P A U L
R A N D

"Design is the method of putting form and content
together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions; there is no single
definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so
simple,
that's why it is so complicated."

Paul Rand (1914 - 1996), was an American graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs. Educated at the pratt Institute (1929–1932), and the Art Students League (1933–1934). He was one of the strongest proponents of the swiss style of graphic design in America. Rand taught design at Yale university and was inducted into the New York Art directors club Hall of Fame in 1972.

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy expressed paul as "one of the best and most capable. He is a painter, lecturer, industrial designer and advertising artist who draws his knowledge and creativeness from the resources of this country. He is an idealist and a realist, using the language of the poet and business man. He thinks in terms of need and function. He is able to analyze his problems but his fantasy is boundless."

The December 1940 cover "Direction" Rand uses barbed wire to present the magazine as both a war-torn gift and a crucifix, is indicative of the artistic freedom Rand enjoyed at Direction; in Thoughts on Design Rand notes that it “is significant that the crucifix, aside from its religious implications, is a demonstration of pure plastic form as well . . . a perfect union of the aggressive vertical(male) and the passive horizontal (female)."

Rand's widely known contribution to graphic design are his corporate identities, including logos for IBM, UPS, Westinghouse, and ABC.

Rand had the ability as a salesman to explain the needs his identities would address for the corporation. Quote "He almost singlehandedly convinced business that design was an effective tool" Louis Danziger.

Although Rand's logos may be interpreted as simplistic, Rand explained Quote “ideas do not need to be esoteric to be original or exciting."

Rand passed at the age of 82, The core ideology that drove Rand’s career, and hence his lasting influence, was the modernist philosophy he so revered, attemptingto draw the connections between their creative output and significant applications in graphic design.

Quote "From Impressionism to Pop Art, the commonplace and even the comic strip have become ingredients for the artist’s cauldron. What Cézanne did with apples, Picasso with guitars, Léger with machines, Schwitters with rubbish, and Duchamp with urinals makes it clear that revelation does not depend upon grandiose concepts. The problem of the artist is to defamiliarize the ordinary" Rand

Miscellany cover for Design Quarterly

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rand

http://www.mkgraphic.com/paulrand.html

http://www.paul-rand.com/

www.dlsdesign.com/paul_rand

www.amazon.com/Paul-Rand

David Carson

David Carson, the American Graphic Designer from New York is known for his innovative magazine design and experimental typography was perhaps the most influential graphic designers of the nineties. David Carson’s signature style in the late eighties was the use of “dirty” and “grunge” type.
Carson was a teacher at a High School in San Diego and then moved on to becoming the art director of a Skateboarding magazine until he founded his own studio in New York city in the nineties and starting doing work for Pepsi cola, Ray Ban, Nike, Microsoft, Giorgio Armani, Kodak and many other Clients.
In 1995, Carson published his first book “End of Print” which sold over 200,000 copies in five languages. “End of Print” became the best-selling graphic design book worldwide.
Carson inspired many young designers in the 1990s when he took an interest in a new school of typography and photography-based graphic design. Carson does not follow the “traditional” standards in graphic design. He Basically done whatever he wanted with his work and didn’t go by the rules like everyone else. His work is considered explorative of thoughts and ideas that became “lost” in the subconscious. Carson has been one of the greatest influences on modern graphic design in the last 25 years as he twisted and manipulated photography and type together.

"It's not about knowing all the gimmicks and photo tricks. If you haven't got the eye, no program will give it to you" - David Carson
In my persepctive, Carson is trying to give out the idea that if you can use a program that can do gimmicks and photo tricks it wont mean anything if you haven't got the eye to really see design on another level. Design must be created by you, not a program. Programs just add to it.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Carson_(graphic_designer)

http://www.davidcarsondesign.com/

http://www.chasryder.com/designmuse/?p=30

http://amberwho.wordpress.com/2008/08/06/graphic-design-will-save-the-world-right-after-rock-and-roll-does-david-carson/

Massimo Vignelli

"Any colour works if you push it to the extreme"
Massimo Vignelli

BORN IN MILAN, ITALY, STUDIED ARCHITECTURE IN MILAN
AND VENICE. PRESIDENT OF VIGNELLI ASSOCIATES, NEW YORK.

In 1966 Vignelli started the New York branch of a new company, Unimark International, which quickly became, both in scope and in sheer number of personnel, one of the largest design firms in the world. The firm went on to design many of the world's most recognizable corporate identities, including that of American Airlines

Vignelli also designed the iconic signage for the New York subway system during this period.

His work includes graphic and corporate identity programs, publication designs, packaging, architectural graphics, exhibition, interior, furniture, and consumer product designs for leading American and European companies and institutions.

Mr. Vignelli’s work has been published and exhibited throughout the world and entered in the permanent collections of several museums. He is a past president of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), and a vice president of The Architectural League of New York. A major exhibition of Vignelli Associates’ work toured Europe’s most important museums between 1989 and 1993

Mr. Vignelli is the recipient of many important international awards,
seven Honorary Doctorates in Fine Arts;

Among Massimo Vignelli’s many awards:

1964, Gran Premio Triennale di Milano.

1964, 1998 Compasso d’Oro, from (ADI), Italian Association for Industrial Design.

1973, Industrial Arts Medal of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).

1982, New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame.

1983, AlGA Gold Medal.

1985, the first Presidential Design Award, presented by President Ronald Reagan,

for the National Park Service Publications Program.

1988, the Interior Design Hall of Fame.

1991, the National Arts Club Gold Medal for Design.

1992, the Interior Product Designers Fellowship of Excellence.

1993, New York State Governor’s Award for Excellence

1995, the Brooklyn Museum Design Award for Lifetime Achievement.

1996, Honorary Royal Designer for Industry Award, Royal Society of Arts, London.

2003, the National Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Museum of

Design at Cooper-Hewitt, New York.

2004, the Visionary Award from the Museum of Art and Design, New York.

2005, Architecture Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY.

He has also been awarded:

1994, Honorary Doctorate in Architecture from the University of Venice, Italy

and Honorary Doctorates in Fine Arts from:

1982, Parsons School of Design, New York

1987, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York

1988, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island

1994, Corcoran School of Art, Washington D.C.

2000, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California

2002, Rochester

Institute of Technology, Rochester,

New York

My interpretation of Vignelli's quote; "Any colour works if you if you push it to the extreme" is simply , NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE

http://www.vignelli.com/awards/massimo.pdf

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_VignelMassimo

http://www.vignelli.com/awards/massimo.pdf

“Think  More , Design Less”-Ellen Lupton.

Ellen Lupton is a writer, curator, and graphic designer. She is director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, where she also serves as director of the Center for Design Thinking. As curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum since 1992, she has produced numerous exhibitions and books, including Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office (1993), Mixing Messages: Graphic Design and Contemporary Culture (1996), Letters from the Avant-Garde (1996), and Skin: Surface, Substance + Design (2002).

She recently has focused on bringing design awareness to broader audiences. Her book Thinking with Type (2004) is a basic guide to typography directed at everyone who works with words. D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself (2006), co-authored with her graduate students at MICA, explains design processes to a general audience. D.I.Y. Kids (October 2007), co-authored with Julia Lupton, is a design book for children illustrated with kids’ art. “It’s never too early,” they explain, “to talk to your child about design.”

Her most recent book is Graphic Design: The New Basics (with Jennifer Cole Phillips, 2008). She is the co-author with Abbott Miller of several books, including The Bathroom, the Kitchen, and the Aesthetics of Waste (1992), Design Writing Research (1996), and Swarm (2006).

Lupton is a 2007 recipient of the AIGA Gold Medal, one of the highest honors given to a graphic designer or design educator in the U.S.

Ellen Lupton has contributed to various design magazines, including Print, Eye, I.D., and Metropolis. She has a regular column, “The El Word,” in Readymade magazine. Her editorial illustrations have been published in The New York Times. A frequent lecturer around the U.S. and the world, Lupton will speak about design to anyone who will listen.

Other exhibitions she has curated and co-curated include the National Design Triennial series (2000, 2003, 2006), Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500–2005 (2006), Solos: New Design from Israel (2006), and Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age (1999), all at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design MuseumAdobe.com/Earthquakes and House Typography.Typotheque.House Industries

Massimo Vignelli



From 1957 to 1960, Vignelli visited America on a fellowship, and returned to New York in 1966 to start the New York branch of a new company, Unimark International, which quickly became, both in scope and in sheer number of personnel, one of the largest design firms in the world. The firm went on to design many of the world's most recognizable corporate identities, including that of American Airlines (which forced him to incorporate the eagle, Massimo is always quick to point out). Vignelli also designed the iconic signage for the New York subway system during this period

Massimo Vignelli has worked in a wide variety of areas, including interior design, environmental design, package design, graphic design, furniture design, and product design. His clients at Vignelli Associates have included high-profile companies such as IBM, American Airlines.

He recently donated a large portion of his work to the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Massimo Vignelli participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions project in 2007.

In January 2009 Vignelli released an e-book titled "The Vignelli Canon" which is available for free download on his website. In the introduction Vignelli writes, "I thought that it might be useful to pass some of my professional knowledge around, with the hope of improving [young designers'] design skills. Creativity needs the support of knowledge to be able to perform at its best."





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Vignelli

                            

                                                                                                   

                                                                     PAULA SCHER

“What’s dangerous is when designers use a language people can’t understand”

Designer by day, fine artist by nature, Paula Scher’s mastery of typography is all self-taught. Vicki Atkinson talks to her about her extensive portfolio of work

With a career spanning 35 years so far, Paula Scher continues to set standards in graphic design with bold imagery and a highly illustrative approach to typography. She holds the Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design 2000, and American Institute of Graphic Arts Medal 2001. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, the body of work will. Scher’s massively influential designs have appeared on album covers, advertisements, gallery walls and on the outside of huge buildings – even the side of a public toilet in Madison Square Park. Scher is well known for her exceptional talent as a fine artist and her work can be seen in permanent collections of, among others, the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Library of Congress, Washington DC; the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Recently her series of large, colourful and intricate painted maps filled with densely packed names and figures have received critical acclaim.

This lifelong passion for art successfully complements and fuels her proverbial ‘day job’ of designer. Scher is a partner at the New York office of internationally renowned design agency, Pentagram. During her 17 years at the company, she’s conceived identities, packaging and editorial design for HP, Bloomberg, Citi, GQ, The New York Times and numerous cultural institutions including The New York City Ballet.

Scher’s career began in the 1970s, before computers became the bedrock of design. She worked at CBS and Atlantic records, designing and outputting hundreds of album covers in a year. “I started out by having to teach myself typography,” remembers Scher. “At that time it was really just Helvetica and the grid, and I rebelled against that.” She began to look for alternative, more expressive typefaces. “I became very interested in historical faces, because they were so outrageous – incredibly bold, or with lascivious curves – and I started to recognise characters and type in relation to a period.”

Because of this understanding, Scher began, and continues, to use typography as a highly expressive form. “It was a slow period of learning; at first I was imitating, then expressing myself.”

A hands-on approach is in her nature and is reflected in her personal artwork. The Maps series – the latest additions to which were recently on show at the Maya Stendhal Gallery in New York – has developed over the last decade and reveals her love of letterforms as well as a passion for geography. Each of the 12 maps represents the world, a country, area or continent as she herself sees it. The huge paintings include a map of the world, twelve feet wide and eight feet high, a map of America with every single city name, and one depicting the area affected by the 2005 tsunami with letterforms radiating from the epicentre. The landmasses are painted by eye and the hundreds and thousands of words painstakingly painted in. The shapes, colours, angles and size of the letters are expertly used to reflect Scher’s own view of the mapped area, making each work of art a statement. The bold Bollywood colours in Scher’s map of India contrast with the greys of her depiction of Africa.

While not part of her work at Pentagram, this freedom to paint and play with handwritten typography without a client brief clearly feeds the designer’s day job. So with such a passion for the hands-on approach, did the advent of using computers for graphic and typographic design seem like cheating? Not at all. “It’s like using a washing machine: are you a bad person because you don’t wash all your clothes by hand on a rock? I think that the current climate of technology is the best there’s ever been for typography. It’s so easy to work with: things are drawn and can be realised very beautifully.”

Scher is well-known in New York for her inspiring creations for the wealth of cultural institutions in the city: The Metropolitan Opera, The Public Theater and Symphony Space are just a few who have had the Scher treatment. Earlier this year, Scher’s new identity and promotional campaign for the New York City Ballet was launched in line with the dance company’s new winter programme. The stunning range of posters, magazine ads and environmental graphics for the entrance and lobby features striking black-and-white photography of the performers by Nick Heavican. Scher has cropped in closer to the performers for a dramatic look, and their close positions echo the stacked and layered nature of the new logo. The words are set in DIN in greys and black with a slight transparency to create a look that reflects the city’s skyline. “The identity is designed to be powerful and graceful at the same time, like the company,” says Scher on her Pentagram blog. “It looks like the city’s ballet.”

Stroll past the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and you’ll be struck by the incredible array of graphics designed by Scher. What began as a brown brick building was completely transformed in 2004 with an impressive lick of paint. Bright and colourful, the giant words relate to the nature of performing arts, aiding the centre to stand out as an influential cultural institution.

Environmental graphics form an ever-increasing part of Scher’s portfolio. She loves her typefaces as big and bright as they come. “It is good fun!” she says. “The main problem with the work is that it takes so long.” Many environmental graphics projects have been collaborations with architects, including the 42nd Street Studios, Bloomberg and the Children’s Museum in Pittsburgh and it can be an incredibly detailed process. “If you’re doing environmental graphics that have lighting inside, you need to figure out your designs at a very early stage, because they’ve got to get the wiring in – you have to look at the plans and anticipate what the finished building will be like.”

The attraction of the longevity of an environmental design is undeniable, but there’s something to be said for the throwaway world of the newspaper or magazine. “It’s satisfying to do an illustration for The New York Times and have it appear the next day. But on the other hand, it’s in the trash the day after and the building’s up forever...” muses Scher.

2008 is Scher’s 60th year and her success shows no signs of slowing – her contributions to popular and commercial culture go on. The wealth of dynamic, trendsetting work demonstrates her inspiring and innovative approach to typography. But, surprisingly, this comes without sitting in front of a screen all day. As partner at Pentagram, Scher works with a dedicated team of designers, developing concepts and fulfilling briefs together. “Everything is done by computer in my team, but I don’t operate them. I don’t type. I look at typography, I point, I make sketches. Sometimes I sit with them and I think it should be bigger, moved over, should do that – it’s a collaborative thing. Sometimes I say one thing and they don’t understand quite what I mean and they do something else, and I look at it and say, ‘Wow! That’s good!’ Those accidents only happen when you’re working with someone else.”

Seventeen years at one company is testament to Pentagram’s unique structure and approach to design in many of its forms. “The thing that is attractive about Pentagram is that it’s a broad practice: we don’t just make magazines, we don’t just make book jackets, we don’t just do identities, we don’t just anything – we do a little bit of everything. You can go from working on a building to working on a cover for the book review to working on a packaging project.” The perfect fit for an artist, designer and typographer with Scher’s eclectic talents.

geotypografika.com 

johnsonbanks.co.uk 

cartophilia.com 

Chris Nowlan - 27. “The difference between good design and great design is intelligence.” Tibor Kalman

Tibor Kalman

Tibor Kalman (July 6, 1949–May 2, 1999) was an influential American graphic designer of Hungarian origin, well known for his work as editor-in-chief of Colors magazine, and his groundbreaking work he created with his New York design firm, M&Co.

Kalman was born in Budapest and became a U.S. resident in 1956, after he and his family fled Hungary to escape the Soviet invasion. He attended NYU, but only after one year of Journalism classes he dropped out.

In 1979 Kalman,Carol Bokuniewicz, and Liz Trovato started the design firm M&Co, which did corporate work for such diverse clients as the Limited Corporation, the New Wave music group Talking Heads, and Restaurant Florent in New York City’s Meatpacking District. Kalman also worked as creative director of Interview magazine in the early 1990s.

Kalman became the founding editor-in-chief of the Benetton-sponsored Colors magazine in 1990. In 1993, Kalman closed M&Co and moved to Rome, to work exclusively on the magazine. He remained the main creative force behind Colors, until the onset of non-Hodgkins lymphoma forced him to leave in 1995, and return to New York.

In 1997, Kalman re-opened M&Co and continued to work until his death in 1999, in Puerto Rico.

Today, the influence of M&Co is still strong, both as a result of its work and that of the many designers, like Stefan Sagmeister, Stephen Doyle, Alexander Isley, and Emily Oberman, who worked there and went on to start their own design studios, also in New York City. Tibor Kálmán was a member of Alliance Graphique International (AGI). Until his death (1999), Mr. Kalman was married to the illustrator and author Maira Kalman.

Design Work

 

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibor_Kalman

http://www.salon.com/people/obit/1999/05/19/kalman/

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/medalist-tiborkalman

http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature.php?id=30&fid=167

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CE5DD123CF936A35756C0A96F958260

Second designer quote

 

Neville Brody

Renowned British typographer and graphic designer, Brody went to Horsey College of art in 1975 and worked toward graphics then fine arts. In 1976 he went to London College of printing for a 3 year bachelors course in graphics, his work was considered too experimental.Dadaism and Pop art have been strong influences and their non-acceptance of established rules and ideals of art are evident in Brodys typefaces.

Brody graduated in the late 1970's and begun designing record covers for British punk music bands. He worked for the magazene 'The Face' until 1986, also working for 'City Limits' and 'New Socialist' magazines.

Neville becameworld famous in 1988 when his first book was published, it became the world's best selling graphic design book. With the book he had an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum which attracted 40 000 viewers before traveling to Japan and Europe.

Between 1987 and 1990 while working for 'Arena' magazene he designed mostly modest typefaces, the famous ones are; Arcadia, Industrial, Ansignia, FF Blur, FF Gothic and FF Harlem. Since 1987 he has owned a private studio in London, working on corporate identities and fashon projects including Nike, the Dutch postal service, the German Cable channel Premiere.

In 1990 he opened 'Font Works' with colleague Stewart Jensen, became the director of the 'Font Shop International' with which he initiated the experimental magazine 'Fuse'. In 1994, with business partner Fwa Richards, Brody launched 'Research Studios' in London, Paris, Berlin and soon New York. Clients range from web to print, and from environmental and retail to moving graphics and film titles.

Issey Miyake commisioned Brody to create his store's branding and art direction as well as a catalogue for his boutique.The catalogue was experimental with pattern, type and art.

Digital design brought Brody to new heights, and he launched a revolution in typeface design, chalenging the boundaries between graphic design and photography.

Much of Brody's works are deliberatley ambiguous, a creation of harmony between colours and typeography, in his quote he expresses the freshness and pliability of digital art and the wonderful flexability it provides us with.

"Digital design is like painting , except the paint never dries."

www.researchstudios.com/home

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/NevilleBrody

www.researchstudios.com/home/004-press/books/

www.apple.com/pro/profiles/brody

http://www.graphic-design.com/Type/2008/neville_brody.html