Helmut Krone broke new ground in the field of design advertising, developing styles and methods that are still copied and influenced in many minimalistic designs of today. His most iconic creations were a harmony of picture and san serif type, with 2/3 picture and 1/3 copy.
Have a look at the ads below. They are minimal in text, presenting the facts simply, but with an intelligent sense of humour that makes readers feel like they’re in on the joke.
Well known for over 30 years at the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, his success grew as art director for the popular 1960’s campaign for Volkswagen Beetle. At the time it was regarded as this small, slow, ugly, foreign car, yet Krone helped turn it into an iconic piece of American pride.
“His best work always exemplifies honesty. By focusing on what could be a perceived weakness, such as the unflashy aspects of a Volkswagen sedan, or being the second-largest rental car agency, Mr. Krone made people stop and take notice.”
-Marty Cooke, the creative director of TBWA Chiat/Day.
The New Page
Krones new innovations to the page can be described as “Ads with no headlines. Headlines as captions. Photographs as logo. Typeface as brand.”
Although Krone disliked including logos, he implemented the first photo logo at the bottom of each page as no other camera had a picture coming out of the back of the camera.
Now to end off the last example of a punchy ad of his.
Krone said …” what do you do with one product when you have two facing pages?”
Here was his solution.
2 page spread for Chanel innovative use of two pages to show a provocative and sensual portrayal of the brand.
Brett Whiteley was a famous Australian artist who worked across painting, sculpture and the graphic arts, and is best known for his sensual and lyrical paintings of interiors, nudes and harbour scenes.
Whiteley’s sculpture, Nude (1962)
Growing up in Longueville, a suburb of Sydney, Whiteley was educated at Scots School, Bathurst and Scots College, Bellevue Hill. He started drawing at a very early age. Early on he was intrigued by the works of William Dobell and Lloyd Rees, both acclaimed Australian landscape artists, as well as the work of Vincent van Gogh. While he was a teenager, he painted on weekends in the Central West of New South Wales and Canberra with such works as The soup kitchen (1958).
The soup kitchen (1958), painted when Whiteley was 19 years old
The Green Bottle 1955 Painted when Whiteley was just 16 years old,an interesting insight into the artist’s early development.
Whiteley remained in Europe for the next decade, exhibiting his work regularly in group exhibitions in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin and establishing an international reputation.
Brett Whiteley painting Bacon’s portrait at Bacon’s studio, 7 Reece Mews. October 1984
The artist was severely influenced by his mentor Francis Bacon, painting his portrait above. In the beginning, Whiteley’s works can be categorized as abstract, but gradually he transferred to more figurative Expressionism. Over the years Whiteley shifted through various styles from London paintings inspired by the British mass murderer John Christie, over to Expressionist landscapes, and then to psychedelic lyrical abstraction, but he remained loyal to his peculiar sense of crossword composition and colouring.
Head of Christie, 1964
Subject to one of Whiteley’s pieces, John Christie was convicted of murdering six women between 1948 and 1953. The victims included his wife Ethel, whom he strangled in December 1952 before depositing her remains under the parlour floorboards at their home, 10 Rillington Place. This was close to the Whiteley’s home in Notting Hill.
On a lighter note his work, Marulan bird with rocks exhibited the perspective of Asian aesthetic with a European sensibility to create a unique floating sensual landscape, with birds, nests, trees, rocks, and rivers inhabiting the world in harmony founded on a place and set in imagination and feeling.
Brett Whiteley – Marulan bird with rocks, circa 1980
Despite apparent curiosity, his work was not modified until his transfer to America and several other journeys. In 1967 Whiteley won a Harkness Fellowship Scholarship to study and work in New York. It was there that he became affiliated with a peculiar art circle around the famous Hotel Chelsea, especially with musicians Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan.
His admiration for old masters can be seen in some of his works like Vincent, 1968 and Henri’s Armchair 1974
Vincent, 1968Henri’s Armchair 1974
Henri’s Armchair was painted in 1974 to 1975 fusing oil, ink and charcoal on canvas, and shows the domestic interior of Whiteley’s studio-home with its views to Sydney Harbour.
Brett Whiteley Self portrait in the studio 1976
These examples of Whiteley’s work reminded me of a lot of Henri Matisse’s painting The Red Studio, so it is not surprising to find that he took inspiration from Matisse’s work.
Henri MatisseThe Red Studio Issy-les-Moulineaux, fall 1911Alchemy 1972-1973
Perhaps one of his best-known works is the one titled Alchemy, realized in between 1972 to 73. Interestingly, it was used for the cover of lice album of famous rock band Dire Straits. The work itself was composed of many different elements and on eighteen wood panels, and by reading the whole from left to right it begins with an exploding sun from a portrait of Yukio Mishima that Whiteley had started but never completed.
Namely, Mishima committed seppuku, a traditional Japanese form of suicide, so the image of him is reminiscent of a final vision of enlightenment in the form of the exploding sun. For the production, Whiteley used various media from feathers and part of a bird’s nest to a glass eye, shell, plugs, and brain in a work that becomes a transmutation of sexual organic landscapes and mindscapes.
Art, life and the other thing 1978
Whiteley’s art was intimately connected to his tumultuous, creative life. From the late 1970s, his self-portraits such as Art, life and the other thing began to trace his heroin addiction, which increasingly impacted his life and career.
Unlike Self-portrait in the studio, critics were divided about Art, life and the other thing, perhaps for “its sheer sensationalism, and lack of subtlety” of the earlier work. Almost too brutally honest, it seemed like the final flaring of a dying star. Even those who were close to Whiteley, then aged thirty-nine, believed he wouldn’t survive past the age of forty. However, he did survive for another fourteen years, until he succumbed to a methadone overdose in Thirroul on the New South Wales south coast in 1992.
Outside the Brett Whiteley gallery in Surry Hills, Sydney
His last studio and home in Sydney’s Surry Hills is now a museum managed by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Whiteley paintings are coveted by collectors of Australian art and very few major, museum-quality paintings are ever released for sale, price estimates had ranged from $5 million to $7 million. In 2007 Brett Whiteley’s sexualised landscape The Olgas for Ernest Giles sold for $3.48 million. Whiteley’s My Armchair (1976) sold for $3,927,270 in October 2013.
Brett Whiteley was undoubtedly a talented painted and artist and I would’ve been curious to see how his work would’ve looked like today. Unfortunately, his inner demons got the best of him.
Ladislav Sutnar was an influential graphic designer who laid the groundwork for modern information graphics through designs inspired by the avant-garde visual languages of Constructivism and the German Bauhaus school of design.
He was born in 1897 in Plezn, Czechoslovakia and studied painting at the School of Applied Arts in Prague, architecture at Charles University, and mathematics at the Czech Technical University concurrently. Sutnar is often referred to as a Renaissance man involved in multidisciplinary design.
Designs ahead of its time
Ladislav Sutnar has had a lasting impact on the field of information design and the post-modern style of design graphics and. His style can be recognizable for his use of simple shapes and vivid colours. Seen in some of his works below.
Honeywell Customized Controls c. 1945
Construction Revival: Guide Signs to Peacetime Expansion and Prosperity. c. 1945
Masonite Presdwood 1941-1960
Zijme 1931
It can be seen that in many of his designs he was influenced by Jan Tschichold’s work and modern typography, as his style was limited to type and colour within strict layouts. In fact, Sutnar’s book Visual Design in Action (1961) argues for future advances in graphic design and defines design has been compared to Tschichold’s Die Neue Typographie. It was an exhibition of his work and a self-funded book. More strongly, his work connected with the Bauhaus fundamentals.
Visual Design in Action (1961)
This work below really stands out to me as such a modern and contemporary design for its time. The composition and simple graphics look like a modern movie poster that you might find today.
Form follows function with these objects
Apart from many of his book and poster designs Sutnar also designed functional products particularly porcelain tea, coffee, and dinner services. At the time, he was the director of the furnishings company Krásná jizba, part of the artists’ cooperative and publishing firm Družstevní práce (Cooperative work) in Prague.
Tea and Mocha Set 1929–1932
Tea Set c.1932
Perhaps one of Sutnar’s most memorable contributions was the idea to place parentheses around area codes, which made long phone numbers easier to comprehend. But it is unfortunate that he was not given the credit he deserved for such contributions as the American area code, which were so integral to the design of the new calling system.
New York: Bell Systems, c. early 1960s. First Edition.
And the functional typography and iconography he developed as part of various design programs for the Bell System in the late 1950s and early ’60s made public access to both emergency and normal services considerably easier. Yet the Bell System denied him credit, considering graphic designers as transparent as the functional graphics they designed.
The work of modern graphic design would not look the same without Sutnar. His work on graphic systems for catalogues and information is still viable today as they were 50 years ago. Although well after his time, Sutnar’s methods of conveying information in a manner that evoked attention is reminiscent of the navigational aids of web design we see today.
For my infographic timeline, my goal was to create a simple informative yet engaging infographic timeline poster about typography. Once I had finished researching the dates and typeface categories, I mulled over many different layouts and themes as seen in my process sketches below.
I knew I wanted to incorporate black paper cuttings and I immediately thought of Saul Bass’s movie posters. After taking a look at some of his works I came across a poster that I thought I could work with perfectly given the bars for information.
Saul Bass (1964)
Once I gathered inspiration, I brainstormed titles involving something that breaks through the bars of type and I thought of the word ‘punchcutter’. That leads me to the idea of the metal typesetting and the title of “Cutting Through Type.” It worked to my favour that I could exaggerate the size of the movable type and incorporate the letter ‘T’ into my title and then I cut out the black letters that would fall to hint at the word ‘type.’
For my colour choices, I wanted my poster to have high contrast with the black bars so I opted for a bold yellow colour as my background which I painted. I then accented dark blue lines that lead to the title (inspired by Jan Tschichold).
Reflective Thoughts
This project was a lot of fun to put together but I definitely underestimated the amount of time it would take me to research accurate information and decide on a theme. Given the fact I spent more than 5 hours researching and planning out how I wanted the poster to look, and because of my efforts and satisfaction with the end result I rate my project a 10/10. I think I successfully followed the brief and was able to incorporate design elements including colour, line, negative space. I liked my simplistic high contrast design and I don’t think I needed to add any more decorative elements.
“Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.”
The Colourful World of Kandinsky
For some, he was a revolutionary, while others considered him insane. In hindsight, the Russian painter, graphic artist and art theorist, was the founder of Abstract Expressionism and had a tremendous impact on the other artists of his day. We will look further into the periods influencing Kandinsky’s artistic evolution throughout his 77 years of living.
Wassily (Vasily) Wassilyevich Kandinsky born in 1866 in Moscow Russia, came from a diverse background, his father Mongolian, mother Muscovite (Russian), and grandmother from the German-speaking Baltic. At a young age, Kandinsky exhibited an extraordinary sensitivity toward the stimuli of sounds, words, and colours which became a deep influence in his art.
Despite his early exposure to the arts through private drawing classes, as well as piano and cello lessons, Kandinsky did not turn to painting until he reached the age of 30. Between 1886 and 1892 Kandinsky studied law and economics at the University of Moscow. In 1889 he was a member of a team formed to study the life of the people in the Vologda district in northwestern Russia. He was highly impressed by their folk art and the interior decorations of the village houses. The use of forms and colours carried with him throughout his career.
In 1901, along with three other young artists, Kandinsky co-founded “Phalanx.” They were an artist’s association that opposed to the conservative views of the traditional art institutions. Phalanx expanded to include an art school, in which Kandinsky taught, and an exhibitions group. There, he met and began a relationship with his student, Gabriele Munter, who became his companion for the next 15 years.
Wassily Kandinsky pictured with his long-time companion, Gabriele Münter
From 1903 until 1909, he travelled throughout Europe and northern Africa with Munter. Along his travels he familiarized himself with the growing Expressionist movement and developed his own style based on the diverse artistic sources.
When World War I broke out, Kandinsky returned to Moscow. Germany had declared war on Russia. Gabriele Münter moved to Stockholm and their relationship was over but they remained in touch.
Kandinsky and Nina Kandinsky at the Dessau Garden (1932)
In Moscow, Kandinsky continued his academic career as a professor. In 1917, he married Nina Andreievskaya, who was 27 years younger. She would later handle his estate.
Early Impressionist Influence
Bavarian Village with Field (1908)
To my surprise, Kandinsky’s early work deviated from that of his later more abstract expressionist forms. He spent a lot of time in Murnau, in Bavaria, where he painted churches, villages and forests in brilliant colours, seen in his painting of the Bavarian Village.
His early work revealed his interest in disjointed figure-ground relationships and for him, the emotional impression that colours left was more important. Kandinsky was attracted to the impressionist style of Claude Monet. In Monet’s paintings the subject matter played a secondary role to color. That was the secret of Kandinsky’s early work, which was based on folk art, and it remained so even as his work became more complex.
The Blue Rider, Kandinsky (1903)
The Blue Rider
In 1911 Kandinsky founded the Blue Rider group along with a number of Russian emigrants including Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German artists Franz Marc, August Macke and Gabriele Münter. For Kandinsky, the rider was a metaphor for the artist which he explained in the Blue Rider Almanac,
“The horse carries the rider with strength and speed. But it is the rider who guides the horse. Talent will bring an artist to great heights with strength and speed. But it is the artist who directs his own talent.”
Kandinsky’s Cover design for The Blue Rider Almanac (1911)
He designed the cover of the Blue Rider Almanac, with a horse and rider in mid-leap to represent the artist leaping across the distance that separates him from the art to come. This group embraced mysticism much more than the others Kandinsky had formed, focusing on revealing the associative properties of color, line and composition.
Kandinsky’s On White II (1923), Germany
Kandinsky’s career took a third distinct shift when he moved back to Germany in 1922 to join the faculty of the Bauhaus( ‘School for Building’). The school’s philosophy flowed from the concept of the total work of art, the idea that all arts, architecture, fine arts, crafts, and design should be brought together. Kandinsky’s art from about 1920 to 1924 has been called his architectural period because the shapes he used were more precise than before. There are points, straight or broken lines, single or in bunches, and snakelike, radiating segments of circles, with cooler more subdued colours.
Kandinsky’s paintings were characterized by the abundant use of pictorial signs and softer colours. This is called his romantic or concrete period. It led to the last phase of his art, spent in France, which was a synthesis of his previous periods. The paintings of his Paris period have splendid colour, rich invention, and delightful humour.
A symphony of colours
Wassily Kandinsky was the artist who longed for a regeneration of the world through a new art of pure inwardness. He stressed the psychological effects of colour and inaugurated what came to be known as abstract art by his work of colour music.
Kandinsky experienced synesthesia, a rare but real condition in which one sense, like hearing, concurrently triggers another sense, such as sight. Kandinsky literally saw colours when he heard music, and heard music when he painted. This was reflected in The Yellow Sound, one of his experimental performance-based expressions of synesthesia. The Yellow Sound was a stage composition by Kandinsky involving pantomime, an instrumental ensemble, soprano solo and a mixed choir (1983).
While the Nazis confiscated 57 of his works, which they’d deemed “degenerate,” art fans from around the world traveled to Switzerland in 1937 to admire Kandinsky’s masterpieces in an exhibition.
In 1939 Kandinsky became a French citizen. He died December 13, 1944, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France at the age of 77 – just a few months after the liberation of Paris. He always referred to abstract painting as the most difficult art form.
“It requires that one can draw, that one is highly sensitive for composition and colour and that one is a real poet – that’s most important.”
Kandinsky is still greatly admired today for his own paintings and for being the originator of abstract art. He invented a language of abstract forms with which he replaced the forms of nature. His artistic style evolved over three distinct periods in his life from the early phase of Impressionism, the Blue Rider, and his affiliation with Bauhaus. There is no doubt that Kandinsky felt that painting possessed the same power as music and that sign, line, and colour corresponding to the vibrations of the human soul.
Fountain 1917, replica 1964 Marcel Duchamp 1887-1968 [I modelled after this version]
Out of the endless historical artifacts to choose from, I went with Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917) readymade. Why did I choose this out of all the other beautiful works you might ask? Well, while I scanned through the survey list I remembered the infamous urinal that I learned about in a previous early 20th-century art class and how it opened up new ways of thinking in contemporary art.
I wanted to represent it in a similar way it was displayed in history seen in a photograph in newsprint. I thought the readymade could be best represented through a miniature clay sculpture replica much like the 17 others that exist. Once I had the shape I was satisfied with, I painted it over with white acrylic, added small details with black paint and sealed it with a gloss finish to convey the porcelain-like texture.
sculpted form in clay
Inspiration for my spread Alfred Stieglitz’s original photograph of the Fountain (left) He bathed the object in soft light and propped it against the background of a Marsden Hartley painting that contained ogival forms echoing the urinal’s contours
The next step in the process was the composition of the photograph and layout of the spread. The photograph was taken under more dramatic lighting to mimic that of Alfred Stieglitz’s original photograph of the Fountain. I also took the photo from a lower angle to the ground to give the effect of a larger size. I placed an abstract painting in the background and position the sculpture atop a planter to look like it was on a plinth. Once again, I chose to portray it in historical-looking newsprint so I added a monochrome filter and strong grain to give it a vintage effect.
Original Before
Edited After
Lastly, I oriented and aligned the written text about the artifact on the right-hand page in the style of newsprint to tie together the theme.
The Final Result
The verdict
I thoroughly enjoyed getting my hands messy with clay and being able to recreate the form of Duchamp’s readymade. I was satisfied with how the sculpture turned out and am happy about the theme that I chose to display the artifact. The only thing I would have changed is making the size of the text bigger as it can be hard to read if not zoomed in. With all that being said I would give myself a 9/10 for the research, effort and thought that went into making this project.
This post includes a brief summary of Amy Fleming’s article as my assignment for English 100. As the title states, it entails interesting facts about trees and their advantageous qualities within urban environments. Intrigued? Have a read below!
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In “The Importance of Urban Forests,” (2016) author Amy Fleming explains the vast value of trees in urban communities. Through research-based evidence, she precisely illustrates the significance that trees have on energy conservation, cost efficiency, and remarkably improvements to health. The author reports staggering findings of trees to reduce air conditioning use by 30% (Fleming 2) as well as the economic impact of elm trees in New York with benefits equating to more than a hundred million dollars each year (Fleming 3). Further research findings also reveal shocking effects trees aid to health. According to public health expert William Bird, in areas populated by more trees, people tend to be more familiar with their neighbourhoods by going out more, and as a result, lessen anxiety and depression (Fleming 4). This article moreover affirms the importance and concern over the global conservation of trees for their worth to society. With canopies of leaves and long arching branches, there are more to trees than just aesthetics. Fleming proves that they are not merely “expensive ornaments”(2), but they transmit an abundance of well-being as is if money indeed grows on trees.
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Work Cited:
Fleming, Amy. “The importance of urban forests: why money really does grow on trees.” The Guardian, 12 October 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/12/ importance-urban-forests-money-grow-trees
William Holman Hunt was formerly known as Hobman Hunt, changing his name upon the discovery that a clerk had misspelled his name on his baptism certificate. He was an English painter born in London in 1827 and came to be known as co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
William began working at just 12 years of age as an office clerk. Five years after, his parents agreed to enroll him at the Royal Academy art school (in 1844). It was there that he became acquainted with John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti which lead to them forming a Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. These talented artists valued the straightforwardness of line and huge ranges of impressive shading found in the early Italian painters before Raphael.
Hunt went to create art rich in detail and saturated with colour. His work was deeply naturalistic depicting both themes from modern urban and rural life and religious subject matter.
The Hireling Shepherd 1851
Hunt believed that the job of the artist was to depict things truthfully while using art to promote and uphold moral integrity. In turn, he was committed to a less romantic, more honest art, and, in looking back to a period before the High Renaissance, Hunt sought divine inspiration in the purity and symbolism of medieval and religious fables found in 15th-century Florentine and Sienese painting.
His most important works
The Light of the World (1853)
The Light of the World
Hunt’s first public success brought him international fame with The Light of the World (1854), a contemporary portrayal of Christ.
He remarked in a letter to his friend W.B. Scott:
“I painted the picture with what I thought, unworthy though I was, to be divine command and not simply a good subject.”
Hunt’s paintings were much more than material constructions but they were moral parables too. In this example, we see clearly the manipulation of light in the picture that combines with the idea that only faith in Christ can deliver the sinner from the darkness.
His fine brush technique combined with varnish and oil paints of the work took on “the quality of glass” and in so doing enhanced “the sense that the image is [being] viewed through a window rather than on a plane.”
The Awakening Conscience.
Another one of his famous works depicts a mistress rising from the lap of her lover facing towards nature and light said to be enlightened by a sudden realization of Christian truth. Salvation is a reoccurring theme in Hunt’s work, symbolized here by a shaft of light falling at the bottom right of the scene in an otherwise darkened interior picture frame.
Seen with the arching panel Hunt’s preference of working onto a brilliant white (rather than black) base, which he referred to as a “tempera” ground: that is an attempt “to treat the canvas support like a gessoed, quattrocento panel”, according to the art historian Carol Jacobi.
The Awakening Conscience (1853)
I find the details of this painting from top to bottom astounding. Within the details there are numerous analogies; from the reflection of the mirror to the window looking outside, the detail of the piano, and the table reflection.
Looking closer one might see the gentleman’s discarded glove which was said to be an allusion to how easily the woman could be cast aside. To the bottom left rests a cat which is toying with a helpless, broken-winged bird.
The picture is lent a distinctive style by the elegant and finely detailed interior, a style familiar from contemporaneous works (such as Robert Tait’s depiction of Carlyle’s House).
The Carlyles at Home with their Dog Nero at 5/24 Great Cheyne Row, London Robert Scott Tait (1857 – 1858 )
Other works
His paintings are characterized by hard colour, meticulous detail, and an emphasis on moral or social symbolism; their moral earnestness made them extremely popular in Victorian England. Hunt spent two years in Syria and Palestine painting biblical scenes, such as The Scapegoat (1855). Here he depicts a goat isolated on the shores of the Dead Sea.
Hunt had strong Christian beliefs and used actual locations, adding truth to his works. Many were in the middle-East to restage biblical parables and rituals in his canvases.
The Importunate Neighbour
This artwork became the last entirely new religious subject the artist painted and bears resemblance to The Light of the World (1854). Both paintings, then, create images of divine grace. This one presents an image of a man trying to return to his divine father and divine homeland. The man seeks God, and God welcomes the seeker.
For as Jesus tells his disciples: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”
The Thames at Chelsea, Evening (1853)
Though most of Hunt’s paintings were symbolic or figural, this example deviated. His depiction of the Thames is notable for its subdued, colour palette and subtle atmosphere. A majority of the composition has been occupied by the surface of the river which the reflections and texture in the water.
Future artistic undertakings were cut short once Hunt’s eyesight deteriorated and he suffered a serious asthma condition. Hunt visited the Middle East one last time in 1892 and in 1905 he was awarded the Order of Merit and an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law by Oxford University. Hunt died in London in 1910.
Whether he was painting the natural world or moralistic messages we can see the belief of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood expressed through his creative works.
Peter Behrens typography and architectural influence
The first appearance of san serif in body text was created by the fellow Peter Behrens. He was a German artist, architect, and designer and had a great influence on architecture and typography. As an early advocate of sans-serif typography, he applied a grid system to structure space in his design layouts.
Behrens poster for the Anchor Linoleum exhibition pavilion, 1906, J.L. Lauwerik’s grid theory is applied
Anchor Linoleum exhibition Pavillion, 1906. Classical forms and proportions are combined w/ mathematically derived geometric structure and pattern.
Behrens played a vital role in the transition from 19th-century decorative art to the functional and geometric forms of the first half of the 20th Century. He helped to develop a philosophy of Neue Sachlichkeit (“New Objectivity”) in design, which emphasized technology, manufacturing processes, and function, with style related to purpose.
Peter Behrens, Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft, or AEG logo, 1908
Behrens is best known for his AEG working Germany between 1907 and 1914, the first example of a coordinated corporate identity of which he successfully co-ordinated all activities from architecture to the design of electrical appliances. Architecture was not only Behrens’s main vocation, after WW1 he concentrated on designing buildings and industrial design. However, in the late 19th century he was at the forefront of Jugendstil, the German equivalent of Art Nouveau, leading him into the field of Buchkunst (book art/ decoration) and type design.
AEG Turbinenhalle (Turbine Factory) – best-known work of Peter Behrens. The shape and height of the building axis are given by the three joint ties.
Timeline in his career
In 1906 Peter Behrens received his first commission from AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft) to design advertising material. He was hired as an artistic consultant to work on a wide range of projects. In 1908-09 Behrens designed the AEG Turbinenhalle in Berlin, a concrete, steel and glass factory building with an outspoken agenda.
In 1890 he was not practicing as an architect but as a painter and graphic designer.
Sans-serif first used for body text in 1900
Peter Behrens, Celebration of Life and Art, 1900.
Take a look at the first use of sans-serif type as running book text.
Behrens sought typographic reform and was one of the earliest advocates of sans-serif typography. German typographic historian Hans Loubier believed his booklet Celebration of Life and Art: A Consideration of the Theater as the Highest Symbol of a Culture may represent the first use of sans-serif type as running book text. In his book ”Feste des Lebens and der kunst” he describes typography as:
“watching a bird’s flight or the gallop of a horse. Both seem graceful and pleasing, but the viewer does not observe details of their form or movement. Only the rhythm of the lines is seen by the viewer, and the same is true of a typeface.”
-Peter Behrens
Behrens was a true universal designer of the 20th century with a unique quality to his work. He had a long career, designing objects, typefaces, and important buildings in a range of styles that still live on to this day.
The Peter Behrens House at the Darmstadt Artists’ Colony.
My Final Zine (four 5.5”x 7” spreads) Materials: paper(printer, tracing, and palette), paint pens, red and white gel pens.
Calson Egyptian
For my zine, I wanted to create a clean and informative layout to highlight the simplicity of Caslon Egyptian. I knew I wanted to research a san-serif font and I was drawn to the typeface for its modern look. I was also surprised to find it was not a widely known typeface and due to its unpopularity, there was not a large amount of information that I could choose from. But I found that helped in narrowing the 6 facts for my zine.
I added supplementary hand-drawn images to aid in telling the story but not too many images since I worked on a smaller scale. For colour, I chose to go for a neutral background for my spread to give a sort of vintage look, while also enhancing the writing in blue and red. Here is a small mood board I created with images I found during research.
As my first ever zine I am quite proud of what I created and I had a lot of fun in the process by using colour and incorporating textures. I especially liked the front page as I cut out the “IV” and had a textured yellow page of a vintage book that peeks through the letters.
Having said that I feel as though I did the project justice. Although did my best in making the composition look neat and aligned I think I could’ve made certain areas a bit more straight. I also think that implementing a more captivating story would’ve made the piece flow better. Overall, I would probably give myself an 8.5/10.
