At this rate I think I might call this blog Design in History – not a bad idea as history holds, what appears to be, an endless source of inspiration for innovative ideas and visuals that stand the test of time.
Olivetti played a large part in creating innovative and contemporary marketing visuals in their time.
Established in 1908 by Camillo Olivetti with the first typewriter manufactured in 1910 – as you might imagine – the typewriter would have been almost as innovative as the computer in those days, freeing up the labor-intensive hand written manuscripts. Adriano Ollivetti, Camillo’s son, was appointed general manager in 1933 and set about employing architects and designers to develop a modernist aethetic for the company, which was popular at the time – which permeated throughout the organisation, from thier factory buidlings through to product design and to their advertising and graphics.
As early as the 1930s, the Development & Advertising Office, headed initially (1931) by Renato Zveteremich and later (1937) by Leonardo Sinisgalli, became a cultural centre which attracted, applied and spread new ideas in corporate graphics and communication. Its role and philosophy were further strengthened between the 1960s and 1980s under the leadership of Renzo Zorzi.
Over the years, an impressive number of painters, graphics artists, scholars and architects have been involved in the development of graphics art and advertising communication to match the Olivetti style and the characteristics of its products. After the creation of a series of posters on the first Olivetti machines created by M. Dudovich, the company’s advertising and institutional graphics made ample use of the talents of Giovanni Pintori, who worked with Olivetti between 1938 and 1968, and, a few years later, Egidio Bonfante. Their work complemented that of the product designers and architects who were planning Olivetti’s buildings and also designing graphics, exhibition stands or gift objects. – Source
The renowned contemporary visual designer/artist Stephan Segmeister created this public art installation in an Amsterdam square – a typographic expression of a statement “Obsessions make my life worse and my work better” made up of 250,000 Euro coins covering 300 square meters, painstakingly put in place by a team of dedicated workers over a period of 8 days.
Find out what happened to the this public art once it was completed – 250,000 coins in a public space! not quite what was expected, find out here
A delightful animation created by Nexus Productions and funded by Adobe, developed to show off the capabilities of Adobe CS4 software. It was created with various methods inlcuding paper, stop-frame animation and 2D drawing
The popularity of screen printing does not appear to have waned – with the advent of new technology that seems to be making old technologies redundant, screen printing still thrives as a very flexible printing method.
Screen printing (also known as photomechanical serigraphy) is one of the oldest forms of printing, first seen used in China. It is a versatile printing process that allows a printed image to be applied to many substrates that no other printing process can achieve. Today it is well know for it’s use of applying graphics to T-shirts but is also used for printing posters, textile fabric, product labels, printed electronics, including circuit board printing, balloons, plastic packaging, manufactured products – and the list goes on.
Screen printing: A printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas – wikipedia
The advantage of Screen printing is the density and viscosity of the inks used – they are opaque and rich in colour, flexible and adhere to a vast number of surfaces. there are about 5 types of inks used in this process: solvent, water, and solvent plastisol, water plastisol, and UV curable.
Screen printing is a printing method that is a truly hands-on process, and a potentially messy one at that. It is a relatively simple process that can be done from a home studio or be done by large automated machines.
T-shirt/fabric screen printing
Commercial screen printing
Screen printing on a small scale
Here is a video that goes into depth about the screen printing process, including finishing the job at the end with guillotining
OK – I’m being brave, I am going to talk about the dreaded Nazis and i feel a bit nervous about it – but I think that feeling sums up what I want to discuss about the Nazi movement – the impact of their graphic propaganda and the emotional affect it had on the German people and the world – and how, even now, the sight of the swastika makes people feel uneasy.
There has been no graphic visual more confronting in modern history than the presence of the swastika (traditionally a symbol of good luck). It is a pure form – just one step up from a simple cross.
It is suggested that Hitler decided that the Nazi Party needed its own insignia and flag in the 1920s. The Swastika symbol had been used by the Aryan nomads of India in the second millennium. In Nazi theory, the Aryans were German ancestors, Hitler considered the swastika had been eternally anti-semitic. The choice of red as a dominant colour is also well considered as it represents power, life, vitality …
The Nazis exploited the power of visual design, they were the masters of the brand identity and creating a sense of unity through the confidence and power that was encapsulated within their striking and simple visuals – primarily the large symbol on a bright red background. It created a powerful sense of authority and was immediately recognisable. No where to be seen was the German flag – they appeared to present themselves as a power above even their own country.
Another lazy post featuring a wonderful illustrative animation/interview:
In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message – Vimeo
This is a lazy post where we can simply sit back and see/listen to artists/illustrators talk of their creative process and how they develop their visual vocabulary.
It would appear that this blog is turning into a design history leason, not that there’s anything wrong with that – just that there are so many engaging, effective and inspiring examples from the birth of modern design and communication.
Man Ray, an avant-garde photography and painter, explored the modern technology of film back in the 20s and created some surprisingly contemporary works. As modern designers explore the power of computers and modern software, Man Ray explored the visual capabilities of film. This clip of one of his films from 1923 demonstrating his eye for composition, shape and texture – compiling apparently unrelated visuals into one artistic expression.
We see technology progressing at such speed that we see a generation of children unaware of what existed before digital – magnetic tapes, vinyl records, film, cut n paste, floppy disks – I recall not long ago using Syquest disks to send artwork.
Gone with this analogue generation are the fabulous graphics that adorned the packaging of these products – design that would find a contemporary place in today’s design world. Here are a few examples of camera film packaging from the not too far gone past. See more at photo, film & sound ephemera
