sandra james-talbot

6 November 2015

Infographics styles

We were asked to consider how we would format 4 styles of infographic.
1 What to do when you wreck your car
2 The science of sleep
3 The internet of things
4 Sourcing sustainable fish

For each infographic, you need to consider the audience, the format, the purpose, any existing house style, tone of voice, colours, grid, image style, hierarchy, typography and colours. My artboards, below, were created in Illustrator and show colour swatches, typefaces for 3 levels of hierarchy, and the style of imagery to be used in a mini style guide format.

5 November 2015

Character-based posters

Celebrity chefs

We were asked to design 4 posters representing 4 authors or books, where the focus is on the character, not the story or the subject. We look at Stylorouge's work and how they achieved this with the iconic poster they designed for Trainspotting. It was ground-breaking at the time (in the 1980's) as previously all film posters had a visual hierarchy of characters, with full colour, overlapping images. It spawned a million immitations. It worked so well because nothing like it had been done before with most films having stereotypical charcter shots, overlapping and arranged in hierarchical fashion. It shows all the charcters at an equal level of importance and focusses on them as people and characters.

I created posters for 4 celebrity chefs. I used high resolution photos from the internet, removed the backgrounds with a combination of Photoshop tools, and used threshold to achieve the look I wanted. I then used InDesign to layout the designs. I used American Typewriter for their names, and Antique Olive for the body copy. I felt these typesfaces complmented each other well. I chose orange as it contrasts well on the black and white areas of the images. The taupe sidebar was chosen to bring some warmth and contrast to the design. There is a clear hierarchy in the typography. The Jamie Oliver poster is the least successful as I could not find picture of him with suitably dark shoulders, with his head at the right angle.

My final design was changed by removing the sidebar, creating a box around the body copy and adding a visual full stop (the orange rectangle) which also acts as repitition. I think the designs now look more striking with improved contrast. The black box under the text makes the type legible now.

Design Agency Research

Pentagram

We were tasked with reserching the work of design agency. I chose to research Pentagram.

Pentagram are probabably the most famous design agency in the world. They were founded in 1972 in London by 6 partners. They now also have offices in New York, San Francisco, Berlin and Austin. They still operate under the same flat organisation structure that has served them so well, except now there are 19 equal partners, instead of 6, including Angus Hyland in London (winner of over 100 design awards), and Michael Beirut (New York).

Pentagram's work is across multiple disciplinaries including graphic design, identity, architecture, interiors and products. Partners are also free to pursue Pro Bono work (for charities, etc, on an unpaid basis). Each partner works in an open plan area surrounded by their team, allowing for their collaborative approach and enabling all the partners to be hands-on.

Pentagram celebrated 40 years in business in 2012. This 4 minute video, showing some of their biggest clients, is called The Forty Story: https://vimeo.com/42562659.

Some of their famous work includes: V&A, MoMA, Boots, Harley Davidson, Sotheby's, Pantone, Nike. The list goes on.

Logo and graphic identity, V&A, London

Identiy for Faber & Faber, publishers

Interior architecture for CASS Art

Wayfinding for John Lewis, New York

Packaging for Pantone

Identity for Sotheby's New York

References
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669866/watch-40-years-of-pentagram-work-in-3-minutes
http://www.creativebloq.com/computer-arts/pentagram-8108801
www.pentagram.com

4 November 2015

Modern Museet - Stockholm

Over half term we visited Stockholm and looked around their modern art museum - Moderna Museet. They had a lot of work by the constructivists and a huge exhibition from the studio of Olafur Eliasson.

1 November 2015

International typographic style / Swiss style

Background

I have already written a post about The International Typographic Style at http://sandrajt.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/modernism.html when we were asked to write about one area of Modernism. This posts adds further information and also details the work of Max Huber

The International Typographic Style or Swiss Style was a graphic design movement which started in the early 1950s and continued to be the dominant style until the late 1960's. The term International Style also included architecture such as the work by Le Corbusier.

Features

The main features of International Style graphic design were:

Asymmetric layouts
Use of grids
Clear minimal design
Sans serif typeface - typefaces should never be mixed
Type always horizontal
Flush left, ragged right justification
Photos were preferred to illustration

Influences and development

In 1918 Ernst Keller, a teacher at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich started practising the beginning of what was to develop into International Style. Theo Ballmer (who was influenced by the De Stijl style), supplemented Keller's style of work and made it more grid focussed. Max Bill, an ex-Bauhaus student practised Art Concret which was a further development, based on mathematical principles.

Major designers

Max Huber (Zurich School of Arts and Crafts) added photomontage to the style in the late 40s - including layers, overprinting, and dynamic design.

Huber (1950) poster for UNESCO

Huber poster (ND)

By the 1950s Josef Müller-Brockman was the dominant designer in this style. He studied at Zurich from 1932-1934 and was influenced by the De Stijl style, Suprematism and Bauhaus. Some of his most famous work included concert posters for Zurich Town Hall and the Swiss Automobile Club. Muller-Brockmann initiated the magazine Neue Grafik, published from 1958-1965 in 18 issues.

Muller-Brockmann (1953) poster designed for the Swiss Automobile Club.

LMN (1958) Neue Grafik journal cover

Adrian Frutiger developed the first mega-family typeface in 1957 - Univers. He was also responsible for upgrading Akzidenz Grotesk to Neue Haas Grotesk in 1957 which then became Helvetica in 1960 - the most popular typeface ever.

Basel

In Basel, Switzerland, a softer interpretation of the International Style was in use. Armin Hofmann and the students he taught there made Basel an alternative home for Swiss Style. Emil Ruder also started working there in 1942. Their style was considered more whimsical, with vertical text and merging the text and image together such as in the Giselle poster (below).

Hoffman (1959) Giselle poster

Max Huber

Max Huber was born in Switzerland in 1919 (died 1992). He was educated in Switzerland and practised graphic design from 1942-1980.

Huber was education at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts from the age of 17. He was encouraged to study the work of Tschichold, abstract art and Constructivism. Hi work at this time was very much the Swiss style - grid based, flush left ragged right, sans serif type and clear hierarchy.

Huber (1957) book cover, Einaudi

After completing a graphic design apprenticeship, at the age of 21 Huber moved to Milan in 1940 where he worked with Antonio Boggeri. It was here Huber collaborated with a vibrant group of painters, photographers, illustators and designers and the event-garde.

During WW2 he went back to Switzerland where he worked with the Alliance (a group of modern artists).

After the war, in Milan again, working with Einaudi, Huber's career took off. Huber believed that design had the power to resolve the tragedy of war and restore human values, an idea which was popular in 1950s Europe.

Huber was always a freelancer who enjoyed working directly with clients. He collaborated with the Castiglione brothers and spent much of his time with the left-wing artists and creatives based there. His poster of the Monza Grand Prix won first prize (one of those below - it is not clear which).

Huber (1957) 500 Miglia di Monza poster

Huber (1968) 1000 km di Monza

His graphic design style combined painting and photographic and he was of the avant-garde style. He was heavily influenced by Bayer and Moholy-Nagy and their utopian vision. He often mixed strips of colour with flat photography to connotate speed and dynamism. He used bold shapes and primary colours.

Huber (1951) advertisement for store

Huber was often seen as the fashionable link to Italy, and as a major protagonist of the Swiss style, he was in demand to give talks and lectures worldwide. He married a Japanese woman and spent time living in Japan.

Huber enjoyed the ideals of Futurism, which were apparent in his sports posters, such as for Monza (above).

He was known for his book covers and jazz record covers, but his legacy will be in the logo design for La Rinascente department store (1950), Coin clothing (1955) and Esselunga in 1958.