Field Journal 9

Gunter Rambow (b. 1938) is a German designer who is very famous for his poster designs. He produced outstanding posters and a lot of photo books.

He was trained as a glass painter prior to entering the graphic department of the Hochshule für bildende Kunste (Academy of Art and Design] in Kasse).

At twenty-two, while still a student, Gunter Rambow started his own design studio in Kassel, He worked together with Gerhard Lienemeyer and Michael van de Sand, but he has always been the creative member of team.

Gunter Rambow
Book poster for Frankfurt-based publishing house, S. Fischer Verlag, 1970s http://libraryland.tumblr.com/post/211007770/karenh-gunter-rambow-book-posters

Gunter Rambow
Book poster for Frankfurt-based publishing house, S. Fischer Verlag 1970s

http://libraryland.tumblr.com/post/211007770/karenh-gunter-rambow-book-posters

Gunter Rambow
Book poster for Frankfurt-based publishing house, S. Fischer Verlag, 1970s
http://www.designrelated.com/inspiration/view/editor/entry/3429/gunter-rambow-book-posters

In his designs the medium of photography is montaged, manipulated.

Gunter Rambow
Poster “Utopie Dynamit”, 1976

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A4799&page_number=1&template_id=1&sort_order=1

He re-draw and rephotograph the subjects to turn ordinary into extraordinary.

Gunter Rambow

Poster for the play “Die Hamletmaschine”, 1980

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A4799&page_number=2&template_id=1&sort_order=1

In 2007, the Museum fur Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt dedicated a major solo exhibition to his work. The show is an encounter between more than one hundred posters by Gunter Rambow ( from 1962 to the present) and Richard Meier's architecture.

Gunter Rambow

Poster against violence “Think before you're thought “, 1995

http://www.gunterrambow.de/index2.php#

His work still influences many artists.

Field Journal 8

One of the influential figures and pioneers of the New York school was Alvin Lustig (1915 - 1955). Lustig was an American typeface and graphic designer. He was strongly influenced by Modernism and Cubism movements.

Among Lustig's works there is a large number of book covers designed for New Directions and Noonday Press. He did not like the typical designs of the book jackets, which would almost summarize the contents of the book with an image. Instead, he would read the book and get a feeling that would inspire him to create book cover. Each one of those designs was very unique. His designs were abstract and characteristically had small font titles, which was an influence of Jan Tschichold work.

The first one of those designs, 1941 edition of Wisdom of the Heart, by Henry Miller, was very different from what was popular back then. It was made from different pieces of type metal that he had in his own experimental printing shop (by James Laughlin, New Directions - Print Magazine, Oct/Nov 1956)













Alvin Lustig
Book jacket for Henry Miller “The Wisdom of the Heart”, 1941
http://www.alvinlustig.com/bp_nd/bp_nd.php


Lloyd Wright had also influenced some of Lustig's works; they studied together for three months at Taliesin East. In his design for The Ghost in the Underblows, 1940, he was experimenting with abstract designs made from pieces of typographic metal.













Alvin Lustig
Book jacket for Alfred Young Fischer “The Ghost in the Underblows”, 1940 http://www.alvinlustig.com/aa_intro.php


"27 Wagons Full of Cotton" is another good example of Lustig's imagination and his ability to redefine the media in terms of what could be done with it.





















Alvin Lustig
Book jacket for Tennesse William “27 Wagons Full of Cotton”, 1949
http://susanneschade.ifunnyblog.com/27wagonsfullofcotton/


In his book "The Book Jackets of Alvin Lustig," James Laughlin discusses how Lustig approached book design, in essence he would try to reflect authors creativity through the abstract and angular designs of his book covers.





















Alvin Lustig
Book jacket for E. M. Forster “The Room with a View”, 1946
http://library.rit.edu/gda/designer/alvin-lustig


In 1944, Lustig moved to New York and accepted the position of visual research director for Look magazine. He was given an opportunity to redesign offices for his offices, which he did by replacing heavy, old-fashioned and dark furniture with lighter, thin-legged furniture, which gave an impression of floating.












Alvin Lustig
Look Magazine Offices, New York, 1944
http://www.alvinlustig.com/ai_intro.php


Lustig also created design for Fortune and Girl Scouts of America. When Lustig started going blind, he continued to work by giving directions to his wife and other assistants by giving reference through the shapes and colors found in his house.

Lustig died at the age of forty. Even at that age he had already brought the principles of Modern art into graphic design. His work still influences both American and international artists. His contribution to the development of graphic design in US was very significant.

Field Journal 7

A lot of great designers came to America during the late of late 1930s. One of them was Jean Carlu.

Carlu was born in France (1900 – 1997) and originally studied to become an architect, but after he lost his right arm in the accident, he decided to work as a commercial artist.

Carlu is famous for his poster designs. He was one of the leading poster artists in France during 1920's-1930's.





















Jean Carlu
Pépa bonafé poster,1928
http://www.artnet.com/artist/660320/jean-carlu.html


In his early work it's easy to see his love for angular forms and other Cubism influences.




















Jean Carlu
Paris 1937 Exposition,1937
http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Paris-1937-Exposition-1937-Posters_i1250945_.htm

Carlu came to US for the New York World's Fair and ended up staying when Paris was invaded by the German Army. He created one of his most famous works while living in US, the “America’s Answer! Production” poster.

















Jean Carlu
Patriotic war poster for the U.S. Government, 1942
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Carlu

This work has won him a New York Art Directors medal and became a poster of the year.

Carlu stayed in US through the duration of World War II and worked on the posters for the government war related topics.
















Jean Carlu
Give 'em Both Barrels poster, 1941
http://moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A977&page_number=1&template_id=1&sort_order=1


His works carried out the same precision of forms as the rest of his art, which worked very well to echo the efficiency of industry.





















Jean Carlu
Stop 'Em to Sell 'Em poster, 1947
http://moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A977&page_number=4&template_id=1&sort_order=1

His work still influence the work international and American artists. He played a great role in the development of graphic design in US.

Field Journal 6

The Modern Arts movement had also made an influence in the world of photography. The abstract forms and a play of color has become the subject matter for many artistic photographs.

As we can see in works American photographer Francis Bruguiere (1880 – 1945), photographic abstractions and the play of light and shadow becomes his subject matter.

Bruguière worked for many famous publications: Vanity Fair, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and the New York Theatre Guild.

In 1923, he started working with shaped or cut paper designs. He would lit those paper designs using some light source to create dramatic abstract patterns and movement with light and shadow and photograph them.

Bruguière held an exhibition in Berlin in 1928, and he work has attracted a lot of attention.

Francis Bruguiere
Untitled (cut paper abstraction), c.1927
Gelatin silver photograph
http://www.museumofnewmexico.org/mfa/ideaphotographic/cgi-bin/display.php?img=bruguiere.jpg

Another American artist known as Men Ray (1890 – 1976), born Emmanuel Radnitzky, applied Dada and surrealism to his photography.

Ray has contributed a lot to Dada and Surrealist movement. He is mostly known for his avant-garde photography, however, he worked in a lot of different media, and had considered himself to be mainly a painter. He had also done a lot of fashion and portrait photography.

Ray had come up with a very unique work of art, while living in France, they are known as ‘Rayogrammes’. Those were pictures that were made on photographic paper, yet the camera was not used: the subject would be laying directly on the paper, then exposed to light and later developed. This put a shadow from the subject the main focus, once again stressing the importance of light and shadow. His most famous piece from this unique series of work is “Electricity” (1931).




















Man Ray
Electricity
Rayographies, 1931
http://artdecoblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/man-ray-electricity-lee-miller-1931.html


While in France, Ray was also a part of the Dada art movement and the only American member of the Paris surrealist movement.















Man Ray
Tears
Photograph, 1930 - 1932
http://www.kyushu-ns.ac.jp/~allan/Documents/CCEurope-05.html

















Man Ray
Observatory Time — The Lovers
Photograph, 1936
http://www.kyushu-ns.ac.jp/~allan/Documents/CCEurope-05.html

He was one of the greatest artists of his generation.

Cubism, futurism, data, surrealism and expressionism, all part of the modern arts movement, had a great influence on photography and other art forms, including film and graphic design.

Field Journal 5

It was interesting to learn about Ukiyo-e art movement that existed during years 1603-1867.

Ukiyo-e was a popular style of Japanese art of the Edo (Tokio) period. Ukiyo-e means pictures of the floating world. The art in this period was connected with pleasures of city life and the most commonly illustrated subjects were courtesan life, actors, scenes from theatrical plays, landscape motifs, nature and scenes from Japan's history and old legends.

Novelist Asai Ryoi (1612-1691), in his Ikiyo Monogatari (Tales of the Floating World, 1661), gave explains the meaning of floating world in the following way:

... Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maple leaves; singing songs, drinking wine, diverting ourselves in just floating, floating; ... refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current: this is what we call the floating world…
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e#cite_note-0)

Hishikawa Moronobu (1618-1694) was the most famous painter and printmaker of the Ukiyo-e movement. His first prints were created with only black pigment and his late works were hand colored. But it is his not colored works, created in simple manner using black and grey lines and some solid area with contrast of white paper, that have the greatest impact in the viewer. In his works he shows a life of ordinary people and courtesan life. Ukioy-e art was not expansive, because it could be mass produced and it was intended for the people living in town, who usually were not very wealthy.

Hishikawa Moronobu
Panel from a series of 12
Woodcut, sumi ink on paper
late 1670-early 1680
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hishikawa_Moronobu

The artists Okomura Masanobu (1686-1764) and Suzuki Harunobu (1725-1770) were among the first artists to introduce color woodblock prints. Other famous artists of this period were: Utamaro, Hiroshige, Sharaku, Hokusai.

Suzuki Harunobu

Woodblock print
about 1768
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Harunobu

Woodblock printing is a technique that was used by artist of Ukiyo-e movement. After the end of Edo period, in the beginning of Meiji period, Japan became open to trade with West. Introduction of photography in Japan had largely killed the Ukiyo-e art. It was given so little value, that it was often used as packaging material for traded products. The introduction of woodblock prints in Europe, however, had a great impact. The prints of Ukiyo-e movement had influenced the Art Nouveau style and Impressionism, Post Impressionism and Cubism.

French post-Impressionist Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) was fascinated by these works of art. He liked to visit the Bing Gallery shop that was located in Montmartre and has thousands of Japanese prints. He spent a lot of time in this shop and had become a collector of Ukiyo-e art. There are quite a few Van Gogh works that directly mimic Ukiyo-e style and motifs, like the attached image of Van Gogh - La courtisane (after Eisen), 1887.

Van Gogh

La courtisane (after Eisen)
1887
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japonisme

It is interesting to see how different were impact of western world on eastern world and vice versa. While Japan had moved forward with modernized development of the world, Europe had a made a step in the direction of Japanese art. It even caused a new art movement Japonism, where artist were very much influenced by lack of perspective, shadow and light, and flat bright colored areas of Japanese Ukiyo-e art. A good examples of this would be work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, like May Belfort, poster, 1895.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
May Belfort (singing Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow-wow)
Poster, 1895
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_de_Toulouse-Lautrec

Japan, on the other hand, had two more woodprint movements that were directly influenced by the work of European artists: shin hanga ("New Prints"), which was focused on traditional Japanese themes, but had incorporated western knowledge about light and face expressions, and sōsaku hanga movement, which means creative prints, where artists became involved in all parts of printing process, unlike the original Ukiyo-e movement, where each part of the process was done by different specialists.

It is interesting that while Japanese art had became highly influential and valuable in Europe, it has lost its appeal in Japan. The same is almost true the other way around, though not to the same degree, European artist had ignored the more realistic approach in their works for more bold and contrasting look of Japanese works.

Nowadays we can see both approaches in used in design: while photography and realistic images are a big part of commercial and other forms of art work, the more graphic and less representative approach is still used as well. I really like Ukiyo-e art and I am really glad that these works of art were preserved till today. There is a lot of power in the simplicity of Japanese prints, as if only the most important part of the scene got to be depicted. I like how those images can create powerful statements by simply putting the objects of center. The work that had inspired European artists in the past still inspire people today.

Field Journal 4

In my Storyboarding class I create storyboard for English nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle". It is a very pleasant and funny rhyme:

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
And the fork ran away with the Spoon

And in my textbook “Meggs’ History of Graphic Design,” in chapter 9, I read information that the illustration for this book was created in 1880 by Radolph Caldecott. He was a British artist and illustrator.

His illustration forf children books are amazing. He drew characters and captured so well the facial expressions of animals and people. The characters he created are so lively and relatable that everybody would be touched and mesmerized by them and would not be left indifferent.

I also created storyboard for this rhyme, but of course it not going in any comparison with Radolph Caldecott illustration.

Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/

Field Journal 3

It was interesting to learn about the process used to develop the new font, Romain du Roi in 1692 in France.

French king Louis XIV ordered a committee of scholars to develop new font for royal printing office. The main idea was that the new font should be developed using scientific principles. The head of the committee of scholars was a mathematician Nicolas Jaugeon.

The committee studied all previous alphabets and type designs before developing the new font. They created a grid with a total of 2304 little squares, which is very interesting when taking in account how computer fonts were initially developed a few years back. When developing new font, the committee relied on mathematical harmony verified by the use of measurements and drafting tools, rather than calligraphy tools. Of course, a lot of fine details that were visible on the master alphabets did not transfer to the text-size types. Romain du Roi was only allowed to be used by royal printing office, and its use by others was considered to be capital offense. This however did not stop the creation of very similar fonts, which yet had to have significant differences not be confused with Romain du Roi.