History of Graphic Design(Su18 GID F001)

George Lois(1931-Present), designed 92 covers for the magazine, Esquire. For this journal, the focus is on Lois’s subway advertisement for Goodman’s Matzos, designed in 1960. The large-scale matzo, foresees the pop-art trend, specifically, with close up everyday objects.

I immediately recognized Alexy Brdovitch’s cover for the June 1951 Harper’s Bazaar. He captured the essence of summer with the bold colors. The cropping of the model’s face and legs draws attention to the beach clothes instead of the fashion model. Harper’s Bazaar is still a huge fashion magazine today along with Vogue, Allure , and countless others.

Drawn by the Spanish artist, Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory, 1931, is an iconic surrealist painting. Salvador(1904-1989) described his paintings as “hand-painted dream photographs.” The seaside cliffs in the background, are inspired by Salvador’s Spanish home and are the only object painted with a sense of reality. A technique, Dali often used called “the usual paralyzing tricks of eye-fooling,” meaning, he took placed everyday objects such as ants and melting clocks and distorted in an unfamiliar way. Works Cited: “MoMA Learning.” Willem De Kooning. Woman I. 1950–52 | MoMA , www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/1168-2.

Czech born artist, Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), was drastically important to the art nouveau style in France. Mucha moved to Paris at age 27, where he rose to fame after printing a poster for a play on New Year’s Day. One of his most famous projects was his women project, his women that he drew had no nationally, age, or period attached to them. The Victorians rejected the art, and called the hair he drew too look like, “noodles and spaghetti.” Ironically, the hair he drew became a hallmark image for the Victorian Era. When Czechoslovakia became independent in 1917, Mucha returned home and his work became influenced by the history of his people. He died a few months after being arrested and interrogated by Gestapo in 1939 when Germany partitioned Czechoslovakia

The application of photography to printing and the invention of photography is crucial to graphic design and communication. The camera is modeled after the human eye, where the pupil dilates to let in light and constricts when the lighting is overexposed, like a camera lens. Photography was a huge part of the Victorian Era. The Victorians loved the Gothic style. By the 1850s, Victorian era and word started to mean the spirit, culture and the moral standards of society at that time. Graphic design in the Victorian Era was influenced by social standards and values of that time, such as sentiment, nostalgia, beauty. Beauty and nostalgia were represented with printed images of kids, young women, puppies, and flowers. The sentiment was symbolized with images of the home, religion, and patriotism.

During the Renaissance, a new awareness of how the page is organized and decorated. It is not only to reflect a religious message and of the divine, but a thoughtful esthetic design of the page, sentences, and letters. I never thought about the history of the printed book, being an avid reader, its something I should have paid more attention to. Little things like Roman and italic type, were first used in this time.  I always thought that fire was the biggest invention/discovery, but this week’s reading has totally changed my mind on that. The typographic changed the world, it allowed for ideas to be heard, and knowledge to be spread widely. 

Alphabets are especially crucial to graphic design and what makes us human. Having a written language is what separates us from primates. Alphabets opened up communication and sharing of ideas. For the Greeks, refining the alphabet allowed them to create geometry. Alphabets also, allowed for mass number of people to become literate. Growing up, I went to a Jewish day school and had to read from the Torah(written in ancient Aramaic.) So it's especially fascinating to see how a language such as Aramaic arose in the East.

In this blog, I will journal my findings and reflections on the course, "History of Graphic Design." My name is Abigail, I was born in Israel, and love the unique approach Israelis bring to art and especially graphic design. I currently live in the Bay Area. I'm taking this course not only for my major of graphic design, but to have a better understanding of my future profession.  (Fun fact; I ride horses and have been riding competitively for 10 years.) Art has always been an active part of my life, from museums to drawing in coloring books, my parents put an emphasis on art and travel.