Week 5 IXD101 – PROJECT 3 – General research into “Follow the Rhythm”

Objectives:

-present the lyrics in a manner which is appropriate to the music and singer/group in question.

-Consider the pacing and rhythm of the song.

-If lines or words are more meaningful than others they should be presented more prominently in the final piece.

 

research

– should look at styles of typography I feel will be most suitable for the music genre in question

-could include concrete poetry to illustrate how the text might be presented

-If the song is punk-influenced the work of the Dadists, Jamie Reid or Barney Bubbles would be worth looking at

-If rap, perhaps graffiti art would be a good starting point.

Research into Josef Müller-Brockmann’s posters

One of historys most well remembered poster designers is Josef Müller-Brockmann.  He was a Swiss designer who was influenced by many historical art movements, including Constructivism, Bauhaus, Suprematism and De Stijl. His posters reflect this.

 

“Musica Viva”, concert poster, 1956

This was a lithograph print completed in 1956, he made use of minimal shape, pattern and colour.  Its worth noting that only 3 colours were used in this poster as well as the fact that all the shape in this piece is simply made up of rectangles of ranging measurements.   Despite the poster being simplistic, it’s still striking, informative and engaging.

These posters don’t convey much information apart from the event itself, and the design isn’t showing anything specific.  Something that is interesting to me about his work on the Musica Viva posters is that he used his inspiration from Constructivism to create a visual correlative to the structural harmony of the music.  In other words, he designed the poster in accordance with how he felt the song would look visually.

“Musica Viva”, concert poster, 1969

“Musica Viva”, concert poster, 1969

“musica viva”, concert poster, 1971

“June Festival”, concert poster, 1951

Josef was a pioneer of grid-based designs and often used a grid system in his posters; the grids were usually completely hidden.  However, in a 1980 exhibition poster , the grid used underneath his work was made visible and actually helped the final products appearance.  I really like the inclusion of the grid in this example and I might try and do the same in my own poster.

“The architectonic in graphic design”

Research into Wim Crouwell’s posters

Wim Crouwell worked in a similar way to Brockmann. Similar to Brockmann, Crouwell used grids as a main method of designing his work.  It was the grids that decided where his text should go, not his own intuition.

Crouwell limited himself to only the Helvetica and Universe font throughout most of his life.  He really enjoyed using only straight lines in his work where he could, and avoided serif fonts as a result of this.  In his own typefaces that he created (Gridnik and New Alphabet) he took this to the extreme and eliminated curves altogether.

Crouwell commonly uses monochromatic photographs in his work.  he overlays a solid block colour over the photograph and turns the contrast up so that only the basic shapes and tones stand out:

GKF – 1962

“Peter Stuyvesant collection” – 1962

This is something that stands out to me a lot in his work.  I may try and incorporate my own images into my poster using a similar method to this.  Brockmann did this aswell in his poster titled “Olma”.  I love the way the text is framed around the image of the cow in this piece too, and the text is all positioned at a slant at right angles.

Olma cow poster – 1959

Worm Gevers – 1967

Proportion – 2006

“Hiroshima” – 1957

Fernand Leger, 1957

Architectuur – 1959

Research into Wolfgang Weinarts posters 

Wolfgang Weinart is commonly referred to as the “father of New Wave Typography” or “Swiss punk typography” .  It was a typographic style was developed in 1970.  The New Wave style was a style influenced by the Punk Movement. The movement was seen as a softer version of the Punk culture and movement. There is a lot of debate about whether New Wave was a break or a natural progression of the Swiss Style. New wave typography is an approach to typography that defies the strict grid-based arrangement conventions.  The characteristics are inconsistent letter-spacing, varying typeweights within single words and type set at non-right angles. Sans-Serif still predominated in the style, but the New Wave differs from its predecessor by stretching the limits of legibility.  Weingart felt that intuition was just as important as analytical skills and mathematics in design/ composition.  His works are really attractive to me for the way be uses colour and composition.

I like the method of overlapping shapes over letters.  Playing with the opacity of the overlapping shapes to allow for better legibility is also something I should take note of as I think its very effective in this example:

 

Kent State university poster – Wolfgang Weingart

I really like the way Weingart experiments using letter spacing too; this is something Paul showed us how to do in week 4 of IXD101 and this is something I may think about trying out in my own poster design.  Willi Kunz is also a fan of combining letters so I’ll research his work in more detail too.

Typographic Process, Nr 4. Typographic Signs1971-1972 – Wolfgang Weingart

I really like the explosion of colours used in this poster.  He even includes a border for it with a range of even more warm colours- creating a more 3D feel to it.  The inclusion of unconventional shapes such as lightning bolts, moons, and stars, and even random made up shapes like the one above is something I like in his work too.  Weingart adds in detail that can only be noticeable if studied closely, for example: he draws a white line following from the lightning bolt in the poster below, shapes are cut out of the typography in random places at the bottom of the poster.

“The Swiss poster 1900-1984” – Wolfgang Weingart

Something else I really enjoy about this poster below is the inclusion of overlapping rectangles.  it gives a somewhat glitching effect and I feel this could be taken to the next level if chunks were taken from the typography in accordance with these rectangles:

“Kunstcredit Basel 1980/81” – Wolfgang Weingart

 

The takeaway from these 3 artists:

In my own work I must try and make use of a grid system at the start rather than just letting my own eyes decide where text should be placed.  I think it will stop me from overthinking the placement of my words and it will hopefully create a more dynamic looking, more legible poster overall.  However, I need to also use my own intuition and research into the genre/ previous graphic design style of the musician to know which colours, shapes, and typography to use.  After researching into postmodern graphic design a bit more I’ve come to realise that adding in extra details that may be looked down upon with the principals of Swiss design can sometimes be beneficial in the final work.

 

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