NINE art movements

TWO platforms

SIX visual cues

10 design principles

cues & rules

Art Nouveau Modern graphic design was saved from the crass commercialism of the Industrial Era designs with the introduction of the art nouveau (or “new art”) style around 1890. Art nouveau was the first commercial art style intended to make products and their advertisements more beautiful. Art nouveau was highly influenced by traditional Asian vases, paintings, and screens, particularly from Japan and Korea. Borders were marked by styl-ized, plantlike vines, and typography mimicked the flowing curves of the graphic elements. At first, critics severely criticized art nouveau, using such

phrases as “linear hysteria,” “strange decorative disease,” and “stylistic free-for-all” to describe the art style. Although much more popular in Europe, the movement was best demonstrated in the United States on the covers of Harper’s Monthly. The art nouveau movement inspired other designers to link artistry with functionalism for the first time since Gutenberg’s time. It was a revolutionary art movement because it rejected the Victorian tradi-tions of commercial excesses and a machine mentality.

Dada In 1916 Europe was preoccupied with the horrors of World War I. Dada emerged as a critical examination of the social structures that allowed such an event to occur. It expressed artists’ rage with political leaders by the use of absurd, asymmetric designs. Writings and graphics were intended to confuse, educate, and gain attention. The name supposedly came out of a meeting of poets, painters, and graphic designers at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1916. Its practitioners viewed harmony and symmetry as stifling. For the dada artists, graphic design elements reflected the

way modern life actually was lived—quickly paced and tense. It was hoped that by using such designs they could communicate criticism of the many hypocrisies they perceived during and after the “War to End All Wars.” Politicians and wealthy individuals were particular targets of dada publications. Dada graphic designs consisted of typography of different sizes and styles randomly distributed on a page. At first glance, such designs are extremely difficult to read.

De Stijl In the summer of 1917 several Dutch painters, including Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian, perceived the use of a grid as a way to search for universal harmony in the wake of World War I. Unlike dada artists, de stijl designers believed that an unemotional use of lines, common shapes, and the colors of red, yellow, and blue would usher in a new utopian spirit of cooperation among the people of the world. Like Mondrian, Doesburg composed abstract paintings of thick black horizontal and vertical lines that divided his canvases into basic shapes, which he filled in with colors.

Architect and designer Le Corbusier made an important contribution to the use of the grid in architecture with his 1948 book Modulor and the design system of the same name. By the 1960s modular design became the dominant force in modernizing the front pages of newspapers around the world. Text and images for each story are placed within rectangular shapes called modules. A newspaper redesigned modularly has more of a horizontal than vertical orientation and is meant to remind readers and potential customers that its stories and pictures are as easy to read as those found on television.

Bauhaus In 1919, architect Walter Gropius headed a design workshop and think tank in Weimar, Germany, called the Das Staatliches Bauhaus. Bau-haus comes from the German words bauen, “to build,” and haus, “house.” Bauhaus was originally intended as an architectural school; the grid-like look of skyscrapers with their individual cubicles for similarly dressed office workers comes from bauhaus architectural design. The design style quickly embraced the de stijl concept of creating harmony in the world by unifying art and technology. Bauhaus is characterized by its emphasis on useful,

simple, and clearly defined forms. Abstract painter Paul Klee, designer and photographer Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and his assistant, designer Gyorgy Kepes, who is the author of ten books including The Language of Vision (1944) and Sign, Image, Symbol (1966), which inspired the work of Saul Bass, were important bauhaus designers and educators.

Art Deco Called “the last of the total styles,” art deco united buildings, objects, fashions, and typographical and graphic designs by its stylish and dis-tinctive look. Art deco (called art moderne in Europe) takes its name from a 1925 exhibition in Paris titled Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, which covered both banks of the Seine River. The distinctive art deco style was noted for its streamlined shapes and curved sans serif typographical lettering that presented a modern graphic look. Advertisers at first didn’t like the style because the conservative nature of U.S.

design at the time favored function over form. Critics viewed art deco as anti-utilitarian. As the public embraced the style, advertisers started using art deco designs. Use of the style spread to department stores, corporate headquarters, and even automated vending machines. The Chrysler Building in New York City is a classic example of art deco architecture, as are the multicolored hotels and apartment buildings on Miami Beach.

Pop Art The pop art movement combined the organic vines of art nouveau designs and the rebellious philosophy of dada. Pop art gets its name from a group of London artists and designers who met in the mid-1950s. Pop, short for “popular,” was the label given to objects—from sensational movie posters to the tail fins of Detroit automobiles—that were viewed as unworthy of serious artistic attention and yet were a part of a society’s popular cul-ture. The style was connected with alternative lifestyles and rebellion against authority demonstrated by the “beatnik” culture. The peace sign designed

by Gerald Holtom in 1956 as a nuclear disarmament symbol, and the photographs published in Robert Frank’s The Americans (1956) were verbal and visual examples of artists questioning traditional cultural values. New York-based artist Andy Warhol used innovative printing techniques on common American icons (e.g., Campbell’s soup cans and Marilyn Monroe) to create strikingly visual works of art. By the early 1970s, pop art had reached its peak, but not before influencing fast food restaurants, comic books, and supermarket product packaging.

Punk In the late 1970s, a new form of graphic design, initially called neo-dada and then punk, emerged. Creators of punk placed typographical and other visual elements on pages in angry, rebellious, and random ways in the style of “ransom note” cutouts. In that way, punk was greatly influenced by the earlier dada movement. Underground comic books and zines as well as music and fashion styles were the first outlets for this art form. Punk artists were critical of the lavish spending habits of the wealthy, as were their dada predecessors. With roots in the rule-breaking and angry artists of the dada

movement, punk can be an anti-establishment expression through music, artwork, and fashion. Photographer and educator Kevin McCarty captures the dual personalities of a young punk advocate with his portraits of shaved head, heavily gelled, bird-like hair styles, and leather jackets.The Sex Pis-tols, The Clash, The Ramones, Green Day are musical groups in the tradition of punk.

New Wave Punk, as with other art movements, quickly became absorbed into mainstream culture. Cartoonist Gary Panter decried the transition into respectability when he said, “Punk was an honest expression, while new wave is a packaging term.” New wave, founded by the Swiss Wolfgang Weing-art and American April Greiman, was highly influenced by the ease of typographical and visual manipulations made possible by computer technology. It was connected with a youthful culture that viewed all new technology as exciting. The colorful cutout titles that Tiber Kalman and Alexander Isley

made for the movie Something Wild (1986) were examples of new wave that have been critically praised. The design was also influenced by the music and the fashions of such bands as Depeche Mode, Devo, the Pet Shop Boys, and The Talking Heads.

Hip-hop Started as a fashion, graphic design, graffiti art, and dance accompaniment to rap music in the 1970s, hip-hop eventually gained mainstream attention. The quick editing of visual messages to the beat of pulsating rhythms is combined with pictographic images on walls, clothing, and within the pages of such magazines as Blaze and Vibe until they quit publication, Blaze in 2000 and Vibe in 2009. Musically, hip-hop diversified to include various forms of rap (alternative, gangsta, jazz, and Southern). The high mark of hip-hop was 2004, when OutKast’s album Speakerboxxx/The Love

Below won Best Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards, and the movie You Got Served about a dance contest was a surprise hip-hop hit. Since then, however, albums by hip-hop artists have declined in sales.