behrens

Peter Behrens, Born 14th April 1868, passing away 27th February 1940. He was the founder of Industrial design. He was the founded or Industrial Architecture and modern design and he also founded Corporate Identity. He was a known painter as well as as architect. When he was just a teenager, a big inheritance fell into his laps with the passing away of his father and therefore was able to afford a good education. He chose the arts. In 1890 he was not practicing as an architect but as a painter and graphic designer. He is also the founder of the Munich Secession, apart from the founder of industrial Architecture and modern design. 

His first works were sketches consisting of ornament drawings. 

In this piece above you can see the evident inspiration from Japanese art. 

In 1901, Behrens built his own house including all the furniture that came with it. One could refer to him as an industrial designer because he designed household appliances such as teapots and lamps. He obtained his results with a combination of ethics and an eye of an artist. 

In his book ''Feste des Lebens and der kunst'' (Celebration of Life and Art; A consideration of the theatre as the highest symbol of a Culture), Behrens makes use of Sans Serif type and later and later explored formal geometric design motifs and included sans serif characters of which he got the inspiration from a square. He took great interest in the sans serif typeface and was not alone. Ten sans serif fonts were created by the Berthold Foundry at the time. A number of other founders of different fonts at the time such as Akzidenz Grotesque were able to achieve harmony and clarity in their typeface, providing inspiration to designers designing other Sans Serif typefaces. 

Peter Behrens Schrift first typeface

Behrens combined (above) heavy and condensed feeling of black letter, the letter dimensions from the roman inscriptions and also made use of his standardised letterform construction. He makes emphasis with vertical and horizontal lines and he replaces diagonals with curved strokes in letters like 'w' and 'v'. This approach was new and made it successfully to book and job printing typography. 

In his book ''Feste des Lebens and der kunst'' he describes typography as:
“watching a bird’s flight or the gallop of a horse. Both seem graceful and pleasing, but the viewer does not observe details of their form or movement. Only the rhythm of the lines is seen by the viewer, and the same is true of a typeface”. 

The Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft Logo designed by Peter Behrens.

(major Electric Appliance company)

Household appliances designed by Peter Behrens.

Peter Behrens Biography - Infos - Art Market. 2013. Peter Behrens Biography - Infos - Art Market. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.behrens-peter.com/. [Accessed 20 November 2013].

Peter Behrens | Design History Research. 2013. Peter Behrens | Design History Research. [ONLINE] Available at:http://designhistoryresearch.wordpress.com/category/peter-behrens/. [Accessed 20 November 2013].

AEG | - History . 2013. AEG | - History . [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.aeg.com/en/About-AEG/History/. [Accessed 20 November 2013].

Jan Tschichold

In the first years of his life Jan Tschichold set out to be a illustration teacher, something his parents approved of because of its good income at the time. He was more interested in calligraphy himself and realise teaching wasn't his thing, moving on to studying typography. Lecturers noticed that his grasp on the subject was of a natural. He started script writing lecturers in 1921, when lecturers realised his ability and natural understanding. His works were influenced by the Bauhaus and he became known for his new typography. He changed his style completely making use of white space, simplified layouts, straight lines and Bauhaus typography (Sans Serif typeface). All his work was set in Sans, anything else to him was considered 'hurtful'. He saw it as a crime to ones work if done otherwise. He experimented with shape and size. He became very well known; some took a great liking to him whereas others hated him, to put it bluntly. After a while he started teaching typography in Frankfurt.  in 1928 he got a book published which left a great impact on graphic design; "The New Typography". When the war hit, the Nazi's did not like his work and held him captive for a period of time. They did not like this change, therefore holding all his works and books seized. He luckily managed to get out of Germany and back to Switzerland with his family and later on London. In 1949 he joined Penguin Books who were very unsuccessful at the time due to their lack of design. The rest all happened over 3 years. He needed to design brilliant covers for Penguin and was given a set of fixed rules and guidelines to follow. He broke through after a years work, and his work was later revised over 3 years adding few slight changed here and there. This included change of the Penguin Logo, fonts made smaller and even the size of the book was made more compact. This then became standard customs for Penguin books.

Die neue Typographie 1928                                        

This is one of his books which the Nazi's seized during the War.  

This is one of the Penguin layouts thats Jan Tschichold designed. It isn't overwhelming with different colours. He makes use of a lot of blank space to make it more neat. When it comes to Typography you can see that he makes use of serifless typeface and different angles when placing text.

Penguin book, poster, and boos designs by Jan Tschichold himself. 

He left great influence and long lasting impressions on typography an this influence will be passed on to designers for many years to come.

Jan Tschichold « MyFonts. 2013. Jan Tschichold « MyFonts. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://www.myfonts.com/person/Jan_Tschichold/.> [Accessed 18 November 2013].

Richard Hollis: the brilliance of typographer Jan Tschichold | Art and design | theguardian.com . 2013. Richard Hollis: the brilliance of typographer Jan Tschichold | Art and design | theguardian.com . [ONLINE] Available at: <http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/dec/05/jan-tschichold-typography >[Accessed 18 November 2013].

Jan Tschichold: Master Typographer | Book Review | Typographica . 2013.Jan Tschichold: Master Typographer | Book Review | Typographica . [ONLINE] Available at: <http://typographica.org/typography-books/jan-tschichold-master-typographer/.>[Accessed 18 November 2013].

Jan Tschichold Biography - Infos - Art Market. 2013. Jan Tschichold Biography - Infos - Art Market. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://www.jan-tschichold.com/.> [Accessed 18 November 2013].

De Stijl

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De Stijl was originated in 1917 when artists were over the decorative pre-war design and wanted back order in art. All excess colour and decoration was to be removed and artists were to make use of only primary colours and black and white space. Unfortunately not many of their designs were build but nonetheless their influence on design was extreme. Van Doesburg was greatly influenced by the Dada movement and his works had a great influence on the Bauhaus. Their style was innovative, asymmetrical, disciplined and it made use of Sans Serif typeface. Rectangular blocks and straight lines were also a custom.  All modern designers embrace the grid, empty space and minimal simplicity. I personally think that creating designs with minimal aspects is wonderful in a world overwhelmed with visual language

Rietveld, Red and Blue Chair, 1918

The De Stijl elements were applied to this chair sometime after it was actually built. It shows the  use of primary colour and the interaction of vertical and horizontal aspects. 

Over the years the De stijl elements have been applied to several different objects ranging from cars to houses and architecture, paintings and even shoes. 

People also used inspiration from De Stijl in a graphical context. People used the design in Posters, not only as a cool approach to their ad but also as an advertisement for De Stijl itself. This Poster promoting an even about De Stijl is portrayed brilliantly as they used De Stijl elements throughout. We can see lots of blank space, silence so to speak. The use of primary colours and horizontal and vertical intersecting lines. The inspiration within this poster design is particularly taken from the axonometric architectural drawings of Theo Van doesburg. 

Know your design history: the utopian De Stijl movement. 2013. Know your design history: the utopian De Stijl movement. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2012/12/18/know-your-design-history-the-utopian-de-stijl-movement/.> [Accessed 20 November 2013].

De Stijl. 2013. De Stijl. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://char.txa.cornell.edu/art/decart/destijl/decstijl.htm.> [Accessed 20 November 2013].

What is Graphic Design?

At the end of the day, when one analysis everything that appears before them, we can see that Graphic design forms part of many things that lie before us; Be it a book cover, newspaper magazine or a simple billboard on the way to work. It is important that one does not confuse elements of graphic design with principles of design. Some of the most common elements used in Graphics are Lines, Colour, Art illustration and photography.

Colour can make an image more powerful and give of different messages to a person just by changing the colour in context. Changing a coloured picture to sepia for example is going to give off a complete different feel and interpretation to its viewer.

Type obviously having to do with typography in this case. Words and the way they are presented play a great role in Graphic Design. The type a graphic designer chooses is going to influence his work and help convey his message. One isn't going to use Comic Sans when presenting work to a client (unless the client's target audience is aged 3-9; Even that is just about acceptable), unless maybe the designer is using it intentionally in a sarcastic way.

The image you portray in your design leaves you with one question; Make it or break it? Out of one single picture, your audience can come up with a whole story. You want that story to be relevant to the message your are trying to get across to your audience so you must do it wisely. Don't just lash out your first idea and stick to it. Scrap it. Don't be afraid to be daring and try something new. At the end of the day that is what you are trying to do... catch the eye of an audience.

Graphic design started a long time ago with people drawing on the walls of caves. Many have remained in tact since they did not get into contact with much different types of weathering and sun. The paintings of Altamira are some of the first we come across. They are still found and well preserved until this date. A lot of their drawings consist of the bison, their source of food, clothing and main economic resource.

Bison in Altamira Cave, Spain. 

 Obviously, years ago one did not have the commodity of stationary but instead made use of natural resources such as ochre and zinc oxides. Wall paintings are also found in Tassili-n-Aller in Algeria - Paintings of revolution. These paintings illustrate and portray four different periods and include a ''horse'' and a ''camel''.

A rock drawing in Bhimbetka India

image of a horse in the Chauvet Cave

A History of Graphic Design: Chapter 1 - Birth of Graphic Design -- Egypt. 2013. A History of Graphic Design: Chapter 1 - Birth of Graphic Design -- Egypt. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://www.guity-novin.blogspot.com/2010/02/history-of-graphic-design-writing.html.> [Accessed 20 November 2013].