Final Field Study Entry

My journey for this course, The History of Graphic Design, through the pages of Meggs text, and the vast knowledge extended through my instructors lectures etc. , has been nothing short of revelation. I began with the briefest of interludes into a scan of the text, the Aubrey Beardsley's immediately caught my attentions, as I have always been a fan. That, and a bit of a paragraph on the Vienna Secessionist movement, and I was instantly intrigued. I had never considered the art of Beardsley in the context of graphic design, or as he as graphic designer, but the text made clear my notions of the medium and it's history were soon to be challenged , and my own mind enlightened on the subject.

With an initial delve into the early history and leanings of primitive man, his petroglyphs and pictographs, such as the ancient Maori, I was versed into the true bedrock of man's need and effort to communicate graphically, and quite effectively, from the advent and dawn of written communications. I wandered from there mentally to the subsequent chapters which had investigations into the chronological timeline of graphic communication.

I was avidly interested in the Art Nouveau movement and the variables of the medium at the time, poster arts having been a favorite inclination, as I have been a collector much of my life of the period.  My son Parrish, is named after the painter Maxfield Parrish, however a later artist of the time, but his work prominent in advertisement and graphic design. I was enthralled with the posters in the text and the descriptive historical data tying in all the various movements and regions, and impetus for the work. Jan Toorop a Dutch artist, was unknown to me before this course, and now without question one of my favorites. His work is a catalyst for style and truly inspiring to me, I think it humorous his wife's name was Annie Hall, I wonder if perhaps Woody Allen was a collector.

I found the chapters on the Surrealist movement quite engaging, Salvador Dali is ever present an influence in all mediums, but I had never considered him either, in the history of graphic design. But from Joan Miro to Max Ernst, and being led to the new stable of Surrealists, such as Mario Sanchez Nevado, and the technological advantages of contemporary artists of the medium, a window to unlimited self expression and an exciting frontier of the history was opened.

The opportunity to write about Herbert Bayer, an old family friend, was such a pleasure. I grew up with his work, and always felt such an affinity for it's simplicity of form. His history in graphic design was unknown to me, the Bauhaus movement incorporated so many talents and offshoots from which I know I will personally draw inspiration in my future graphic endeavors.

By far and away the most inspirational and profound, as well as relatable graphic designer I learned about in this course, was Gunter Rambow, what a force of provocation and magical expression. His work pushes the proverbial envelope in the best of ways and should be an inspiration to all to use the medium to open doors, give voice to those who have none, and make us all utilize bravery in our creations.

All in all my most interesting course in the GID program to date, an elegant finish to two years of beautiful knowledge.....

Field Study 9

Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, a designer known best for her association with the Supergraphic Movement of California, was a student of dance in San Francisco, before moving to Basel Switzerland as a young widow, in 1956 to study graphic design at Basel Art Institute under Armin Hoffman. 

Her most significant and influential designs utilizing Super Graphic style were for the Sea Ranch Architectural development in Gualala California in the 1970's, who's timeless quality and innovation still remain a hallmark of the design foundation of the region.

Solomon has continued to practice and teach, both at Harvard and Yale to name a few, and expanded upon her graphics into architecture, fine art painting as well as landscape design. Her feminist leaning sensibility I find refreshing in a world during her time which was permeated by glass ceilings. 

In an interview with Creative Review Magazine 2011, Solomon, an aware feminist,  spoke upon the subject of her male peers, and their seeming requisite career freedoms to indulge, without limitation and constraint, their creative expression in the field, against her own struggle to balance her personal art practice with that of her life demands as a mother and homemaker:

"Now that I happily live alone with my dog I have time to think, and realize that I was always so frantically busy making money to live, taking care of my daughters, and worrying about men, that I never had the time to think, least of all about my work. At my office I just drew up the first design I visualized so i could leave to pick up my daughters from school, shop for dinner, cook and clean, play wife and do all the stuff working mothers do." (Barbara Stauffacher Solomon).

"Clever verbal architects used my skills to promote their projects; mostly real estate developments. I designed good design covers for many questionable commodities. I worked fast and well and my projects in or below budget. I flattered the men, got paid, and then went home to cook dinner." (Barbara Stauffacher Solomon).

Filed Note 8

                                                                 GUNTER RAMBOW

I choose to focus my inquiry this week on the work of Gunter Rambow, a German Graphic designer who's work I had seen in past yet was unaware of the volume and breadth of his talent and resume, wanted to know more. 

Rambow himself was born in Mecklenburg, Germany, in 1938 and grew up in  the post war Communist East German society. His initial training was as a glass painter before transfering to a graphic design program at the Academy of Design in Kessel West Germany, where he eventually taught for two decades as a professor of graphic design later in his career. 

When he was 22 he began his own graphic design studio in Kessel, and as years progressed was joined in his creative quests by Gerhard Lienemeyer, and Michael van de Sand, moving the studio eventually to Frankfurt. The group focused upon creative posters which dealt with the social and political quandaries of the time, very progressive and left leaning in their scope.  

His Theatrical posters pushed boundaries, and were a caustic interpretation on everyday life. Confrontational imagery is and has been the hallmark of Rambow's stylistic leanings. Through use of documentary photography, another of his mediums, he manifests his abstract ideas on subject matter in his compositions which juxtapose controversial images with graphic texts that confront modern societies problems and seeming shortcomings. 

To say his provocations are powerful is an understatement, he has taken the graphic medium , along with his photography to uncharted territory, and brilliantly so.