OUGD401 - Lecture Notes: Graphic Design

Graphic Design: A Medium for the Masses

Key things to consider:

• The origins of Graphic Design
• Graphic Design in relation to Fine Art
• Graphic Design in relation to Advertising
• Graphic Design as a tool of Capitalism
• Graphic Design as a Political tool
• Graphic Design and Postmodernism
• Graphic Design and Social Conscience

Bison and Horses

15,000-10,000BC

Cave painting

Lascaux, France

Giotto di Bondone

Betrayal

1305

Fresco, Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy

John Everett Millais

Bubbles

1886

Pears Soap advertisement

Introduction of the term ‘Graphic Design’

William Addison Dwiggins

successful designer

1922

‘In the matter of layout forget art at the start and use horse-sense. The printing-designer’s whole duty is to make a clear presentation of the message - to get the important statements forward and the minor parts placed so that they will not be overlooked. This calls for an exercise of common sense and a faculty for analysis rather than for art’.

Herbert Spencer: ‘Mechanized art’

Max Bill and Josef Muller-Brockman: ‘Visual Communication’

Richard Hollis

‘Graphic Design is the business of making or choosing marks and arranging them on a

surface to convey an idea'

Paul Rand

‘… graphic design, in the end, deals with the spectator, and because it is the goal of the

designer to be persuasive or at least informative, it follows that the designer's problems

are twofold: to anticipate the spectator's reactions and to meet his own aesthetic needs.'

Josef Muller-Brockman

‘Whatever the information transmitted, it must, ethically and culturally, reflect its

responsibility to society.'

Edouard Manet

1832-83

A Bar at the Folies Bergeres

1882

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

1893

Aristide Bruant
Poster

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

1890s

Poster

Alphonse Mucha

1898

Poster for cigarette papers

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

1896

Scottish Musical Review
Poster

Koloman Moser

13^th Secession Exhibition

1902

Poster

Peter Behrens

AEG

1910

Savile Lumley

1915

Poster

Alfred Leete

1914

Poster

James Montgomery Flagg

1917

Poster

Julius Gipkens

Trophies of the Air War

1917

Poster

Wassily Kandinsky

1886-1944

Composition VIII

1923

El Lizzitzky

Beat the Whites with the Red wedge

1919

Poster

F.H. Stingemore (UK)

London Underground Map

1931-2

For progression see powerpoint

Oskar Schlemmer (German)

Bauhaus Logo

1922

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (Russian)

Painting photography film

1925

Book cover

Herbert Bayer (German)

Kandinsky 60^th Birthday exhibition

1926

Poster

A.M Cassandre (French)

Etoile de Nord

1927

Poster

Tom Purvis (UK)

LNER

1937

Poster
Ludwig Hohlwein (German)

Reichs Sports Day for the Association of German Girls

1934

Poster

Ludwig Hohlwein (German)

Degenerate Art

1936

Exhibition Poster

Josep Renau (Spanish)

Industry of War

1936

Josep Renau (Spanish)

Stalingrad: The New Star of Freedom

1942

Pere Catala I Pic (Spanish)

Let's Squash Fascism

1936

G. Klucis (Russian)

1930-1931

Abram Games

Catalogue for 'Exhibition of Science'

Festival of Britain

1951

Paul Rand

Advert for Jacqueline Cochran

1946

Helmut Krone for Doyle Dane Berbach

Think Small advert for Voltswagen

1959

Saul Bass

The Man with the Golden Arm

Poster

1955

Summary

Graphic Design is a relatively young discipline.

Links between Graphic Design and different disciplines for example Fine Art, Advertising are arguably becoming increasingly blurred.

Although born out of consumerist/capitalist interests, Graphic Design is arguably becoming increasingly concerned with social issues.