Post 2 - Sam Weible
The avant-garde movement in graphic design is one that most interests me. This break from traditional design norms and techniques marks the mental shift from design being a purely utilitarian system to one that is more ill-defined and experimental. This movement certainly muddied the line between graphic design and art, seeing as Hollis suggests that one difference between graphic design and art is graphic design's purpose of communication.
French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, for instance, challenged the format of reading and writing. While it's been a centuries-long norm in the western world to read from left to right, from the top line to the bottom, Mallarmé saw the double-page spread of a book as being one open canvas and designed the way his poems were laid out to challenge the typical printing format.
Mallarmé, S. (Unknown). [Le Hasard]. https://signalvnoise.com/posts/576-stphane-mallarm-a-painters-poet. 21 January 2020.
This challenge to the traditional design formed continued into the 20th century in many forms, including a magazine named for its style, Avant Garde. In its logo alone, Avant Garde asked questions like, "why should each letter have its own exclusive space?" The cover art of this magazine was more artistic and ambiguous than other publications, allowing the designer more freedom and room to experiment.
This avant-garde design style is survived in the 21st century by the no-longer-published magazine Raygun. Designer David Carson approached designing the music and lifestyle magazine with the intent to challenge the reader to absorb its contents through non-traditional means, including arranging the text randomly around the page and varying it to intentionally make it difficult to read. While in some cases this technique made a story impossible to read, it posed the classic avant-garde design question: why does it have to be designed this way?
French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, for instance, challenged the format of reading and writing. While it's been a centuries-long norm in the western world to read from left to right, from the top line to the bottom, Mallarmé saw the double-page spread of a book as being one open canvas and designed the way his poems were laid out to challenge the typical printing format.
Mallarmé, S. (Unknown). [Le Hasard]. https://signalvnoise.com/posts/576-stphane-mallarm-a-painters-poet. 21 January 2020.
This challenge to the traditional design formed continued into the 20th century in many forms, including a magazine named for its style, Avant Garde. In its logo alone, Avant Garde asked questions like, "why should each letter have its own exclusive space?" The cover art of this magazine was more artistic and ambiguous than other publications, allowing the designer more freedom and room to experiment.
Lubalin, H. (1968) [Avant Garde Cover]. http://avantgarde.110west40th.com/volumes/volume-3#1. 21 January 2020.
This avant-garde design style is survived in the 21st century by the no-longer-published magazine Raygun. Designer David Carson approached designing the music and lifestyle magazine with the intent to challenge the reader to absorb its contents through non-traditional means, including arranging the text randomly around the page and varying it to intentionally make it difficult to read. While in some cases this technique made a story impossible to read, it posed the classic avant-garde design question: why does it have to be designed this way?
Carson, D. (1998). [Raygun Cover]. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/261982903300854786/?lp=true. 21 January 2020.
I find it interesting that this was it's own movement during the time. That everything was spread around about the pages. My favorite one that you choose was the last as it's the most eye catching to me as "Raygun" Stood out above the else then the hierarchy of words came down.
ReplyDeleteI find your example of Raygun to be very interesting. The magazine's philosophy seems like a sort of punk-rock take on the Avant-garde tradition, which I think is super cool. While I find that arranging words in a random chaotic way may make it difficult to ultimately communicate the message of a story, it is also might be doing its job of only attracting a target audience of people who consume media outside of the norm. In this way it is successful as graphic design.
ReplyDeleteI love all of the examples that you chose, especially thinking about the ways in which we allow letters to take up space, like in the second example with the "Avant Garde" lettering, which I think is done really beautifully here. I love the contrast between that as a large title and the script and dainty lettering underneath.
ReplyDelete