To begin this project, I wanted to carry out some research into the background of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and simply what it exactly is and includes. While looking at the brief history of the declaration, I came across how the content is structured within the articles. This helped me see how the different articles are grouped together, which in turn simplified down the meanings behind the articles. Some of the longer articles I found difficult to understand, but researching this helped. After reading through all the articles within the declaration, I narrowed my options down to four possibilities that I would like to explore, four, ten, sixteen and twenty four. 

 

 

One of the terms of the project was to build my poster using either Material Design’s 8dp or the Fibonacci sequence. I decided to pick the Fibonacci sequence so I refreshed my knowledge on the sequence and how it can be used within typography specifically. This will be useful to refer back to whenever I move to digitise my sketches of the poster.

 

 

Before I began brainstorming and sketching, I carried out some more research into specific designers and styles I felt would link well to my project. 

 

Wim Crouwel (1928-2019)

 

Willem Hendrik ‘Wim’ Crouwel was a Dutch graphic designer, type designer and typographer. He designed some of the iconic typefaces like New Alphabet and Gridnik. Crouwel also participated in the educational field by teaching at several renowned universities and institutes. 

Crouwel attended Academie Minerva in Groningen from 1946 to 1949, where he specialised in Fine Art. He began his professional career in abstract after following being drafted into and completing his military services. It was after this he majored in Typography in Gerrit Rietveld Academie, where he also joined an exhibition deign firm. Following this move and being introduced to the wide range of possibilities within graphic design, that he quit painting and began a freelance designer, taking inspiration from Swiss design. During his travels, he met with other renowned designers and witnessed the beginning of International Style. 

His work portfolio is made up of several designing jobs for the Dutch Post Office, where he designed a series of postage stamps and a large body of work for the Stedelijk Museum. His systematic approach to design thinking it something he is specifically recognised for. As digital typesetting grew, Crouwel began experimenting with typefaces and in 1967, created New Alphabet. 

Wim Crouwel was a strong advocate of the grid system, which he called a design’s most important tool. Like many designers around this time, he was inspired by the Swiss school of graphic design and their rational, minimalist approach and was focused around a grid system. His designs for the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven was one of his designs which employed the grid structure. In his piece, ‘bazaine’, it is clear how much influence the grid system has. Crouwel incorporated it into the background design, based off of the width of the letters. The smaller, body text is them aligned off this system.

Looking specifically at his typography and posters, his minimalist approach is clear. He utilises simple text and planes to build a cohesive design. Alignment plays a key role in his designs, as though the grid is not visible, it is clear where they were during the design process. In other designs, Crouwel kept the grid included within the design which works just as effectively.

Moving forward with my own designs, the grid structure is definitely something I will include. It will work well with the Fibonacci sequence to hopefully create structured and visually pleasing designs.

 

 

Josef Müller-Brockmann (1914-1996)

 

Josef Müller-Brockmann was a celebrated twentieth century Swiss graphic designer and teacher. His studies include design, architecture and the history of art. After his studies. His first step towards a professional career was with his apprenticeship to Walter Diggleman, who was a designer and advertising consultant. Following this, he opened how own studio in Zurich which focused on photography, graphics and exhibition design. Müller-Brockmann became one of the country’s leading practitioners and theorists of the Swiss Style following two decades working. He created a universal graphic expression which employed a grid-based design excluding graphic expression and extravagant illustration. 

Müller-Brockmann’s work is best known for its simple designs and clean use of typography. He incorporated shapes and colours into his work which still inspires graphic designers today. He exclusively used sans-serif typefaces in his work, he even favoured the typeface Akzindenz Grotesk over its successful predecessors Helvetica and Univers. He once described why he favoured typefaces like these because contemporary, decorative typefaces are a ‘shaky foundation’ for a designer to use if the readers are needing to read the information on the poster. 

His poster for Beethoven is striking due to its simplicity, where Müller-Brockmann used black and white text and simple planes to frame the type. While the text is the main focus, his use of the grid system and basic principles of design, allowed him to keep the focus on the type even though it is quite small in the overall poster. He often uses this technique of framing the type with shapes to guide the readers attention. Müller-Brockmann mastered the skill of utilising negative space with his designs. Where a lot of his designs have large areas of black space, his placement and alignment of type and shapes control the page and the audience notices the important information before, if even, the empty space surrounding it.

When sketching my own designs, keeping the power that negative space can hold in mind, I might keep the type size smaller than I originally thought and focus more on the grid structure beneath to give it shape and structure.

 

Concrete Poetry…

 

This was something that had been mentioned that could be useful when designing my poster. At first I didn’t know what it was and had never heard of it at all, but once I looked it up I realised I had already included it in some of my designs in other modules without realising what it was. 

Concrete poetry is an arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is important in conveying meaning than verbal significance. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry. Mary Ellen Solt (1920-2007) was an American concrete poet and he most notable work is her poems in the shape flowers. She solely used the words within her poems to build bouquets of flowers which indicate to the reader the subject of the poem. 

This is something I think could be very effective with the longer articles with the declaration. If I could complete it successfully, combining different sized and coloured types, to highlight the key points of the article and use concrete poetry to visually show this as well.

 

Post Modern Artists…

 

Postmodernism can be seen as a reaction against the ideas and values of modernism. Following the two wars, many European artists wanted to break away from the constraints and rules which had previously been placed on them. These artists are the polar opposite to others like Crouwel and Müller-Brockmann. They completely pushed the grid system aside and went with what they thought looked right. 

In terms of my own poster, I am mainly influenced with Paula Scher, Wolfgang Weingart, April Greiman and Neville Brody. Particularly how they manipulated the type within their designs. The change of angles and sizing would be very useful with the long articles and even with the shorter ones. I like how the align text on the side of other words and is something I might consider with my own designs.

I love Greiman’s use of colour and shapes. It creates a unique composition and eye catching designs. Keeping with the postmodernist art style, she uses layering to build depth within her pieces. This is something I could include in my own designs, putting the least important pieces of information at the ‘bottom’ and the key points on top. Wolfgang Weingart is the opposite in terms of his colour palette, where he keeps to the simple black and white. I am intrigued by how he takes the individual letterforms as if they are shapes and completely disorganises words and rotates the letters. He also combines letterforms to build new shapes but keeping enough of the letters characteristics visible so they are still recognisable. While Paula Scher combines both type and imagery, I am focusing solely on how she manipulates her text. There is no thought given to the grid structure where all text would align, and she places the text where she thinks it is best. Instead of a centre image, I could place the most important word or phrase from the article and have the rest placed around it. Again, Scher’s colour palette is very striking, particularly the black and yellow, and this is something I can explore when I digitise my designs. Something that Brody does different, is not keeping a consistent typeface within his posters. This makes them appear as if they have been collaged together which is something that I am interested in. Also, how he pulls his type right out the edges of his posters is something if I can complete successfully could create a good composition for my own poster.