Saul Bass

Saul Bass is one of the greatest graphic designers of the mid 20th Century who has collaborated with many famous film directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick and has helped designing them their film title posters.

Bass became famous right after designing a film poster with a paper cut-out of a heroin addict’s arm for Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). The movie was based on a heroin addict jazz musician that tries to come clean. By choosing an arm as a central image Bass tried to create a relationship with heroin addiction which was seen very controversial yet also very sensational. Later he created 50 more title sequences for Preminger.

"The Man with the Golden Arm" film title sequence designed by Saul Bass

He invented a new type of kinetic typography for Hitchcock’s famous movies North by Northwest, Vertigo, Psycho etc.

"Vertigo" designed by Saul Bass

Constructivisim: Alexandre Rodchenko, El Lissitzky

These artists were not trying to create a “revolutionary new kind of art, they were trying to create art that would facilitate a revolutionary new society.”

-The Struggle for Utopia: Rodchenko, Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy

Constructivism

Constructivism is a term used in modern art which rejected the idea of, ‘art for art’s sake, suggested that art should be used as an instrument for social purposes. It originated in Russia starting from the year 1914 and so on. Constructivism has been a major influence on modern art movements of the 20th century such as Bauhaus and the De Stijl.

The term Construction Art was first used by Kazimir Malevich to describe the work of Alexandre Rodhcenko in 1917. Constructivism first appears as a positive term in Naumm Gabo’s Realistic Manifesto in 1920. The movement’s major accomplishment was the new techniques of graphic design championed by El Lissitzky.

The Constructivists main goal was to make the viewer an active viewer of the artwork they made. Most of the artworks and designs were based on politics and revolutions.

Alexandre Rodchenko

Rodchenko was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer who is one of the founders of Constructivism and Russian design.

“For Rodchenko, design was not a matter of aesthetics. It was a catalyst for social change.”

El Lissitzky

He was one of the important figures of the Russian avantgarde, along with his friend Malevich he helped developing suprematism and constructivism.

The Invention of Photography

Nicéphore Niépce is noted as one of the inventors of photography .  In 1826 Niépce took the first photographic image in history “View from the Window at Le Gras”. He captured this image by placing a camera obscura, which was reflected on a sheet of oil-treated bitumen, on the window pane of his study room.  After an 8 hour exposure process the image was out.  Although there is a harshness of light which makes the image look non-realistic, the buildings and the fields in the distance can be depicted. Niépce called this photographic process “Heliography”.  Heliography literally means “sun writing”.

 

View from the Window at Le Gras by Nicéphore Niépce

Later, Niépce collaborated with Louis Daguerre, they began experimenting and improving the process of photography together. After Niépce’s death, Daguerre invented the Daguerreotype, which was more successful than Heliography. In 1838, Daguerre took a Daguerreotype photograph of “Boulevard du Temple”. What makes this images more successful then of Niépce’s heliography is that the exposure was not as long as 8 hours. The exposure was more than 10 minutes which is why the moving traffic cannot be seen. What we only see, apart of the easily depicted buildings, is a man getting his shoes polished by a shoe-shining boy.

 

Boulevard du Temple by Daguerre

 

 

John Baskerville

 

John Baskerville

 

John Baskerville was an English businessman who was also a major typographer of the 18th century. He was a member of the Royal Society of Arts. Although he was an atheist he printed a folio Bible in 1763. He also printed works for the University of Cambridge. His works were admired by many important figures such as Benjamin Franklin and most of the members of the Royal Society of Arts. His success also brought him a lot of jealous competitors whom criticized his works and outshone him. But in the late 1920s many new fonts have been released which included “Baskerville” his most famous typeface.

 

“Baskerville’s most notable typeface Baskerville represents the peak of transitional type face and bridges the gap between Old Style and Modern type design.^“

 

 

 

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

John Guttenberg

movable types

John Guttenberg was a  blacksmith who invented the printing press in the Modern Era.  He had a huge impact on the development of Renaissance, Reformation and the Scientific Revolution.

The printing press was found in the 1430s. The printing press is a hand-operated machine, which has metal movable types sorted in a letter case in order to print. Ink is applied to these movable types and each letter is printed in order to form up the pages of the books.

It is said that there were printed books and movable types in China since the 12th century .  It is not known whether Guttenberg already knew that an invention for printing had already existed.

Around the 1450s Guttenberg printed a large number of  the Guttenberg Bibles. The Guttenberg Bible is considered to be one of the oldest books that has survived since the invention of printing.

The Guttenberg Bible

Incunabula

Incunabula or Incunabulum is book which has not been hand written but printed in the late 15th century in Europe. The name “Incunabula” means cradle in Latin which is a simile for something that is in it’s early stages and is being developed.

There are two types of incunabula in printing:

One is the Block Book also known as xylograhic which is printed with carved wooden blocks for each page. The other one is the Typographic Book, that is printed with pieces of cast metal for each letter, an invention made by Johann Guttenberg. The Typographic book is a huge success in the history of print.

an example for Block Book works

an example for Typographic Book from the Guttenberg Bible

Gothic Style and Manuscripts

The Western (Royal) Portal at Chartres Cathedral (ca. 1145).

The Gothic style emerged in the early 12th century in France. The style was used in sculpture, textile art, painting, fresco, stained glass, the illuminated manuscript, and panel painting. The word “Gothic” is etymologically a synonym for “Barbaric”. Critics of those times found the Gothic style too remote, nothing like the Classic art style.

The books of the Gothic era became smaller than the ones before. These books consist of various illustrations, which took up a bigger space then the texts that were written. Decorative bars have been used around the texts.

The Greek Alphabet

The Greek alphabet has been used since the 8th century BC. It consists of 24 letters and orders from alpha to omega.The Greek took the Phoenician alphabet and changed it in order to adapt it to their own language. Unlike the Phoenician alphabet, the Greek Alphabet tends to represent vowels which makes it the first true alphabet of all times. The origin of the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets derive from the Greek alphabet.

Feng Shui and Luopan

 

“Feng Shui” is an Ancient Chinese system that aims to receive the positive qi (spiritual energy/energy) by using the laws of Heaven and Earth. Meaning, it is a practice of placing and arranging a space, with respect to the positive energy to achieve harmony with the environment. Feng Shui is not a system of decorating.

Luopan which is also known as the Feng Shui Compass is a magnetic compass that determines the direction of an item or a structure. Before the invention of Loupan Feng Shui depended mostly on astrology.

Hieroglyphics

Hieroglyphics are symbols or characters which are taken for the alphabetic letters of Ancient Egypt. At first hieroglyphics were carved or painted on walls, but as technology began to evolve they began to paint them on papyrus. Hieroglyphics are mostly based on religious subjects that concerns the kingdom. They are most likely seen as messages from the gods and prophecies.