Thesis Statement

Leo Burnett was one of the most influential advertising designers from the 20th century, creating some of the most well know icons such as Tony the Tiger, the Jolly Green Giant, and the Marlboro Man. He proved that visual communication with images was much more powerful than any amount of words could be.

Before Class: Psychedelic Poster Mania 4/15/09

1. Sum up the reading in your own words in 1 paragraph: This reading was really short, but had a lot of interesting and cool information. The "hippie" subculture movement began in the 1960s in the Haight-Ashbury section in San Francisco. It was kind of like and anti-establishment movement against the older generations. Social activism helped move it along with the help of the civil rights movement, women's liberation movement, and the protest of the Vietnam war. Psychedelic posters got their name from the association with rock and roll music and psychedelic drug use. Most of the artists during this time were self-taught and mainly designed and created posters for concerts and dances. Robert Wesley "Wes" Wilson was basically the innovator of the style and created psychedelic fonts. Victor Moscoso was the only artist with a formal education in art. Peter Max did amazing work, but was mainly seen as a pop artist. Psychedelic posters were influenced by art nouveaus curves and central women figures, pop art, and op-art (optical art).

2. Name the one thing (or person) you found most interesting from the reading.
One person that I found to be really interesting was Wes Wilson. I loved learning more about him throughout the reading and when I was doing my project. I thought it was really cool how he started and created the psychedelic fonts and how he was really the innovator behind the psychedelic poster style. I also really liked his work a lot.

3. State at least one question you have after the reading or from last class.
Why did the Berkeley Free Press go out of business? Was it to radical even in those times?

Before Class: Chapter Twenty & Twenty-One 4/8/09

1. Sum up the reading in your own words in 1 paragraph: The chapter first starts off with the technology advances made during WWII and how productive capacity turned towards the consumer goods spectrum. The topic of the first section of the reading focused on the change and development of corporate identity. Behrens at AEG was one of the founders of corporate identity along with the Olivetti Corporation. Adriano Olivetti, the son of the founder, Camillo, hired Giovanni Pintori. Pintori design concept was simple, even his most complex designs had a simplicity about them. The design of CBS's corporate identity was the area of concern in the chapter. President Frank Stanton and William Golden came up with the CBS "eye in the sky" design. Golden wanted to get rid of the design but Stanton told him "Just when you're beginning to get bored with what you have done is probably the time it is beginning to be noticed." Georg Olden was the first African-American to achieve prominence as a graphic designer, holding a professional position before the civil-rights movement. He used simple symbolic imagery with strong silhouettes and linear properties because of televisions medium. He also created the hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation stamp. Lou Dorfson became the director of all of CBS after Golden's death. He was originally just director of the radio portion of the company. Paul Rand comes back into play with the corporate identity of IBM, Westinghouse, ABC, and NeXT computer logo. IBM allowed NeXT to use Rand to design their computer logo. Lester Beall created corporate identities for Martin Marietta, Connecticut General Life Insurance, and the International Paper Company. He also set up some guidelines for the corporate-identity manual. A couple other corporate identity designs were talked about that were done by Chermayeff & Geismar Associates (Mobil, NBC, Chase, etc.), Saul Bass (Minolta and AT&T), and Muriel Cooper( Bauhaus and MIT). The rest of the reading focused on the creation of transportation signage symbols, the Olympic Games design system, and the MTV logo.

2. Name the one thing (or person) you found most interesting from the reading.
I really enjoyed learning about Georg Olden, because he was the first African-American to have a high standard job as a graphic design no less, before the civil-rights movement. It shows me that it was possible for people to look beyond race and to work together to make good art and graphic design. I also really liked learning that he was the first African-American to have the honor of designing a stamp for the U.S. Postal Service.

3. State at least one question you have after the reading or from last class.
Why would IBM allow their top designer to create a corporate logo for their rival company,NeXT Computers? Wouldn't that kind of be corporate identity/graphic design suicide?


1. Sum up the reading in your own words in 1 paragraph: After WWII graphic designers saw that the development of conceptual images was needed. Graphic artists had more opportunity for self-expression and created more personal images. During this time the traditional boundaries between the fine arts and public visual communications became quite blurred. Armando Testa created was an abstract painter until after the war then opened a graphic design studio in Turin. Where he impacted the graphic design world with is combination of surrealism and recognizable symbols; his Pirelli tire design and rubber and plastics exhibition poster were two of his most well know designs. After WWII Poland was completely devastated and was in ruin. The first Polish poster artist after WWII was Tadeusz Trepkowski. He expressed the tragic effects of the war and the aspirations for the future with his work, which was very simple, reducing the words and imagery. Henryk Tomaszewski became the spiritual leader of Polish graphic design after Trepkowski's death. The Muzeum Plakatu was established in 1964 devoted exclusively to poster art. The next major trend in Polish posters started in the 1950s and continued until the 1970s; it was darker, more somber, and leaned more towards the metaphysical and surrealist. Franciszek Starowiejski was one of the first to embrace this new style. The next section of the reading was on American conceptual images, and the "death of illustrations" due to photography's expanison. Push Pin Almanack was a printing publication that had freelance assignments which then became Push Pin Studio and which created Push Pin Graphic, an experimental magazine that created an area for new images, ideas, and techniques. Barry Zaid was a young graphic designer who joined Push Pin in the late 1960s until the early 1970s. Zaid was an important force due to the fact that he was a graphic archeologist who based his work on thorough studies of graphic vernacular. He was particularly influential in the revival of art deco’s decorative geometric forms. The last portion of our reading was on third world posters. Posters there became vehicles for challenging authority and power.

2. Name the one thing (or person) you found most interesting from the reading.
One thing that I found really interesting from this chapter was what had happened to Poland during the war and how they worked through it. Everything they had worked towards was destroyed and was in shambles, but were able to come back and have an all new design style. I really liked learning about the changes from the first style to the next and thinking that it changed because of the people feelings towards the regime and wanting autonomy.

3. State at least one question you have after the reading or from last class.
What were the other advances in graphic design during this time in other parts of the world? And in the countries that were mentioned?

Before Class: Chapter Eighteen & Nineteen 4/6/09

1. Sum up the reading in your own words in 1 paragraph: During the 1950s a design movement emerged from Switzerland and Germany, which has been called Swiss design or International Typographic Style. The objective of this style was clarity of design. It was popular for over two decades and its influences continued until the 21st century. Sans-serif typography with a flush-left and ragged-right margin were used primarily. A couple "pioneers of the movement" were Ernst Keller, Theo Ballmer, Max Bill, Max Huber, Anton Stankowski, and Rudolph DeHarak just to name a few. In 1918 Keller joined the Zurich Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Art) to teach advertising layout courses and to develop courses in design and typography. Balmer studied briefly at Bauhaus in the late 1920s, and used an arithmetic grid of horizontal and vertical alignments in his designs. Bill's worked with painting, architecture, engineering, sculpture, and product and graphic design. In 1931 he embraced the concepts of art concret, which was very mathematical and used bright colors, after he moved to Zurich in 1929. Huber created/worked on phenomenal projects with trasparencies of printing inks and layering shapes. His designs puched the envelope and were said to be "on the edge of chaos." Stankowski lived in Zurich from 1929 to 1937, during this time he was very influential in photography. In 1968 the senate of Berlin commissioned Stankowski for a design program with the city. And DeHarak was an American that was a self-taught graphic designer who embraced the new European design.

2. Name the one thing (or person) you found most interesting from the reading.
One person that I really liked reading about was Rudolph DeHarak, mainly because he was an American. I mean because America was so late in the game and it was nice reading about someone in the U.S. that was helping it move along with the rest of the world. I also thought that it was interesting to see that he had made over 350 book jackets McGraw-Hill Publishers. He had really creative and abstract designs that are really fun to look at.

3. State at least one question you have after the reading or from last class.
Did people understand Anton Stankowski's posters right away? I think that the three (18-9, 18-10, 18-11) that are in the book are very well done and beautiful but aren't the easiest to understand right away?


1. Sum up the reading in your own words in 1 paragraph: This chapter was about the new design concept in America. Paul Rand, Bill Bernbach, Alvin Lustig, Alex Steinweiss, Saul Bass, George Tscherny, and Robert Brownjohn we the pioneers of the New York School. This chapter was mainly about magazine and newspaper design and layout (from what I understood from it) and it talked about the pioneers contributions to the design. Rand was at the head of the movement and he used simple and contrasting design elements. Lustig incorporated his subjective vision and privat symbols into graphic design. Steinweiss was twenty-four years old and became the art director at Columbia Records; his modern designs were comprised of visual forms, shapes, and colors. Bass created the first title sequence for The Man With The Golden Arm, he also created numerous corporate-identity programs. Tscherny was the head of the graphic design department for the New York design firm George Nelson & Associates before opening his own office in 1956. Technology was being used more and more during this time for photography and printing.

2. Name the one thing (or person) you found most interesting from the reading.
I really liked the magazine covers. The new layouts, the new designs, and the concepts behind all of them. A couple of my favorites were the McCall's patterns (black and red with two woman) and the Bazaar cover with the woman's face and a water glass.

3. State at least one question you have after the reading or from last class.
Why was The Man With The Golden Arm title sequence was such a big deal? Why were rectangles used for the sequence? And I still don't completely get New York School. Is it mainly about magazine design and layout?

Week Nine Image

Cubism and Frank Lloyd Wright

Describe what it is: This is a Windex bottle done in the style of Cubism.

Describe your concept behind the design: I decided to do a bottle with straight edges like if it were made from lots of little cubes. I then colored in larger cubes with blues and greens, trying to stick within the same color family. I used close to the same colors that are used in the modern day Windex bottle.

Discuss the style of the design & typography, how it relates to history: The style of the Windex bottle fits in with the whole design concept of Cubism. Everything is in the form of a cube and there are no soft edges. The typography of Windex is in a cube matter; the squared off look fits within the style. Even though I didn't see much typography with Cubism.




Describe what it is: This is a Windex logo that is done in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Describe your concept behind the design: I decided to do an ad or logo for the Windex product with a Frank Lloyd Wright concept. I used one of his window designs for inspiration with the shapes and colors and I used the influence of a font that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for Windex .

Discuss the style of the design & typography, how it relates to history: I thought that if I were to do a Frank Lloyd Wright style for the Windex product I figured it should be very close to one that he actually did design. I was inspired by a window design he did, and I think it fits pretty well with the ad concept. This relates to history of graphic design because this is the type of design that he would have used and actually did use for a window design (with some alterations).