Focusing on specific examples, describe the way
that modernist Art and Design was a response to the forces of Modernity?
Around the start of the nineteenth centaury the
world had begun to change rapidly. ‘ The advent of the steam engine at the
beginning of the nineteenth centaury brought to power Industry, and products
now had to be designed for the developing production processes. Mechanization
took command, from railways to textiles to agriculture, and steel bridges
spanned the new era.’ Vignelli, M. (2010) ‘The
Vignelli Canon’. Mulgrave, Victoria, Images Publishing pp 22.
People favored the city and began to move there
for work, in factories and industry. An agrarian society transitioned into an
industrial one. Urbanization of the cities meant there where more people
available for work and many aspired to earn a fortune. Everyone now relied on
shift patterns rather than the sun to tell what time of day it was, however
this wasn’t reliable enough and so the world standardized its time globally,
which meant everyone knew what time it was in their country and another. Industrialization
and new inventions such as the railways meant that cities could be connected
within hours, not days, mass production became a part of this new world, and
the trade moved further into citied further and further away until it reached
new countries, places that had never really been contacted before on such a
scale. The invention of the telephone also aided trade between other cities and
countries, people could speak to one another almost instantly. The world was
shrinking in its distance and unfamiliarity. As well as the world expanding
industrially, it also expanded socially and culturally, hard work in the
factory, and city life made many feel the need to enjoy their time off. Leisure
tome was a new concept in the new world. People began to enjoy activities such
as the cinema, music and shopping in grand arcades, which also where an
invention of a savvy business man who took advantage of the popular culture
growing around him, aided by industrialization. The upper classes became
wealthier and the need to show off visits and objects from far away countries
grew, people aspired to travel, although many could not afford, it was a symbol
of status. And so the world had become more connected and that meant people had
a need to understand each other, there was a drive towards internationalism and
standardization.
In 1925 Bayer, a member of the Bauhaus, a new
progressive art and design institute formed out of modernity, designed the typeface
‘universal’. ‘ Bayer hoped to transcend the transient whims of culture by
basing his designs on timeless objective laws. Considerations of style and
self-expression were subordinated to the “purity” of geometry and the demands
of function. This method culminated in Bayer’s attempt to design a typeface
with letterforms so essential they would be understood as universal.’ Lupton E.
Abbot-Miller J. (1993) ‘The ABC’s of
Bauhaus and Design Theory’, Thames and Hudson. pp 38. Bayer felt the need
to be functional and understood by many. He wanted to standardize type; he
wanted to make it universal and to do this he made sure that the typeface
wouldn’t contain any social or historical backgrounds, like typefaces such as
Times New Roman, which hinted at the Roman Empire, it suggested power and
nationality. As did Fraktur Font which was designed after Universal during the
Nazi regime, it looked gothic and therefore Germanic, it was meant to represent
again power and a strong historical background and nation. ‘ The successful
promotion of these strains of Nazi Ideology required a scapegoat, which was
found in the internationalist, anticipatory and socialist culture of
Modernism.’ Crowley. D, Jobling. P, (1996) ‘Graphic
Design: Reproduction and Representation since 1800’, Manchester, Manchester
University Press. pp151. This also shows that even the Nazi’s believed that the
modern style was international and had aimed to appeal and communicate to a
wider audience, beyond the restraints of their own country. They also seemed to
believe that modern designers where trying to perceive a new future even though
it had not actually happened yet, however there future was utopian. Bayer
designed Universal with the complete opposite agenda to the Nazi’s ideals, he
saw the need for a typeface that would be understood by all and wouldn’t be
more meaningful to one country or another. He new this was needed as countries
had begun to trade and communicate; he wanted everyone to understand even if
they spoke another language. It is also argued that ‘ universal type was
designed only in the lowercase alphabet. Bayer argued that since speech does
not recognize capital letters, they are no longer needed in typography. A
single case alphabet would be easier for children to learn, more efficient to
write, the lack of uppercase letters would reduce the printer’s storage space,
set-up time, and overall costs’. Lupton E. Abbot-Miller J. (1991) ‘The ABC’s of Bauhaus and Design Theory’.
London, Thames and Hudson. pp 41. This argument describes the forces of
modernity having a direct impact on Bayer’s Universal typeface. Lowercase means
that all the letters where equal, and they would all have a certain height,
which meant they would not change on a page. Speech doesn’t contain capitals
and so a lowercase copy would read like speech and not like type. Which in turn
would be easier for an individual from another country to read and learn,
therefore people would be able to communicate internationally easily. Another
key point that this argument points out is that people had begun to care about
education and the need to read, if future generations could read and write and
communicate with each other than trade and wealth would continue to grow
globally. The typeface universal was also meant to embrace new technology and
the machine age, a lowercase font that had no serifs would take up less space,
would cost less to make, and without capitals it would be easier to set up, and
therefore production would be faster and quicker and therefore more could be shipped
out and sold within the country and outside of the country, and in turn the
more produce going out to other countries means a greater sense of connection
and the need to communicate and understand one another. As well as this the
typeface was meant to represent the machines and technologies of the factory as
they where like the font functional, geometric and uninfluenced.
‘The decade of the select 1960’s became the time…
designers were concerned with ever-lasting values such as permanence, structure,
timelessness and the quest for purest form possible’ Remington, R. Roger Bodenstedt, L. (2003) American
Modernism, Graphic Design 1920 to 1960’, London, Laurence King. pp 162,
describes the style adopted by Massimo Vignelli, you could argue that these designers
wanted their work to be at its purest form, which was organized structured and legible,
suggests that they wanted their work to be understood by wide audience and
therefore they wanted to communicate to as many as they could, pushing towards
a style everyone could understand and so this could of even been on an
international basis. The argument also suggests that the use of a grid and
structure was important to the understanding of a piece. ‘Semantics in design
means to be understand the subject to the sender and the receiver in such a way
that it makes sense to both.’ Vignelli, M. (2010) ‘The Vignelli Canon’. Mulgrave, Victoria, Images Publishing. pp9, alongside the next argument ‘
Syntactic consistency is paramount of importance in graphic design… Grids are
one of the several tools helping designers to achieve syntactical consistency
in graphic design.’ Vignelli, M. (2010) ‘The
Vignelli Canon’. Mulgrave, Victoria, Images Publishing. pp10. Makes for a strong case that
Massimo Vignelli’s Underground Map was designed with the purpose to be
understood by a mass amount of people. In 1972 Massimo Vignelli’s new map for
the first time showed the underground of New York. He showed the geographic
location of the city above. Drawn as shapes. Massimo Vignelli used a grid in
his piece and this was kept visible in the final piece, as the above quote says
a grid is essential into keeping everything around it standardized and orderly,
it can help to organize information in a way that is clear and concise, and
therefore understandable. The grid on the map also helps to locate certain
areas, without the need to be completely understandable in another language. ‘Out with the complicated tangle of geographically accurate train
routes. No more messy angles. Instead, train lines would run at 45 and 90
angles only. Each line was represented by a color. Each stop represented by a
dot.’ Boyd. C, (2007) New York Subway Map (1972)
Available at: http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project.cfm?id=266 [Accessed on:
11 January 2013]
And so the grid also helps to organize the
coloured lines on the page that again are concise and structured. They are
straight and only turn at 90 or 45-degree angles, which means the piece, is
very geometrical, like Herbert Bayer’s universal typeface. Its geometry was
meant to be easier to understand, it was uniform and utopian. The lines on the
Underground map can be followed easily as they are so structured; the colours
help to guide your eyes around the many different subways. The small black
lines indicate the stops and the number of stops on a subway line, and so if
you knew you had to get of at a certain stop number you would be able to count
them, the fact that each of the coloured lines has these small black lines
means it is clear that they are stops and you wouldn’t need to be able to read
English to be able to understand this. This new map works on semiotics. The
symbol is coloured line that goes around the page, on the line there are
smaller black lines, they are a sign for the subway line, where it goes and
where it stops. Before this map the underground map was confusing it wasn’t
structured there wasn’t a colour guide and barely any one could understand it. Even
the type on the map is understandable, its Helvetica a later version of
Aksidenz Grotesk, which was designed around the same time as Universal,
although it contains capitals the font is still geometric and sans-serif, it
doesn’t indicate a social or historical background just as Universal doesn’t,
and it is easy to read. The underground map itself also does this as all the
illustrations are shapes and colours there is no suggestion of a social or
historical influence, this in turn means that this map was meant to be
understand not just by the people who lived in New York, but commuters and more
likely business people from other countries, as at the turn of the centaury
industrialization had encouraged big business and trade and so by now countries
all over the world where trading and communicating. People where travelling all
over the world for business and so there was a need for design to be understood
by a global audience, and so this is a drive towards internationalism.
‘Neue Grafik was a shiny, white-covered, near
square- format quarterly… Text and captions, in monotype grotesque in German,
English and French, are arranged in four columns’. Hollis, R. (2006) ‘Swiss Graphic Design: the origins and growth of an international style
1920-1965’. London, Laurence King. pp 206. Neue Grafik in translation, New Graphic Design was published August 1958; the cover
designer was Carlo Vivarelli. The cover
displays three different languages, a clear indication of a push towards
internationalism, and a need to communicate between at least three countries,
but it could include any country that spoke any of the three languages, meaning
Neue Grafik had a larger audience than just England, Germany, and France. As
well as this these languages where probably the most popular and used at the
time and they will have all been developing countries in the modern world. And
so the publication really did have a widespread audience. However unlike the
other two examples of internationalism, this piece has a more focused audience,
graphic designers. Although, its aim is to educate designers into designing in an
‘international style’, a style that could be understood and recognized by all,
and therefore you could say that Neue Grafik was aiming, and encouraging for
internationalism. The layout of the cover has been formed using a grid much
like Massimo Vignelli’s Underground map of New York. The grid as L.Müller
stated is essential in syntactical consistency. The use of a grid on the cover
has helped to organize the type into three key columns, which each host a
different language, which had never really seen before, it was a new concept of
connecting countries and communicating to a larger audience than ever before. Again
a geometrical way of organizing data has made the piece international, as it is
understandable, and the geometry means there are no real social or historical
contexts behind it, as geometrics don’t lend themselves to a particular context
or place. The grid has also provided a clear layout just as the map is clear
and universal typeface is understandable and very legible. As well as this the
typography on this piece is similar to the pieces already discussed, the font
is a sans-serif geometric typeface, and it was a favorite of many, if not all
designers in the modern era, ‘the Helvetica typeface gave young designers an
important means to further emphasize the message and functional values … it
became so popular that, to many it seemed the only type necessary.’
Remington, R. Roger Bodenstedt,
L. (2003) American Modernism, Graphic Design 1920 to
1960’, London, Laurence King. pp162. Again this argument has brought to
light the fact that modern designers aimed to be upmost understood by a wide
audience, just like Massimo Vignelli strived for and had aimed to do in his
Underground Map of New Yorks subway systems. Aksidenz Grotesk was used for the cover of Neue Grafik
the predecessor of Helvetica, again very popular at its time. Helvetica was
used in the underground Map and Universal was designed around the same period
and holds some of the key values already mentioned, such as functionality and
understandability. The type is ultimately meant to aid legibility and be easy
for all to read. It is structured and geometric, which means it should have
been easier to learn and read. The cover of Neue Grafik was black and white,
colours which like the typography already discussed do not have social or
historical backgrounds, they are the most neutral and they do not host
importance to one country or another, this could be a purposeful aspect of the
design as it needed to appeal to more than one country, again driving toward
internationalism, and an ‘international style’. Unlike the Map of Massimo
Vignelli but with the same neutral style, the colours on Vignelli’s map range
and therefore as is a variety it could be said that this piece is also neutral
as it does not specify a particular set of colours which would relate to one
particular place or another. However unlike the other two pieces discussed,
Neue Grafik according to Richard Hollis had not succeeded completely in its
internationalist objective. ‘ The editors’ intention to make the magazine ‘an
international forum’ was never achieved … all thirty-five illustrations are of
Swiss work’ Hollis, R.
(2006) ‘Swiss Graphic Design: the origins and growth of an international style
1920-1965’. London, Laurence King. pp 206. However the intent had initially
been there to be international but perhaps the editors where too bias of their
own work, but it could be said they had done this to show the rest of the world
their new concept that would work internationally.
In conclusion as M.Vignelli had described the
initial forces and main drives of modernity, industrialization which triggered
a culture of mass production, new inventions such as the railway and the
telephone led to the urbanization and connection of people in other cities and
countries, and the general popular culture that had formed through new concepts
such as leisure time, all led to a drive towards internationalism. E. Lupton and J. Abbot-Miller stated that
the purity of geometry would make a typeface recognizable and understandable to
all, then to add to this R. Roger Remington and L. Bodenstedt,
argued that modern designers had relied on structure to create pieces that
where at their purest form, universal type is also supposed to be a pure
geometrical typeface and so it could be said that to be understandable to a
wide range of people pieces of design need to be stripped back and simplistic,
also the use of geometry is highly emphasized. As again M. Vignelli had stated
when describing the Underground Map, he had pointed out that the use of a grid
had been very important in the organization and structure of a rather complex
piece of information, a grid is also key to the front cover of Neue Grafik, and
the use of columns where mentioned by D. Crowley and P.Jobling. However it
could be said that one of the main changes in design and one that mostly pushed
towards internationalism is typography. In all three pieces the typography is
sans serif, simplistic and geometric. Even though each of the three works span
across a period of 40 or so years, the typography had remained true to the
ideals, and they where almost pure forms. The fonts all connect with each other
in some way and this
meant that they where all aiming for a similar ideal, which was to be
understood and to be clear. R. Roger Remington and L. Bodenstedt, R. Hollis and E. Lupton and J.
Abbot-Miller, all stated that the type was an important element of the piece
they had analyzed, they had also said that the style of the typography had been
important in aiding communication to a larger audience of people, by being
simplistic and structured. The use of these typefaces had become so popular
that most modern designers used them in their work and that only, especially
Helvetica, as used in Massimo Vignelli’s work, this shows across the world
people where agreeing on the typeface and believing it was the best, due to its
pure, geometric and very legible/ understandable form. This is an international
agreement and again a key factor in the drive towards internationalism.
Universal Typeface, 1925, Herbert Bayer
New York Subway Map, 1972, Massimo Vignelli
Neue Grafik, Issue No.1, August 1958, Carlo
Vivarelli
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