TOM'S POST ON 1900-1909 

1940’s-50’s    Rene’ Gruau

Rene’ Gruau was born in Italy in 1909 of an aristocratic Italian father and a French mother, Marie Gruau, whose name he took. He settled in Paris in 1924 and embarked on his career as a fashion illustrator. His earliest drawings were published in Italy, Germany and England.

From 1935 to 1939, he worked with FEMINA, MARIE-CLAIRE, L’OFFICIEL, L’ALBUM DU FIGARO and other magazines.

In 1946, he did his first job for INTERNATIONAL TEXTILES, whose covers he designed until1984.

In 1947, his friend Christian DIOR entrusted him with drawing the MISS DIOR advertisement and the famous bar dress .the New Look was born.

In 1948, he left for the United States to work for HARPERS BAZAAR and VOGUE, before becoming the exclusive artist for FLAIR.

In 1949, he devoted his time to advertising: ROUGE BAISER, LIDO, MOULIN ROUGE, BEMBERG, BLIZZARD.

Between 1950 and now, he has worked for the greatest name sin Haute Couture: BALMAIN, FATH, BALENCIAGA, GIVENCHY, ROCHAS. Whilst continuing to produce fashion drawings for ELLE, VOGUE, FRANCE, MADAME FIGARO and L’OFFICIEL DE LA COUTURE.

 

With his stunning, passionate, figures, his arresting use of color and dramatic, explosive element of line, Rene Gruau developed his distinctive “New Look” in the 1940’s which greatly impacted haute couture, theatre, art, and commercial design. With his trademark use of his powerful minimal line, Gruau’s style combined seductive sophistication with classic beauty, grace and sensual elegance.  The quality of the visual appeal of his glamorous and radiant  “beautiful people” is at once bold and languid. Internationally Gruau’s artwork is celebrated internationally noted for its exceptional and masterful line, and its timeless, enduring style.  

 Today Gruau’s works are collected and exhibited by the finest art institutions including the Louvre in Paris. Rene Gruau’s artistic passion, intensity and technical brilliance have left a high-water mark on art history. 

 

http://www.renegruau.com/

http://www.artnet.com/artist/641308/rene-gruau.html

http://www.americanfineartgallery.com/artist_bios/gruau_bio.html

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1014505/Rene-Gruau

http://www.woodmansterne.co.uk/rene.htm

 

1920’s-30’s Bauhaus Graphic Design

A workshop for printmaking existed only at the Bauhaus in Weimar. In 1921, Lyonel Feininger was artistic director, master craftsman was the lithographer Carl Zaubitzer. The production of graphic series and portfolios of the Bauhaus masters, started in 1921,  stood at the peak of the workshop activity. Amongst them were Feininger's "Twelve woodcuts"  and Kandinsky's portfolio "Small worlds". A "Master Portfolio of the State Bauhaus" was published as the first title of the "Bauhaus Verlag" (Bauhaus edition). In 1921, parallel to these works, the ambitious project of "Neue Europ�ische Graphik" ("New European Graphics") began: Five portfolios with which the Bauhaus aimed at bringing together not only the artistic forms of expression of the school, but in addition, all the important tendencies of the international Avant-garde - from Futurism to Dada, Constructivism, and Surrealism - were produced. The first portfolio introduced the Bauhaus masters; the consecutive ones presented works by German, Italian, and Russian artists. A portfolio with French prints remained incomplete. The names of the artists - from Chagall to Schwitters, de Chirico to Kokoschka, Archipenko to Severini - make clear the quality of  this compendium of art prints from the twenties. The printmaking workshop did not only produce these series and many individual sheets for the Bauhaus masters, it was equally available to the students for their own works. In addition, the printing workshop also accepted commissions from the outside, for instance for the printing of lithographs after  works by Piet Mondrian and Alexander Rodchenko. Also, the foundations for the future development of functional typography at the Bauhaus were laid with  poster and typography designs for various events and publications at the school. This included the Bauhaus postcards, which found wide distribution as original graphic miniatures and which, in their  combination of typeface and image, were to become an important advertising medium for the Bauhaus.   http://www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/kunst/kunst_graphik.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic_design http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/b/bauhaus.html http://www.amazon.co.uk/ABCs-Triangle-Circle-Square-Bauhaus/dp/1878271423 http://www.eyemagazine.com/review.php?id=130&rid=633&set=700

Rick Valiencti 1990

Rick Valicenti
Rick Valicenti is the founder and design director of Thirst/Chicago, an internationally recognized design consultancy founded more than twenty years ago. The firm is also known for typography and has designed a new font, Infinity,Thirst a communication design firm devoted to art, function and real human presence. is one of the very first designers chosen for ID Magazine's 40
Rick Valicenti provides inspiration to his colleagues and mentorship to a generation of students. In 2006 Rick was awarded the American Institute of Graphic Artists (AIGA) Medal, the highest honor in the graphic design profession, for his sustained contribution to design excellence and development of the profession. Rick is a member of AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale).




His works are included in the permanent collection of MoMA, The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the 2006 Triennial, Design Life Now. His clients include the leaders of Chicago’s design and cultural community.

www.esad.pt/personalviews/

bustbright.com/wordpress/?m=200610

http://www.3st.com/#/content/about/rick

http://www.vllg.com/Thirstype/

letterarms.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html

Ikko Tanaka 1980

Ikko Tanaka
is considered the most important contemporary Japanese graphic designer. He was born in Nara in 1930. – Jan 11 2002. After studying in Kyoto and working for the newspaper Osaka Sankei Shimbun he founded his own studio in Tokyo in 1963 which still exists. His oeuvre consists of posters, books, lettering and packaging design, as well as the corporate identity of many Japanese and international groups, but also includes experimental forms of calligraphy and interior design. Tanaka's work combines in a fascinating way the visual language of modernism with elements of Japanese tradition. Many of his posters are counted among the classics of modern poster design.

Ikko Tanaka, fusion of Japanese tradition and the International Style contributed a modern sensibility to Japanese poster and publication design, he succeeded in marrying past and present in graphic compositions that were strong and clean, colorful and playful and unerringly precise. He borrowed the simple shapes and patterns of ancient arts and incorporated them into designs that were definitely of his time and place.

www.nytimes.com/2002/01/24/arts/ikko-tanaka-71-japanese-graphic-designer.html

anti-corporation.blogspot.com/2007/10/ikko-tanaka.html

www.maedastudio.com/redirect.php?this=samsung&category=all&dir=prev -

chloe. 1980 1990

Neville Brody born 23rd April 1957 in London, became famous in the 1980's for his typographic design work on numerous British magazines, in particular The Face and Arena. Brody used newly invented desktop publishing tools to the fullest and continues to be influential as a type designer for both print and web
In 1988 Thames & Hudson published the first of two volumes about his work, which became the world's best selling graphic design book. Combined sales now exceed 120,000. An accompanying exhibition of his work at the Victoria and Albert Museum attracted over 40,000 visitors before touring Europe and Japan.



In 1994, together with business partner Fwa Richards, Brody launched Research Studios, London. Since then studios have been opened in Paris, Berlin with plans to open a New york studio. Clients range across all media, from web to print, and from environmental and retail design to moving graphics and film titles.


A sister company, Research Publishing, produces and publishes experimental multi-media works by young artists. The primary focus is on FUSE, the renowned conference and quarterly forum for experimental typography and communications. The publication is approaching its 20th issue over a publishing period of over ten years.



http://www.researchstudios.com/home/006-neville-brody/NEVILLE_home.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Brody
http://www.graphic-design.com/Type/2008/neville_brody.html

Post 11: 1980s-90s - David Carson - Chris Nowlan

In 1983, Carson started to experiment with graphic design and found himself immersed in the artistic and bohemian culture of Southern California. By the late eighties he had developed his signature style, using "dirty" type and non-mainstream photography. He would later be dubbed the "father of grunge." He became renowned for his inventive graphics in the 1990s. As art director of surfing magazines and more famously style magazine Ray Gun (1992-5), Carson came to worldwide attention. His layouts featured distortions or mixes of 'vernacular' typefaces and fractured imagery, rendering them almost illegible. 

Indeed, his maxim of the 'end of print' questioned the role of type in the emergent age of digital design, following on from California New Wave and coinciding with experiments at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. In the later 1990s he shifted from 'surf subculture' to corporate work for Nike, Levis, and Citibank. Carson became interested in a new school of typography and photography-based graphic design and is largely responsible for popularizing the style; he inspired many young designers of the 1990s. His work does not follow "traditional" graphic design standards. 

Carson is emotionally attached to his creations. Carson's work is considered explorative of thoughts and ideas that become "lost" in the subconscious. Every piece is saturated, but Carson still manages to communicate both the idea and the feeling behind his design. His extensive use of combinations of typographic elements and photography led many designers to completely change their work methods and graphic designers from all around the world base their style on the new “standards” that have 

distinguished Carson's work.