous and unpredictable. We’re here to inject art into commerce. We’re here to be bad”

-Tibor Kalman and Karrie Jacobs, from Print magazine, Jan/Feb 1990

www.slideshare.net
www.salon.com/people/obit/1999/05/19/kalman
www.aiga.org
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibor_Kalman
www.uic.edu/depts/lib/specialcoll/services/rjd/findingaids/TKalmanf.html
www.adcglobal.org

The Adrogyny

2010-05-31T16:28:00.000-07:00

An androgyne in terms of gender identity, is a person who does not fit cleanly into the typical masculine and feminine gender roles of their society. They may also use the term ambigender to describe themselves. Many androgynes identify as being mentally "between" woman and man, or as entirely genderless. They may class themselves as non-gendered, gender neutral, agendered, between genders, intergendered, Bigendered,pangender or Gender fluid. They are technically of both genders. Genderqueer is often used to describe the category.
Androgyne was once used as a synonym for hermaphrodite, although the tewidely used.

One of the biggest and most prevalent mistakes in Western Culture is the idea that there exist two separate and "opposite" genders, masculinity and femininity. This gender dualism is not only false and without any factual or scientific support, but also very harmful. One strategy to overcome this wrongness is the idea of androgyny, by which masculinity and femininity are not conceived as opposite ends of one spectrum, but as two separate spectrums: you can be or have both at once (or neither), not only the one or the other. Thus, you can combine the various components of masculinity and femininity in any number of ways, according to your individual preferences, needs and nature. Should we then strive for an androgynous, individualist, highly diverse culture?
Some people think that the androgyny concept doesn't go far enough; because androgyny still

reproduces elements of the old false split of femininity and masculinity, it should be abandoned. What we need is not to construct combinations of two false concepts, but to go back to - and forward to - a situation with no split in the first place, a place without a gender dichotomy. The point must be made that keeping the

masculine and the feminine apart and separate is what is difficult and unnatural, while keeping them together is simple and natural. We must thus move beyond androgyny, in order to overcome the cultural and social schizophrenia of gender dualism.

Haircuts as expression of gender

are about empowerment, not looks
Men with androgynous haircuts and women who, as he describes, look like little boys, aren't confused. They're making a point. They're subverting normative ...
Androgyny is a term derived from the Greek words άνδρας and γυνή and refers to the mixing of masculine and feminine characteristics, as in fashion or hermaphroditism.
Boy George (born George Alan O'Dowd; 14 June 1961) is a British singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by rhythm and blues and reggae. His 1990s and 2000s-era solo music has glam influences such as David Bowie and Iggy Pop. He also founded and was lead singer of Jesus Loves You during the period 1989–1992. Being involved in many activities (among them songwriting, DJing, writing books, designing clothes and photography), he has released fewer music recordings in the last decade.

This is where design was highly influenced by the androgyny phase creating a distinct line of fashion and culture almost with a cutting edge ,sharp clean Nonsexual to a degree but sexual in both degrees, but definitely outrageous to the onlooker ,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_George
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgynhttp
http://folk.uio.no/thomas/gnd/androgyny.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glam_rock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Ziggy_Stardust_and_the_Spiders_from_Mars

ROXY: 1980's "The Face" - Neville Brody

2010-05-31T16:19:00.000-07:00

From 1981 to 1986 Neville Brody was art director of the magazine "The Face", for which he designed a distinctive typographical appearance that inspired magazine designers and other designers worldwide

Neville Brody was a typographer, graphic designer and art director. Brody is perhaps the best known graphic artist of his generation. He uses letters and numbers in his art pieces with an anti-traditional view on art. He played at the margins of visual language and used it to launch a revolution in typeface design.

Brody drew freely to create his visually exciting layouts and typography on avant-garde artistic ideas of the 1920s and 1930s such as those of De Stijl and Russian Constructivism. Far removed from contemporary editorial conventions Brody's work had a studied informality in the thoughtfulness devoted to the construction of its layouts, with blocks of texts often placed horizontally or vertically on the page, their often distinctive layouts contrasting strikingly with hand-mediated imagery and photography. Such ideas exerted a significant international impact on the appearance of magazine, advertising, and retailing design.

The contents spread from The Face's 1982 May edition.

An ad from The Face for dresses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Face_%28magazine%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Brody
http://www.art-directory.info/design/neville-brody-1957/index.shtml
http://www.answers.com/topic/neville-brody
http://dalstonoxfamshop.blogspot.com/2008/08/face-magazine-may-1982.html

2010-05-31T16:07:00.000-07:00

Madonna

Madonna born Madonna Louise Ciccone August 16, 1958 is an American recording artist, actress and entrepreneur. Madonna moved to New York City in 1977, for a career in modern dance. During the 1980's Madonna released 4 multi platinum albums. These albums consisted of self titled 'Madonna' released in 1983, 'Like a virgin' 1984, 'True Blue' 1986 and 'Like a prayer' 1989.

In the beginning of the 80s, disco was an anathema to the mainstream pop, and Madonna had a huge role in popularizing dance music as mainstream music, utilizing her charisma, chutzpah and sex appeal. Her album artwork in the 80's has incorporated this, along with her iconic styles.

A style icon was born

The most popular style that comes to mind when people think 80's is Madonna. Her style was the most copied and sought after look. Madonna had many looks in the 80's and with her ability to perpetually re-style herself she certainly contributed to the longevity of her career. One was her most iconic looks from the 80s was the wavy hair with highlights. Girls went to the salons in droves to get the “poodle” looking perms so their hair was wavy too. They pulled it up in bows like she did to copy her look in the Borderline video and movie, “Desperately Seeking Susan.” A black tank top, skirt, dirty bleached blonde hair and an attitude.

Madonna may be one of the first pioneers of the messy chic look of the 80’s. She started the layered look, with shirts and coats and more shirts. A lace shirt was often worn over another shirt. Or a sweatshirt with an oversized neck or cut off sleeves was worn over a smaller shirt or bra. Her layers also included accessories. She wore multiple necklaces and bracelets, some with crosses and other iconography. She also favored pearls and beads. Her earrings were long and dangly, with crosses or religious symbols.

Desparately Seeking Susan lookEveryday Madonna clothing of the 80’s included a skirt worn over tight, short pants. Sometimes they were patterned, other times they were lacy. No matter, the girls in school copied them. Another of Madonna’s fashion incarnations towards the end of the 80’s (1989 with the release of the Like a Prayer album) was the super sexy vixen style. She wore pointed bustiers, bras and very little else in several videos. She made it a habit to be in shape, and she showed her body off! Madonna changed the fashion industry forever.

http://www.liketotally80s.com/madonna-look.html
http://thestilettoeffect.blogspot.com/2007/01/madonna-bringing-back-80s.html
http://www.hollywoodrag.com/index.php?/gallery3/category2/C366/
www.wikipedia.org
www.madonna.com

STACY POST:1980"s

2010-05-31T04:12:00.000-07:00

1980's
the time of space shuttle flights begin, high temp super conductors developed, glasnot policy implemented by gorbachev, sportswear, contemporary japanese design, androgyny, madonna, slogan t shirts, printed fabrics, wolfgang weingart, katherine mccoy, cranbrook school of art poster, 'emigre' magazine,zuzana licko, rudy vanderLans, 'the face'- neville brody, bartle bogle hegarty, canon cb10, classic apple computer, 'hommes', ikko tanaka 'noh', grapus- design collective, miehe, nigel rose, gert dumbar, gunter rambow, peret, pere torrent, toscani, united colors of benetton, nathalie du pasquier memphis textiles, susan collier and sarah campbell textiles, mickey mouse phone, Frutiger, Alexander Jordan, Garald Paris Clavel, Pierre Bernard, Alain Le Quernec, Tibor Kalman, new functionalism, octavo, derek birdcall, atari, apple

1970's sony walkman -Rosie

2010-05-31T04:01:00.001-07:00

In 1978, legend has it that Sony president Akio Morita decided he would like to listen to his own selections of music while flying on airplanes. He brought the idea to the company, and soon, the simple, hand-sized cassette player with lightweight headphones was out on the market.

However, Shu Ueyama of Sony cites that this invention was purely accidental. Organizational changes were taking place at Sony in 1979 and the tape recorder division was pressed to market something soon, or risk consolidation. They came up with a small cassette player capable of stereo playback. The invention was born from a tweaked Pressman (Sony's monaural portable cassette recorder) and a pair of headphones. Sony chairman and founder Akio Morita heard of the invention and was eager to market it. The final design of the TPS-L2, the personal stereo cassette player was completed on March 24, 1979.

Sony then formulated a unique marketing campaign to sell the contraption. The story behind Sony's market research was legendary: they didn't do it! Said Akio Morita in a 1982 Playboy interview, "The market research is all in my head! You see, we create markets."

But how does one convince the public they need a product that they've never owned or seen? The first step was to get the word out to people who had influence on the public, like celebrities and people in the music industry. Sony sent Walkmans to Japanese recording artists, tv and movie stars free of charge. They also began an innovative marketing campaign, targeting younger people and active folks. The Walkman was engineered carefully to make it affordable to this market, also the imagery Sony successfully used around their Walkman gave the feelings of fun, youth and most importantly, freedom. Their invention allowed one to bring an exceptional listening experience anywhere.

www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/ walkman/history.html

www.enotes.com/1970-fashion-american-decades-ps/sony-walkman-advertisement

SWISS POSTERS.... (ian)

2010-05-30T22:45:00.000-07:00

A new graphic design style emerged in Switzerland in the 1950s that would become the predominant graphic style in the world by the '70s. Because of its strong reliance on typographic elements, the new style came to be known as the International Typographic Style.

The style was marked by: 1) the use of a mathematical grid to provide an overall orderly and unified structure; 2) sans serif typefaces (especially Helvetica, introduced in 1961) in a flush left and ragged right format; and 3) black and white photography in place of drawn illustration. The overall impression was simple and rational, tightly structured and serious, clear and objective, and harmonious.

The style was refined at two design schools in Switzerland, one in Basel led by Armin Hofmann and Emil Ruder, and the other in Zurich under the leadership of Joseph Muller-Brockmann. All had studied with Ernst Keller at the Zurich School of Design before WWII, where the principles of the Bauhaus and Jan Tschichold's New Typography were taught.

The new style became widely synonymous with the "look" of many Swiss cultural institutions which used posters as advertising vehicles. Hofmann's series for the Basel State Theater and Muller-Brockmann's for Zurich's Tonhalle are two of the most famous. Hofmann's accentuation of contrasts between various design elements and Muller-Brockmann's exploration of rhythm and tempo in visual form are high notes in the evolution of the style.

In addition, the new style was perfectly suited to the increasingly global postwar marketplace. Corporations needed international identification and global events such as the Olympics called for universal solutions which the Typographic Style could provide. With such good teachers and proselytizers, the use of the International Typographic Style spread rapidly throughout the world. In the U.S., Hofmann's Basel design school established a link with the Yale School of Design, which became the leading American center for the new style.

www.internationalposter.com

www.allgraphicdesign.com

www.postershow.com

www.designhistory.org

PENNY: Post 1: Swooning Mauve

2010-05-24T21:31:00.000-07:00

3-amino-2,±9-dimethyl-5-phenyl-7-(p-tolylamino)phenazinium acetate

C26H23N4+X-(mauveine A) and C27H25N4+X-(mauveine B)

#E0B0FF RGBB (r, g, b) (224, 176, 255)

The colour Mauve was discovered in 1856 by a scientist named William Perkin. He was trying to analyse the molecular structure of Quinine (anti-malarial) to produce a cheaper synthesized version through experimenting with aniline/coal tar. A mistake left a test tube with purple residue in it. Perkins, being an imaginative sort of guy, messed around with it and discovered that it was effective as a synthetic dye. Although initially ridiculed by his contemporaries for his 'purple sludge', Perkins went on to develop it as the first commercially marketed aniline dye.

Originally aniline purple or Tyrian purple (also the name of a mollusk-derived natural dye), it was dubbed mauve in early 1859, from the French, mallow flower. Chemists later called it mauveine.

A postage stamp fromthe 'mauve decade' using mauve dye

The 1890s in Britain were sometimes referred to as the "Mauve Decade," because of the popularity of the colour. In 1862 Queen Victoria appeared at the Royal Exhibition in a mauve silk gown. She also wore mauve at her daughters wedding and Eugenie (wife of Napoleon III, Empress of France, and a royal fashion plate) thought mauve matched her eyes.
Empress of Russia, Alexandra Feodorovna (6 June 1872 – 17 July 1918), had a boudoir known as the ‘Mauve Room’.

Mauve came to symbolise decadence and the flaunting of authority and social normality when artists such as Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde wore it ostentatiously through the Art Nouveau Period. The colour also became associated with homosexuality which translated into the lavender and pink of the 1950's and 1970's.

In 1926, Thomas Beer's book The Mauve Decade: American Life at the End of the Nineteenth Century, described the United States in a parallel with Britain, as moving away from its more traditional way of life into a period of "decay and meaningless phrases".

A tablecloth died with the original Perkins dye.
Art Nouveau introduced colours such as mauve, into the everyday.

Mauve moved from being incredibly fashionable in all the right circles, to being defined by James Whistler; artist and contemporary of Oscar Wilde; as "just pink trying to be purple", a representation of posturing and pretension. Mauve fell out of fashion in the late 1860s, overtaken by the burgeoning palette of the synthetic dye industry, but not before Perkins made his fortune and birthed synthetic chemistry as a business.

As mauve was a synthetic dye, it became more accessible than most dye during the war years and after. Many ordinary items became easier to colour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauve

http://www.blurtit.com/q394260.html

http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/MauveToC.htm

http://misswoodhousegoestocollege.wordpress.com/

http://books.google.com.au/books

Florence Broadhurst -Judy

2010-05-24T17:56:00.000-07:00

“How do I know I’m alive? I create, that’s how I know I’m alive.”

Eccentric extraordinaire, Florence Broadhurst was Australia’s foremost fashion chameleon.
She lived in Australia, Asia and England, changing her name three times, befriending royalty, winning acclaim as a singer and comedienne in South East Asia, a performing arts school founder in Shanghai and, back in Sydney, a landscape painter, dress salon owner, trucking company magnate, charity worker, crusading feminist, mercurial mother, and – finally and most famously – a revolutionary designer of wallpaper.

She single-handedly revolutionised the world of wallpaper with her handmade, vividly coloured avante garde and geometrically inspired designs. By the mid 70s, she was at the peak of her powers, with 800 designs in 80 colours, a monopoly on the local market and global exports. As a wallpaper designer, she took the bright hues of the experimental '60s and '70s and magnified them, creating retina-crunching pastiches of bright pinks, fluorescent yellows and racy greens. She used metallic foils and printed on fabric and glass for wealthier clients.

She saw her 'peacock' wallpaper as being one
of her best mature works. it became a 'signature' piece when she
posed in front of it for her business advertisements of the 1970s.
the full set of screens required to print the original 'peacock' design
were acquired into the powerhouse museum's collection in 1997.

Her colourful design legacy is matched by her status as a colourful style icon. She painted her nails bright red, coiffed her hair high in bright red shades, fluttered huge fake eyelashes that were red. She was one of Australia’s most outrageous designers and, when she was alive in Sydney, a very noticeable person, dressing in clothes people half her age would have loved to wear – mini skirts, plastic boots and so on. She adored making a scene and was literally and metaphorically colorful, she was a shocker; she loved to shock people.”

Her factory was a magnet for the hip and avant-garde. It was crowded and frantic, with music blaring from a radio while artists and printers worked side by side. The floor was greasy with turpentine and the fumes overwhelming, but there was always something going on - celebrities popping in, parties being held. And the boss was a blast.
"She was just such a naughty woman - she loved young men," marvels another of her artists, Sally Fitzpatrick, who watched in awe one evening as Broadhurst - by then in her 70s - seduced a boyish young pilot for a one-night stand. "I've had a fabulous weekend," Broadhurst would announce to staff when she turned up on Monday mornings, her scarlet eyelashes askew. "Now can you fix me up?"

Today, 40 years on from first unveiling themselves, Broadhurst’s luxurious patterns are booming – in permanent exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum, in collections by international designers Marc Jacobs and Stella McCartney, and deified here at home by local label legends Akira Isogawa, Nicole Zimmermann, and Karen Walker, all of whom use her designs for high-end fashion pieces and accessories.

Akira Isogawa using a Broadhurst print

Links
http://www.signatureprints.com.au/aboutus/aboutus_flobro.html

http://www.timeoutsydney.com.au/thebridge/colourfulsydneyidentity/florence-broadhurst.aspx

http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/marie-claire/features/life-stories/article/-/5876164/florence-broadhurst-designs-on-success/

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/florence-broadhursts-colourful-life-and-legacy/story-e6frg8n6-1225811499990

Read more at Design*Sponge http://www.designspongeonline.com/2008/03/magazine-editors-creative-story-tellers.html#ixzz0otjlFc2O

1970s Punk & Graphic Design | by M'Shell

2010-05-24T17:50:00.000-07:00

[Visual] AnarChy iN The UK

The origins of Punk in the mid-1970s lay in the realities of disaffected working-class urban youth with little hope of employment, housing, and a meaningful future. The music, fashion and graphic design that emerged during this time was often concerned with political issues such as social injustice and economic disparity.

Usually straightforward, with clear messages, punk graphic design was often in black and white and often homemade using production techniques of cut-n-paste letterforms, photocopied and collaged images, hand-scrawled text. This DIY aesthetic was applied to posters, album covers and low-tech fanzines such as Sniffin Glue, which contained crudely designed pages, graffiti-like insertions and typographic errors, as well as torn-out letters from other sources.

Such ideas gained wider currency in the Punk music scene with record covers for companies like Factory Records and Stiff Records and the emergence of designers like Jamie Reid, who designed the controversial sleeve for the Punk band the Sex Pistols' single God Save the Queen of 1977, showing the defaced head of Queen Elizabeth II.

Graphic designers such as Reid, Malcolm Garrett, and Peter Saville, all closely associated with Punk music graphics, had all attended art school and, with others such as Neville Brody, revitalized graphic design through harnessing the vitality and iconoclasm of Punk to graphic skills and an awareness of Postmodern eclecticism. However, like many radical challenges to conventional lifestyles any threat was removed by the commercialization of the style, as had been the case with hippies and Psychedelia in the previous decade.

http://www.answers.com/topic/punk-subculture
http://jdh.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/19/1/69
http://graphicdesigntheory.net/essaysHeller.html
http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature.php?id=140&fid=588
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_punk_subculture

STACY: C20TH TIMELINE

2010-05-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

As a class you will be creating a graphic time line of Twentieth Century. You are required to select 5 images from each of the decades assigned to you below. Select the image because of its significance to C20TH Graphic Design. It can be a designer, a process, a tool of the trade or an iconic image. It is to be A4 in size- portrait or landscape. if the image is taken off the web the resolution should be high otherwise it should be scanned from a publication. * indicates that the A4 print stating the decade is that students responsibility. Typography should be selected to reflect typefaces used during that decade. This will be printed from Stacy's account on 15th and 22nd of June and installed as a frieze in GG05 on June 22

1900

Judy*

Penny

1910

Luke

Rosie*

1920

Sam
Ian

Roxy*

1930

Ian*

Judy

1940

Clare

Luke*

1950

roxy

Clare*

1960

Pam
Sam

Penny*

1970

Pam*

Jerome

1980

Mshell*

Rosie

1990

Mshell

Nic*

2000

Nic

Jerome*

Saatchi & Saatchi 1980's-Pam

2010-05-24T17:05:00.000-07:00

Saatchi & Saatchi started as an advertising agency in London in the 1970's and thrived well into the 1980's providing global creative communications for 80 countries. Two brothers, Maurice & Charles Saatchi expressed their creative ideas across many disciplines including advertising, brand consulting, brand licensing, design, digital, events, brands, sport and entertainment and retail communications. All of which successfully getting people to fall in love with their clients products and services. Turning brands into 'Lovemarks' that unlike most brands generating loyalty beyond reason believing that the power in the ideas were able to differentiate and motivate the viewer. Perceiving that most human beings are powered by emotion and not reason.

A LOVEMARK IS A PRODUCT, SERVICE OR ENTITY THAT INSPIRES LOYALTY BEYOND REASON - YOU DON'T JUST LIKE THEM YOU LOVE THEM.

Saatchi & Saatchi had their first big break in advertising with posters and brochures for the British Health Education Council (HEC) advertising the negative attributes & health damage of smoking. Producing an emotion in the public of a deeper insight towards health concerns with smoking. Other posters featured a distinctively pregnant looking man with the caption "Would you be more careful if it was you that got pregnant" which promoted unwanted pregnancies for that era and encouraging men to think

more about contraception. All of which promoted often simple and sometimes

brutally effective images.

Their agency was hired by former prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979 to run a billboard campaign under the slogan "Labour Isn't Working"

emphasizing a long unemployment line crefor the Conservatives election effort that ultimately revamped their image perceived stringent image associated with Margaret Thatcher at that time. Further retaining the conservative party as a client produced the infamous poster featuring Tony Blair looking "devilish".

http://www.saatchi.com/about_saatchi_and_saatchi

http://industry.bnet.com/advertising/10006208/15-years-after-boardroom-coup-the-saatchi-brothers-are-poised-to-exact-political-revenge-on-ad-agency-that-stole-their-name/

http://www.answers.com/topic/saatchi-saatchi

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1449291/?log%24=activity

http://www.saatchiandsaatchi.eu/

1970s Claire Calling

2010-05-24T16:58:00.000-07:00

"London Calling" is a song by the British punk rock band The Clash. It was released as a single from the band's 1979 double album London Calling. This apocalyptic, politically charged rant features the band's famous combination of reggae basslines and punk electric guitar and vocals.

Parodying the cover of Elvis’ eponymous debut, The Clash meant business from the offset—a stunning live photograph of Paul Simonon destroying his “best” bass, which has since become one of the most iconic images in music history. But this nod to rock and roll is by no means the record’s last deviation from the punk rock norm.

(Handmade Promotion)

When famed rock photographer Pennie Smith was hired to document the Clash on their 1979 US tour, she was justifiably concerned - the anarchic British band had become famous for unleashing volleys of spit onto their frantically dancing audience. But the band was going through some transformations as the end of the 70s rolled around, incorporating elements of reggae and other styles into their trademark punk sound. However, this didn't leaven their wild performances at all, as Smith found out when she captured the

iconic shot

of bassist Paul Simonon smashing his instrument on the stage of the Palladium in NYC. The image would become the cover of the Clash's breakout London Calling.

The typography was

created by graphic designer Ray Lowry, who produced a parody of the pink and green lettering found on Elvis Presley's debut album. The conscious nostalgia to a purer time of rock & roll, juxtaposed against the decadent image of Simonon smashing his bass guitar, sent a bold message to the world that the Clash were taking over.

It’s the whole tone of the image coupled with the ‘borrowing’ of the Elvis Presley album colours and font for the London Calling lettering that frames the black and white image that creates something so visually remarkable. There was a decided intention for London Calling to symbolise the end of Rock and Roll (as Elvis was the beginning), a bold idea for 1979 but some will argue music has been treading water ever since.

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/on_second_thought/the-clash-london-calling.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Calling_%28song%29
http://www.theclashblog.com/tag/pennie-smith/
http://mimg.ugo.com/200808/16545/London-calling.jpg

luke: Roger Dean

2010-05-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

Roger Dean:Creative,Inspirable,Individually talented,with a huge range of quality artwork(paintings,pastels,gouache,montage,crayon,ink and,enamel)under his belt.Finds himself under a long list of well renown designers .

Pushing the envelope with his own self prolific style,capturing an individual scope of personally idealistic worlds,self created creatures ,colluding colour schemes and depth of atmosphere

This fantasy world of design,moving with a creative idea of illogical modern animals , personally comforting housing design (losing all the sharp edges and points . Creating a much modern architectural design.)Making ideas as they flourish over his eccentric imagination.Propelling himself into a fine line between artist/designer.The fine line was thinning . Where Rodger was picking up posters and album covers.The most accolading the YES album/posters. Using his style which was very similar and portrayed the music for similar values . This creativity was a pushing element which accompanied him into the arena .Producing self involved books ,covers , story lines within single posters ,or double page spreads creating a status of self within the design field that inspired other designers limitless boundaries to push their creativity and self flare of individualism upon the public , broadening the scope of designer/artist into an applicable application.

http ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Yes
http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/10354444loXhtMBMoj
http://www.rogerdean.com/
http://www.rogerdean.com/
http://www.abandonart.co.uk/gallery/roger-dean-artist.html

ROXY: 1970's Sniffin' Glue

2010-05-24T16:29:00.000-07:00

Sniffin' Glue is the name of a famous and pioneering monthly punk zine started by Mark Perry in July 1976 and released for about a year. The name is derived from a Ramones song "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue." Others that wrote for the magazine that later became well known journalists include Danny Baker.

Sniffin' Glue as quoted by someone... "...the layout was haphazard, headlines were usually just written in felt tip, swearwords were often used in lieu of a reasoned argument. . ."

Sniffin' Glue remains a key source of photographs of, and information about, contributors to the punk rock scene.

Often credited with the illustration featuring drawings of three chord shapes, captioned, "this is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band", this drawing actually originally appeared in another fanzine 'Sideburns' and was later reproduced in the Stranglers fanzine 'Strangled'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniffin%27_Glue
http://www.borders.com.au/book/sniffin-glue-and-other-rock-n-roll-habits/2013334/
http://www.markperry.freeuk.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Perry_%28musician%29

PENNY: Post 6: Matthew Carter

2010-05-24T16:28:00.001-07:00

"Chancellor Bismarck said about the law and sausages that it is better not to know how they are made, and he would probably have said the same about type. But I like to know how things are made, and I enjoy explaining the nuts and bolts of type to students."
Speaking of teahing at Yale
http://www.plazm.com/magazine/features/all-articles/matthew-carter

Born London 1937
Carter studied in The Netherlands under Raedisch
He pioneered the design of fonts for use on screen
Typographic advisor to Crosfield Electronics, distributors of phototypesetting machines.
Designed typefaces for Mergenthaler Linotype

He created the Cenntenial typeface for Bell Telephone Company commissioned in 1974 by AT&T, for its telephone directories and which is still in use. It had an exacting technical brief

An ink trap is a feature of certain typefaces, where the corners or details are removed from the letterforms. When the type is printed, ink naturally spreads into the removed area. Without ink traps, the excess ink would blob and ruin the crisp edge.

1981 Carter and Mike Parker created Bitstream Inc. a digital type foundry. It is one of the largest suppliers of type
1991 formed the Carter & Cone type foundry with Cherie Cone
He has designed for Apple and Microsoft computers. Georgia and Verdana are two fonts which have been created for viewing on computer monitors, they are designed to be legible even at very small sizes
Designed type for Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Boston Globe, Wired, and Newsweek

He created the corporate identity for the Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, where serifs can be added to or removed from the base type using a computer program.
Carter has won numerous awards for his significant contributions to typography and design

Matthew Carter's typefaces include:

* Bell Centennial
* Bitstream Charter
* Big Caslon
* Big Figgins
* Cascade Script
* Charter
* Elephant
* Fenway
* ITC Galliard
* Gando
* Georgia
* Mantinia
* Miller
* Monticello
* Nina
* Olympian
* Rocky
* Shelley Script
* Snell Roundhand
* Skia
* Sophia
* Tahoma
* Verdana
* Vincent
* Wilson Greek
* Wrigley
* Yale University typeface
* Meiryo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Carter
http://new.myfonts.com/person/Matthew_Carter/
http://designmuseum.org/design/matthew-carter
http://www.graphic-design.com/Type/carter/
http://www.fontbureau.com/people/MatthewCarter/
http://www.linotype.com/346/matthewcarter.html?PHPSESSID=ceaf4fde4f79ef20719bb70d02ac1bb7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_trap
http://www.myfonts.com/newsletters/sp/200705.html
http://nicksherman.com/articles/bellCentennial.html

http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/2412.aspx

An alternate ITC Galliard italic 'g,'

2010-05-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

JOY DIVISION.

''Joy Division'' were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named ''Warsaw'', the band primarily consisted of (Ian Curtis) the vocals and occasional guitar & keyboard, (Bernard Sumner) ,guitar and keyboards, (Peter Hook) bass guitar and backing vocals and (Stephen Morris) ''drums and percussion''.

The Russell Club in Manchester had been taken over on Friday nights for gigs organised by Tony Wilson and friends. They called this venue The Factory. Joy Division's first Factory gig was on June 9th 1978. Peter Saville was asked to design the poster for the early Factory concerts, the first of many designs which became a feature of Factory's work in general and Joy Division's albums in particular.

On the eve of the band's first American tour in May 1980, Curtis, overwhelmed with depression, committed suicide. Joy Division's posthumously released second album, Closer (1980), and the single "Love Will Tear Us Apart" became the band's highest charting releases. After the death of Curtis, the remaining members reformed as ''New Order'', achieving critical and commercial success.

''Peter Saville'' was the designer for ''Joy Division'', New Order and, later, Suede and Pulp were so compelling that they struck the same emotional resonance with the people who bought those albums and singles as the music. Just as the musicians in those bands wrote and produced their songs as catalogues of their thoughts and feelings, so Saville has conceived his images – for fashion and art projects as well as music – as visual narratives of his life.

The front cover image comes from an edition of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy, and was originally drawn with black lines on a white background. It presents successive pulses from the first pulsar discovered, PSR B1919+21 often referred to in the context of this album by its older name, CP 1919.The image was suggested by drummer Stephen Morris and the cover design is credited to Joy Division, ''Peter Saville'' and ''Chris Mathan''. The back cover of the album contains no track listings, leaving a blank table where one would expect the listings to be. The original release came in a textured sleeve.

The original LP release contained no track information on the labels, nor the traditional "side one" and "side two" designs. The ostensible "side one" was labeled Outside and displayed a reproduction of the image on the album cover, while the other side was labeled Inside and displayed the same image with the colors reversed (''black-on-white''). Track information and album credits appeared on the inner sleeve only.

http://designmuseum.org/design/peter-saville
http://sleevage.com/joy-division-unknown-pleasures/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Division
http://991.com/eilcom/gallery/gallery.asp?artistname=joy-division

Jerome Quinert :)

STACY: POST 1970s

2010-05-24T04:10:00.000-07:00

Seymour Chwast , Peter Max, Roman Cieslewicz, Douglas Annard, Hypnosis, Florence Broadhurst, Peter Saville, Joy Division, Osamu Tezuka, Punk, Mark Perry, 'sniffin' glue',i- D, Jamie Reid- Suburban press, saatchi and saatchi, helmut newton, beogram 4000 turntable bang and olufson, totem stereo ,sony walkman, sony trinitron tv, valentine portable typewriter, 'vanity fair', 'cosmopolitan',andy warhol's 'sticky fingers', roger dean's 'yes' covers, hipgnosis, the clash 'london calling', kit kat, reginald mount, verner panton textiles, polaroid sx-70, apple 11c computer, bell centennial font 1978, matthew carter, swiss posters and typography and many others are the icons of the 1970s.

ROXY: Post 5: The Mini Skirt

2010-05-17T19:51:00.000-07:00

The miniskirt was the defining fashion symbol of "Swinging London" in the 60s and more recently has been labeled alongside other British icons such as Big Ben and Pride and Prejudice as a British National Treasure. Before that time, short skirts were only seen in sport clothing, such as skirts worn by female tennis players.

The miniskirt was further popularized by André Courrèges, who developed it separately and incorporated it into his Mod look, for spring/summer 1965. His miniskirts were less body-hugging, and worn with the white "Courrèges boots" that became a trademark. By introducing the miniskirt into the haute couture of the fashion industry, Courrèges gave it a greater degree of respectability than might otherwise have been expected of a street fashion.

An André Courrèges miniskirt.

Fashion designer Rudi Gernreich was among the first U.S. designers to offer miniskirts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-skirt
http://my-retrospace.blogspot.com/2009/07/mini-skirt-monday-16-chick-discs.html

http://digilander.libero.it/guido_1953/pics/miniskirts/miniskirts-girls.htm

PENNY: post 5: Dick Bruna

2010-05-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

"My father realised that for me to become a publisher in his firm would have been the end of the firm!"

Dick Bruna
http://www.brainyquote.com

Most famous for his 'Miffy' character,
Dick Bruna spent the first 30 years
of his life designing book covers.
Employed by his fathers publishing company,
Bruna created a niche for himself
when paperback pocketbooks became popular.

As the company, A.W.Bruna & Son, grew to have a bookstand at almost every Dutch railway station, Bruna's covers were seen by huge audiences and in time, became collectable items and trade marks of the company.

After leaving school early, Bruna took up internship in Utrecht, London and Paris. This allowed him the freedom to explore the cities' galleries and develop his love of art. During this time he was greatly influenced by Picasso, Léger, Matisse and Braque.
It was the influences of Matisse in particular which led him to the characteristic Bruna style. He focused on colourful yet flat compositions, keeping them as simple as possible.
He often used black and primary colours and much of his work was created with a pair of scissors rather than a paintbrush.

His early work was designing book covers for the 'Black Bear' or 'Zwarte Beertjes' pocketbooks, a series of detective stories which included authors Leslie Charteris, Georges Simenon and Havank. He read every story and designed each author a recognisable icon which created a collectable series.

"This poster is a typical example of Bruna's sense of humor. He shows a lion and tells the viewer that it is better to take a little bear on vacation."

"A poster, he says, should be readable at a glance. It should work by hitting you in the face. But a poster must also be humane and, if at all possible, friendly."

http://www.dickbrunahuis.com/index.phtml?PageNo=21&Language=EN

Bruna's later work was greatly influenced by the De Stijl Movement reflecting the movement's theory of colour and abstract shape.

Due to extremely simple lines, Bruna had to develop the expressions of his characters carefully, in the pursuit of a more simple, perfect form, he could spend an entire day and draw hundreds of experiments.
After an initial publishing failure, Bruna's childrens books have sold 85 million copies, which have been translated into 40 languages.

Even though Dick Bruna is one of the more famous illustrators and designers of modern times, he remains an unassuming man dedicated to his craft and his family

"Every day he rises at 5 or 5.30, squeezes a glass of orange juice for his wife, Irene, and draws her a picture about things she has done, or reminders of things she is planning to do. He cycles along the Utrecht canals and goes to a cafe for a coffee."

http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Dick-Bruna/

http://thelongthread.com/?p=6028
Great kids book images!
http://www.miffy.com/
Miffy Web Page (must look at this one for cuteness!)
http://www.nijhoflee.nl/selection/posters_dick_bruna/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Bruna

Beatles album covers 1960's - Pam

2010-05-17T18:29:00.000-07:00

During the 1960’s The Beatles produced such inspiring album covers that their designs continued to be imitated over the years by many different artists ranging from The Simpsons through to The Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Artists such as the creators of The Simpsons mimicked the album cover for the Abbey Road album cover along with the release of The Simpsons music that was homage to the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band cover.As technology progressed during the 1960’s with the introduction of colour television and photography, so did the spirit of exploration and experimentation of the graphics used on album covers. The creative designs of The Beatles album covers acted as a kind of scrapbook for their myth making career that gave an insight to their culture.

The 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was a comically hallucinogenic landscape of Pepperland that typifies the era of that time. Designer Peter Blake (recognised for this fine art contribution and rising fame in the pop art movement) created a colourful collage of several of the band members heroes and influences such as Ghandi and Alistair Crowley. The idea of the front row was to create a three dimensional image leading into a two dimensional flat frame placement of the objects They were produced as life sized cardboard models and were blown up to specifications and tinted with colour by hand then glued onto hardboard sheets. These designs contained the pop art and psychedelic art movements of that time however was an original style not yet done for the pop rock scene for album covers.Illustrated album cover for the Revolver album was created by artist friend Klaus Voorman. It included part line drawings and part collage that also included photographs. He also cleverly incorporated a photograph of himself along with his name in the hair of George Harrison.The design used on the album cover for Yellow submarine (by Heinz Edelmann) was solely based upon the animated film, and the artwork style is thought to resemble acid trips, flower power style pop art also seen with the type of font they have used. The concept of the covers artwork involves the four band members going on an epic and colourful journey to save Pepperland. The environment showed a style of abstract illustrations that were playful and experimental that mirrored the songs of The Beatles.

http://www.beatlebay.com/The_Beatles.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/arts/design/23edelmann.html

http://www.norwegianwood.org/beatles/english/albumcovers9.html

http://blogs.creativecow.net/blog/865/creative-album-cover-design-a-showcase-of-beatles-albums

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolver_(album)

1960s | PSYCHEDELIA

2010-05-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

The word ‘psychedelic’ means mind manifesting, thus, artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered psychedelic. However Psychedelia refers above all to the art movement of the 1960s counterculture. Psychedelic arts were a counterpart to psychedelic rock music, and were initially used in concert poster design before quickly being applied to album covers, murals, comic books, fashion, and underground newspapers.

The 1960s brought the advent of fluorescent paints, which were used to achieve dazzling color effects; all of which introduced a new visual language of extreme color and kaleidoscopic space into contemporary culture. Breaking long-established conventions of graphic design with their twisting, melting and distorted forms, Psychedelia reflected not only the kaleidoscopically swirling patterns of LSD hallucinations, but also revolutionary political, social and spiritual sentiments inspired by insights derived from these psychedelic states of consciousness.

One of the characteristics of poster design in the Psychedelic era is that the lettering was often manipulated and distorted from its base forms. Fonts by their nature work most practically when they have a simple, horizontal base and characters have regular size and positioning. Richly saturated colors in glaring contrast, elaborately ornate lettering, strongly symmetrical composition, collage elements, and bizarre iconography are all hallmarks of the San Francisco psychedelic poster art style.

By the end of the decade, one did not have to consume drugs to encounter a "trip"; the psychedelic aesthetic was soon to be experienced in the mainstream via stage design for TV shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show, and advertisers began to use the basics of psychedelic art to promote their products. These bright colors and swirling forms were considered appropriate for packaging various products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_art
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/60s-psychedelic-art.html
http://contemporaryartmonth.com/node/759
http://gds.parkland.edu/gds/!lectures/history/1960/psychedelia.html
http://www.fontcraft.com/scriptorium/psychedelic.html

Jan Lenica - Judy

2010-05-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

"Poster art seems closest to jazz: it is all about being able to play somebody else's theme in one’s own way" Jan Lenica

Lenica's work marks one of the key chapters in the history of Polish art of the second half of the twentieth century. His activities in two fields - poster and animated film brought him fame and recognition. In both of them he was considered to be among the very best in the world. As a maker of animated movies he introduced an entirely new approach. He is regarded as a forerunner of modern animation.

Searching for his own form of artistic expression, he took an early interest in theatre and film posters. At the time of Socialist Realism in Poland, this allowed him considerable artistic freedom, and was supported by the Polish Government. The Polish poster became a national treasure and the golden era of the Polish School of Posters was established. Jan Lenica among others successfully married the experiences and ambitions of painting with the succinctness and impact of the poster. The distinction between designer and artist totally disappeared.

The most highly acclaimed posters for this period were the CYRK Circus posters. Above is Lenica's contribution. Fabulous examples from other artists can be found here: http://www.contemporaryposters.com/

and further discussion about them here:
http://postingposters.blogspot.com/

Around 1962 Lenica began to make posters for the Warsaw Opera and his style developed further. He used his own, characteristic "handwriting" in his posters which were generally gouache, watercolour and tempera paintings on paper. He also introduced different, experimental means of expression, such as collages of old drawings and paper cutouts. He created his own, individual and distinct artistic language which used a capricious, flowing, wavy line betraying fascination with Art Nouveau and a simplified, detail-free form.
Lenica preferred to use two-dimensional forms, the space of his posters having neither background nor perspective. There was irony and absurdity in them, the artist creating a brand new, grotesque reality; he was also a master of poetic metaphor. The people in his posters seem to speak or cry out to the viewer; Lenica himself used to say that "a poster must sing".

Altogether Lenica made over 200 posters. Among his finest works is "Wozzeck" which was made in 1964 to Alban Berg's opera and won the Grand Prix at the Poster Biennial in Warsaw in 1966. It shows a huge red head with wide-open lips in the middle of the face. One gets the impression that the scream coming out of the throat reverberates, wave-like, in the concentric circles repeating the shape of the lips.

In the 60s Lenica also developed his highly influential animations. This move to animations was a logical consequence of conclusions taken during work done with graphics. Animated film is after all a graphic, but animated by a movement and broadened by a time dimension. Method of "cut-out" applied in animation broke away from Disney's smoothness of character movement of and introduced an entirely new quality to this genre.

His films can be found on You tube including this very creative one here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQSqtj1NUjk

Poster and film works brought numerous prizes and honourable mentions to their author in many international exhibitions and festivals. He was also invited many times to international jury of plastic art and film events.

Lenica also dealt with satirical drawing, book and workshop graphics, theatre stage design, later he designed post stamps. He maintained freshness of his artistic visions and strength of inner expression till the end of his life.

Lenicas work has stood the test of time well and still seems quite contemporary

http://www.posterpage.ch/mem/lenica/lenica.htm
http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_lenica_jan

1960's Helvetica - Rosie

2010-05-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

I know we've all heard a lot about Helvetica lately but someone had to do it! : )

Helvetica, which had a major impact in the 1960s and 1970s, has shaped the urban landscape like no other typeset before.Its clear and simple form has contributed to its widespread use the world over - from Zurich to Milan, London, Berlin to Tokyo and New York. It can be seen wherever you look, on advertising boards, menus, and street or train signs.

The original Helvetica brochure.

A very early advertisement using Helvetica, dating to 1959

Another vintage advertisement; the Motorola logo was in Helvetica, along with the headline.

1960's Helvetica Poster found on Flickr

Also known as the International Typographic Style, the Swiss Style or Helvetica was an extension of Bauhaus principles developed mainly in Zurich and Basle in the period leading up to the Second World War. It was developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas type foundry) of Münchenstein, Switzerland. Haas set out to design a new sans-serif typeface that could compete with the successful Akzidenz-Grotesk in the Swiss market. Originally called Neue Haas Grotesk, its design was based on Schelter-Grotesk and Haas’ Normal Grotesk. The aim of the new design was to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage.

In 1960, the typeface's name was changed by Haas' German parent company Stempel to Helvetica (derived from Confoederatio Helvetica, the Latin name for Switzerland) in order to make it more marketable internationally. It was initially suggested that the type be called 'Helvetia' which is the original Latin name for Switzerland. This was ignored by Eduard Hoffmann as he decided it wouldn't be appropriate to name a type after a country. He then decided on 'Helvetica' as this meant 'Swiss' as opposed to 'Switzerland'.

Below are some links to a few interesting essay on the history of type looking at the place of Helvetica in the time line.

www.highgrounddesign.com/mccoy/km2.htm

collectedvisuals.com/tag/swiss-graphic-design/

www.swissinfo.ch/eng/How_Helvetica_moulded_the_urban_landscape.html?cid=5808736

www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/01/the-simplicity-of-helvetica/

www.answers.com/topic/international-typographic-style

Alan Fletcher..............(ian)

2010-05-17T17:05:00.000-07:00

Alan Fletcher formed Fletcher Forbes Gill in 1962 which became Crosby Fletcher Forbes and then Pentagram in 1972. All of these designers are brilliant in their own right but Fletcher deserves special attention.

Clients included Pirelli, Cunard, Penguin Books and Olivetti.
Much of his work is still in use: a logo for Reuters made up of 84 dots, which he created in 1965, was retired in 1992, but his 1989 "V&A" logo for Victoria and Albert Museum, and his "IoD" logo for the Institute of Directors remain in use.

He left Pentagram in 1992, and worked from the homeand worked for new clients, such as Novartis. Much of his later work was as art director for the publisher Phaidon Press.
His scholastic books, The Art Of Looking Sideways and Beware Wet Paint, remain best sellers, but they also provide a unique insight into Fletcher’s creative psyche as they are packed with doodles, pictograms and observations.

In Graphic Design: Visual Comparisons, a book the studio published in 1963, Alan wrote, "Our thesis is that any one visual problem has an infinite number of solutions; that many are valid; that solutions ought to derive from subject matter; that the designer should have no preconceived graphic style."

His vast body of work, soon to be on view in a major retrospective at the Design Museum that opens November 11, managed to combine the reductive simplicity of modernism with a dedication to wit, joy and surprise that was intensely personal. "I like to reduce everything to its absolute essence," he once said, "because that is a way to avoid getting trapped in a style." Yet a Fletcher solution was always nothing if not stylish, refined and precise, with always a bit more than the problem required: "I treat clients as raw material to do what I want to do, though I would never tell them that." What Alan wanted to do was what we all wanted to do.
For him, life and work were inseparable: "Design is not a thing you do. It's a way of life." (quoted in his obituary in The Times).

"There is an art to seeming artless"-Cicero,

http://noisydecentgraphics.typepad.com/design/2006/09/alan_fletcher.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Fletcher
www.thedisciplesofdesign.co.uk
//www.designobserver.com
www.dezeen.com

1960s Claire type

2010-05-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

Sixties (1960-1969)

Typefaces reminiscent of the swinging 1960s, the psychedelic era of hippies, bellbottoms, lava lamps, pop music, the Beatles, and free love.

Peace Outline

Inspired by psychedelic lettering of the late 1960s, originally introduced by poster artist Wes Wilson. The letters in the upper and lower case character positions curve differently, and several special 'turn characters' can be used to link between them.

Open Love

Peace Solid

Love Stoned

Based on the Viennese Secession poster lettering of the 1900s by Alfred Roller, which was rediscovered in the 1960s and widely used in hand-lettered psychedelic posters. The letters in the upper-case character positions have curly inside strokes, whereas those in the lower-case positions have straight inside strokes.

2010-05-17T16:31:00.000-07:00

Andy Warhol.

''Andy Warhol'' was a legend in his lifetime. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1928 and studied at Carnegie Institute of Technology. He recieved his bachelor of fine arts and moved to New York City to become a commercial artist. He began to do work for Harpers Bazaar and Vogue. He began working on a process called silkscreening.
This silkscreening technique looks like printing with a bold graphic style that can either have many colors or be black and white. As he entered into the New York culture scene he began painting celebrity portraits. His work was reminiscent of the practices of artists from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Warhol combined business and art and had the ability to nose out trends of the 1960's.

His first one-man art-gallery exhibition as a fine artist was on July 9, 1962, in the Ferus Gallery of Los Angeles. The exhibition marked the West Coast debut of pop art.Andy Warhol's first New York solo Pop exhibit was hosted at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery November 6–24, 1962. The exhibit included the works Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles and 100 Dollar Bills.

it was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American products such as Campbell's Soup Cans and Coca-Cola bottles, as well as paintings of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Troy Donahue, Muhammad Ali and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "The Factory", his studio during these years, and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He began producing prints using the silkscreen method. His work became popular and controversial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol#1960s
http://puffin.creighton.edu/museums/archive/7_abarnett/index.htm
http://www.warhol.org/whats_on/perm_collections.html
http://www.shophomeandgarden.com/p-8708463-Andy_Warhol__1960_s_Flower_Plates_Set_of_4.aspx

jerome quinert.
:)

Stanley Mouse

2010-05-17T16:22:00.000-07:00

Iconic illustration artist/Poster designer .Grew up in Detroit,helping his fascination as a car nut whilst a teenager .Here he learnt the art of collaborating his focal matter into his design to design collateralized icons for the time and scene which still hold steadfast respect to this day .
Leaving school and Detroit taking his design inspiration seriously .Defining his artistic style ,sharp ,colourful,and again directly toward the subject was the defining solution of Stanley Mouse.Accomplishing accreditation for highly regarded poster work of the sixties .Capturing the cultural and specific outlandish nature of all time music legends .Such as Jimi Hendrix ,Bob Dylan ,Janis Joplin,The Steve Mullin Band Led Zeplin.

Stanley Mouse was inspirational in his idealistic cultural ism and involvement of blending the visual aspects together to lure the audience .Teaming up with other creative designers searching many other styles and history using aspects of art nouveau,Alfons Mucha and Edward sullivan.In a time when getting out the word, Idea /creation of music was very hard to accomplish .With a cutting edge design of sculls , skeletons, roses,the female figure ,phycidillia .Images creating a rawness of the music and define style . Stanley Mouse became an icon for his posters , Along with his characteristically created ,dirty street smelling car hound unshaven street tearing rats . Still applied for a rev head status today .

http://www.mousestudios.com/bio.htm

http://www.collectable-records.ru/images/post/mouse_kelley/index.htm

http://www.jackgallery.com/stanleymouse.html

http://www.happyhomelandstore.com/interviews/STANLEYMOUSE.htm

post 10: CIEN 60's oz magazine

2010-05-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

OZ MAGAZINE

follow this link to a great website on oz Magazine

Few Australian publications of the 1960s had a better international impact, or a greater social impact here in Australia, than the legendary Oz magazine.

Its publication in 1963 marked the real start of "The Sixties" in Australia, and when transplanted to London in 1967 it became one of the key underground publications of the era. Indeed, British author Jonathan Green has described the Oz 'Magic Theatre' edition as "perhaps the supreme example of the entire underground press".

Oz had two 'lives', one in Australia and one in Britian, and both versions were dogged by controversy, attacked by the Establishment and embroiled in famous legal battles,

culminating in the infamous Oz obscenity trial of 1971.

Oz was a focal point for many confrontations between progressive and conservative groups over a range of issues including the Vietnam War, drugs, the generation gap, censorship, sexuality, gender politics and rock music, and it was instrumental in bringing many of these concerns to wider public attention. Above all, it focussed public attention on the issue of free speech in democratic society, and on how far short of the ideal Australian and English society actually was at that time.

Through both its lives, the two key figures in Oz were editor and author Richard Neville and artist and cartoonist Martin Sharp, but the 'honour roll' of Oz alumni includes many famous names like Robert Hughes, Richard Walsh, Germaine Greer, Felix Dennis and Charles Shaar Murray.

follow this link to view all the Oz Magazine album covers-

http://www.milesago.com/press/oz.htm

http://www.wussu.com/zines/oz01_04.htm

http://www.milesago.com/press/oz.htm

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=345027

SAM-The Bikini

2010-05-17T16:12:00.000-07:00

Sam McCall

1960s

A brief history

Roman Gymnasts  Contrary to popular belief, the bikini was actually an ancient invention, as illustrated by this 4th century Roman mosaic from Villa Romana Del Casale in Sicily, Italy. Going back even further, two-piece garments were worn by women (for athletic purposes) as early as 1400 B.C. and are depicted on Greek urns and paintings from that period.

Inventor

On July 5, 1946, French engineer Louis Réard designed a garment "smaller than the world's smallest bathing suit." Four days earlier, the U.S. military had conducted nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll. Réard hoped that his invention would be as explosive as that test and so called his new creation the bikini. But at first none of the Parisian models would dare to wear his design.

Micheline Bernardini, a nude dancer, was the first woman ever to wear a bikini, during a July 11, 1946, showing for the press at the fashionable Piscine Molitor in Paris. The bikini was so small it could fit into a matchbox, like the one she's holding. Unsurprisingly, Bernardini received plenty of fan mail.

Bikinis were banned from worldwide beauty pageants after the first Miss World Contest in London in 1951. As the tasteful one-piece continued to reign supreme, the bikini was later also banned in Belgium, Italy, Spain and Australia, and it was even declared sinful by the Vatican.

Ursula Andress
An iconic moment in cinema history came in 1962, when Swiss actress Ursula Andress, playing Honey Rider in the James Bond film Dr. No, strode out of tropical Caribbean waters wearing her homemade bikini. Nearly 40 years later, it sold for $60,000 at an auction in 2001. The following year, the moment was memorably re-created by Halle Berry in Die Another Day.

The first magazine cover in the 1960's that braced the bikini was in Sports Illustrated 1964 which cemented history with the bikini. Featuring Babette Beatty.

The designs of magazine covers back in the 1960's featured large headings with the magazines title and some small text and that was it. The front covers were kept to a minimal and the picture was the main aspect.

the bikini : not a brief affair

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/5130460.stm

You've still got it babe: the age

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/06/02/1148956539436.html?page=fullpage

A brief history of the bikini

http://www.slate.com/id/2145070

Brief history of the bikini.

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/58491_the-history-of-the-bikini

www.wikipedia.com

History of the bikini ( marshall islands)

STACY: 1960s

2010-05-17T04:31:00.000-07:00

1960s
swiss design, apollo 11 first manned lunar landing, the mini skirt, the beatles, hippie culture, herb lubalin, milton glaser, saul bass, otto preminger, ken garland, john mcconnell -pentgram, rick griffen, ken kesey, pscychodelia, contraceptive pill, sexual revolution, roger excoffon, the bikini, elvis, portable tv, kodak brownie 127, david bailey, ibm typewriter 72, ibm computer system 360, barbarella, pierre cardin - moon girl, 'oz' magazine, martin sharp, 'women and beauty', 'time', 'paris match' 'look', peter blake , sgt peppers lonely hearts club band, tadnori yokoo, kobe workers music council poster, dick elffers, the paper dress show hirokatsu hijikata, ,Andy Warhol, Kappa book covers, Hisami Kunitake 'wozzeck', jan lenica, wes wilson, john riebens, 'neue grafik', josef muller-brockmann, 'foultitude' pop art, robert rauschenberg, litchenstein, folon, tibor reich textiles, astrid sampe textiles, grillo phone, 1960s penguin book covers, Otto Treumann, Malcolm Grear, Donald Brun, Pino Tovaglia, Dick Bruna covers, Alan Fletcher, valentine portable typewriter, ibm golfball typewrite, tschichold , sabon 1964, fluxus, functionalism, stanley mouse, victor moscoso, chet helms, fonts ortem, cruz swinger, windsor, windsor elongated, peace open, peace solid, peace outline, love stoned, love open etc.

1940's War posters - Pam

2010-05-10T18:59:00.001-07:00

The widespread distribution of World War 2 posters in the 1940’s was an effective communication tool used by the American government to inform the general public and encourage citizens to support the war efforts. Designs were submitted by graphic arts, commercial artist, magazine illustrators and advertising agents promoting various types of messages for army recruitment, war and liberty bonds, volunteering, recruitment targeted both men and women. All of which conveyed a message through emotional illustrations and memorable phrases of text. In 1930 silk screen techniques were established which simplified the serial production of poster images. The general public were able to make there own posters creating a democratic appeal to distribute to as many places in which the media could not reach. Government artists promoted a handbook called "How to Make and Reproduce Posters an activity which would declare that anyone could make a poster.

Each poster relied on the basic design principles of composition, typography and colour (even though the colour palettes were limited due to the availability of printing technology at that time).

The message was short and concise with high visual impact.

Posters delivered messages that were sometimes funny though many were patriotic. One of the most famous posters extensively used during World War 2 in many different ways was of Uncle Sam (I want you for U.S army poster). The poster was created by James Montgomery Flagg, who was an illustrator, portrait painter and best known for his commercial art. This recruitment poster image sported patriotic colours and appeared in newspapers and magazines.

Many posters were aimed towards women to assist with hospital care, volunteering in the Red Cross through to stepping in to fill the roles left behind in factories as the men went off to fight the war.

Another familiar poster was of “Rosie the Riveter”. This patriotic image of a woman dressed in overalls and bandanna encouraged women to partake in the

war. The image suggests women were capable of filling the traditional roles working on farms and in factories.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/sets/72157604204316251/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Sam

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm015.html

http://www.womeninwwii.com/

http://americanhistory.si.edu/victory/victory2.htm

PENNY: post 4: Tupperware

2010-05-10T18:27:00.000-07:00

The 1940's saw the kitchen become a family gathering place rather than a work place, with families eating and entertaining in the kitchen, interior design and decoration became more important. Kitchenware became more than simply functional with colours and materials reflecting the increasing consumer culture.

While working as a chemist at DuPont in the 1930s, Earl Silas Tupper (1907-1983) discovered the almost indestructible, refined polyethylene plastic "Poly-T: Material of ther Fututre"; a material similar to what was previously used in the industrial and aviation industry. He established Tupper Plastics Company in 1939 and designed his first Tupperware prototype in 1942. Although there were other companies producing similar plastics and plastic products, there was no direct competition.
An inventor and chemist, Tupper believed that industrial innovation could improve everyday life.
Typically, Tupperware was created in pastel colours with standard 1950's colours being turquoise, soft yellow, pink and copper. Original Tupperware designs were considered a revisitation of the Bauhaus movement and were embraced by designers and artists.

The cheapness of the plastic made it a perfect material during and after the war when money and resources were still tight, particularly for the lower middle classes. It was also colourful, light and fun where all previous homewares were heavy and dark.

Initially, Tupper tried to sell his products through stores, however after several failed attempts to break into the market a divorced wife, Brownie Wise, from the suburbs suggested to Tupper that his products would sell better through the party style or "patio party"selling. Tupperware and its selling style fit perfectly with the growing suburban culture of America.

In 1951 Wise was made the company's vice president. By 1954 she became the first woman ever to appear on the cover of "Business Week". Wise and Tupperware brought the female edge to retail and showed women that they could have a career and raise a family.

Although initially Tupperware reinforced the stereotype of women as homemakers, it also gave many women the ability to have their own income and have a career in an era that did not accept women in the work force.
Tupperware heralded the Golden Age of Plastics and the Golden Age of the 'Suburban Housewife'.

The style; now kitch, has created is a major resurgence in Tupperware party selling. One of the larger modern sub culture groups of Tupperware lovers is the Gay scene, with many 1950's suburban themed parties.

Kay's other occupation is a Tupperware party girl.

"Muerte por Tupperware"
A modern take on the 'consumerism is killing us' theme

http://vspug.com/teresitapurdum/tag/1930s/

http://books.google.com.au/books

http://www.greatachievements.org/?id=3805

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/tupperware/sfeature/sf_plastics.html

http://pages.ebay.com/community/chatter/2003Jun/tupperware.html

tupperware doco website
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/tupperware/timeline/timeline2.html

ads website
http://oldadvertising.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

judy: Jan Tschichold

2010-05-10T17:44:00.000-07:00

Tschichold is the best known publicist and practitioner of the 'New Typography' that developed in Europe between the wars. Born in Leipzig to a sign-writer father, his first interest was in antiquarian lettering. In 1923, after his first exposure to the Bauhaus, Tschichold changed his style completely. At the Bauhaus, classical form was to be abandoned and the structure and function of everything was to be rethought.

He began to strongly promote the new typography in printing trade journals and a series of practical manuals, writing at length about all that had gone wrong since the industrialization of printing, and in particular of the complacency and mediocrity dogging typography and book design between the wars. Until this time book designs were very dull and homogenous, with little 'design' consideration. New Typography was the first movement to really take advantage of consistent paper, reliably sharp letterforms, aligned multiple colors, diagonal setting, full-page plates, and other wonders of the newer presses.

It was an artistic revolution at a time of extremely political art. Tschicholds artistically revolutionary concepts were a bit much for the Nazis who had him incarcerated along with many other Modernists. He managed to escape to Switzerland in 1935 where he continued to publish books on and promote 'new typography' While in Switzerland he published 'Asymmetric Typography' where he uncompromisingly advocated 'New typography'. Ironically he completely changed his tune in the 1940's and came to the conclusion that the 'new typography' was inherently Fascist. His later typefaces were in a new classical style. (He designed only one widely used typeface - Sabon) Between 1947-1949 Tschichold lived in England where he oversaw the redesign of 500 paperbacks published by Penguin Books, leaving them with a standardised set of typographic rules and publishing a manual "In the service of the book" which detailed these guidelines.

I find it interesting that throughout Tschicholds career there are so many political influences and and associations with his work but eventually he rejected these associations and declared "There can be neither a genuinely new, nor a 'reactionary' typography, but only good or bad typography."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/gallery/2008/dec/05/design?picture=340414511

http://www.linotype.com/794/inhonorofthe100thbirthdayofjantschichold.html

http://www.textism.com/textfaces/?id=19

http://everything2.com/title/Jan+Tschichold

http://www.identifont.com/show?14O

sam: leica camera

2010-05-10T17:33:00.000-07:00

Leica Camera

Leica is a camera produced by, or under licence of, a German company of the same name. The company, formerly Ernst Leitz GmbH, is now three companies: Leica Camera AG, Leica Geosystems AG, and Leica Microsystems AG, producing cameras, geosurvey equipment and microscopes, respectively. Leica Microsystems AG is the owner of the Leica brand, and grants licenses to Leica Camera AG and Leica Geosystems.

In 1940's - 1950's

Leica cameras became popular with there simple design and flexible prototype small format camera. When the production Leica A actually went on sale in 1925, photographers were quick to make use of the new, portable, simple, and quick method of photography, creating masterpieces of artistic imagery and gripping reportage. Just as today, the Leica camera helped to produce a lot of the images that expand our knowledge and influence our perception of the world.

Leica advertisements

Revolution of Leica

Photojournalism was brought closer to actual events and began telling stories in a more dynamic and truthful manner. The reaction among photo artists to the possibility of achieving a "new form of vision" was extremely enthusiastic. The Leica became an indispensable companion for all situations, an "integral part of the eye" or an "extension of the hand". Since this momentous development, users have been able to focus their full concentration on the subject and the picture. Building on this first invention and on the innovative spirit demonstrated by Oskar Barnack, Leica is constantly working to create the perfect tools to extend that unique vision and the unlimited possibilities it represents.

Famous photographs taken by Leica cameras

This photograph of Che Guevara is very famous and has become a stylized portrait around the world. Taken by Alberto Korda

V-J Day Times Square
Taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt

http://en.leica-camera.com/home/
www.iconicphoto.com/pdf/history_of_leica_0904
www.wikipedia.org
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/24/070924fa_fact_lane
http://swick.co.uk/index.php/2009/06/15-creative-adverts/

PORTFOLIO magazine | 1950s

2010-05-10T17:29:00.000-07:00

PORTFOLIO magazine | 1950s

Portfolio magazine, created in 1950, was a graphic designer's utopian dream. The goal: complete creative freedom and no advertising. Each feature was meticulously conceived through copy, art and layout, and paper stock where possible. Unfortunately, refusal to allow advertising to infect the flow of the magazine, and the choice to create a no-expense-spared publication, led to its quick demise – only 3 issues were published from 1950-1951!

Truly a high point of American graphic design, Portfolio magazine captured the dynamic work of some of the best emerging artists of the time and used beautiful printing techniques. Portfolio became the paradigm of what a modern graphic design and applied arts magazine should be. The short-lived publication (2 issues published in 1950 and only 1 in 1951) still inspires.

The magazine was a collaboration between Frank Zachary (founder) and Alexey Brodovitch (legendary art director of Harpers Bazaar, who almost missed out on the job of Portfolio Art Director to Paul Rand). Brodovitch is often credited with having a major influence on the acceptance of European modernism in America. His use of asymmetrical layouts, white space and dynamic imagery changed the nature of magazine design. Brodovitch used only type on the cover, which was unusual for American magazines of that time. With Portfolio, he wanted to create a magazine unlike any other. The first issue of the magazine is filled with a range of design influences that formed Brodovitch's creative vision.

Portfolio was, and still is, considered Brodovich’s greatest achievement. The publication may have died, but its superb style and extensive influence lives on.

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/medalist-frankzachary

http://www.otis.edu/life_otis/library/pathfinders/history_of_graphic_design/portfmag.html

http://www.j-giampietro.com/blog/tag/portfolio-magazine/

http://www.paul-rand.com/index.php/site/books_portfolio/