Designers presentations

Kyle Cooper

Cooper studied at Yale School of Art under Paul Rand, who influenced his studies and design. His style is artistic and abstract but very versatile, staying true to each individual film. Some of the films he did title sequences on include Se7en, Spider-Man, Dawn of the Dead, and Curious George. He experiments with playful typography in the sequences a lot. He also does animation for TV spots on top of the many movie projects that he does.

 

Shepard Fairey

Fairey started designing as a teenager, even designing skateboards, and then went to RISD after high school. His style is similar to art deco and incorporates sunbursts, dark colors, hidden messages (political, etc.), bold colors and sans serif fonts. He designed many posters, like his “Andre the Giant”, Obey, Obama, and Black Sabbath posters. He wants people to question his work, especially his Obey posters, to question things in life like authority that we subscribe to. 

5/13 designers

Clement Mok
Mok began in the 1980s working for Apple, and was able to help create some of the applications that we use today. Clement Mok Design was his own company that he opened after his career with Mac. He was a designer, publisher, web developer, and software developer who knew how to design both with and without a computer. Geometric lines, bold colors, and symbolic/abstract components are a big part of his style. He has been focusing on web design over the past decade or so. He is the co-creator of AIGA, his artwork has been featured all over the world, and he has worked for many Fortune 500 companies.

Leo Burnett
Burnett is a famous copywriter and advertising executive who is famous for creating many company mascots like the Marlboro Man and more. He began his own company in 1935 in Chicago and ran it successfully until he retired in the 1960s. Some of his more famous icons are Tony the Tiger, the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Starkist Tuna.

Designers - Monday 5/11

Tibor Kalman

Kalman had a hard childhood and was isolated because he was originally from Hungary, but this only helped his work. He was a social activist and liked to design things to help social issues. He once designed a flyer about Esprit and their shady practices in clothing manufacturing. In 1979, he opened the M&Co. design firm with his wife in New York City, which worked on magazines, film titles and books mainly. Kalman became famous for his Talking Heads CD cover, which pushed the conventions of design and typography, elements of his style that were pretty consistently pushed in his other work. He worked on Colors Magazine also to help promote his social views to the public on women’s rights, race, and other issues.

 

David Carson

Carson is widely known for his innovative designs, experimenting with typography, and his cluttered, unstructured style. He didn’t learn about the rules of design, but instead focused on an emotional impact, not caring about breaking the rules. He was mostly self-taught, and his designs focused on one big idea, used asymmetrical layouts, had intentional mistakes, no grid and varying typefaces and sizes. As a pro surfer, it is easy to see the influence the laid back lifestyle has on his work.

 

Matthew Carter

Carter is seen as the “father of typography.” His own father was a typographer, and working with him greatly influenced him. By the time he was 30, he was doing freelance typography work. With technology rapidly changing, his work went digital. In 1991 he started Carter & Cone Inc., a typography foundry. He is famous for creating Bell Centennial, the phonebook typeface, and Verdana for Microsoft. He also is famous for creating ink traps in letterforms, which allows low-quality printing without bleeding letterforms that would stay legible.

Designers - Friday

Neville Brody

Early in his life, professors didn’t approve of Brody’s style because it reflected the rebellion of the punk movement too much. Upon graduation, he found his niche in the music industry working for several labels designing CD covers, posters, etc. He quickly moved up in the world and became the art director of Face magazine after just two years. His work there made him finally be recognized as an influential designer. He also started Fuse magazine with several other designers, and in 1988 the world’s best selling graphic design book was published, a book all about Brody as a designer. His work uses a lot of contrasting colors that pop off each other, as well as playful, inventive use of typography.

  

Art Chantry

Chantry was influenced by his grungy childhood in southern Washington, growing up poor with his mother after they left his abusive father. He was also influenced growing up in the 1960s by rock and roll, psychedelic spirit and punk. He avoided technology and instead he uses a lot of found imagery, altering it and incorporating it into his designs. He liked to manipulate materials by hand, and used many various typefaces and even their woodblock forms.

  

Storm Thorgerson

Storm uses a lot of layered imagery and creative photography, and his most well-known projects are CD covers from the 60s and on. He worked a lot for Pink Floyd and his Dark Side of the Moon cover is a famous piece. Many of his designs featured a large, central object with a smaller object next to it to create tension and questioning. 

Designer Presentations

April Greenman

Growing up, April was supported by her parents and great aunt and inspired by their teachings. Her mother taught her about dancing, which in turn taught her lessons about not “faking” anything, which led her to prove herself in design later. Likewise, her aunt taught her to work hard for her dreams, and this hard work made her a success in the design world. She went to school at RISD, then the Kansas City Art Institute, and finally the Basel School of Design in Switzerland. She learned about New Wave design, which greatly influenced her work by playing with the weight, space, size and angle of typography, which gave dimension to her designs. She later taught at Cal Arts and now owns her own design business.

 

Milton Glaser

Glaser when to an art high school and college and then studied in Italy on a Fulbright scholarship afterwards. He created Push Pin Studios with three other designer friends in 1954 and was President for 20 years. In 1968 he founded New York Magazine, which became a model for many magazines. In 1974 he founded his own business, Milton Glaser Inc., and then in 1983 he also founded WBMG studio. In the 50s, his work was direct, simple and original; in the 60s it was characterized by contour lines and flat shapes; in the 80s and 90s he explored illusion and dimension.

 

Seymour Chwast

Chwast enjoyed using illustration, woodcuts, design and speedball pen and ink. He was a part of the Push Pin Studio and helped create the Push Pin Almanac. He was responsible for many poster designs, which were his favorite thing to design because he liked the explore the interaction between type and image. He also wrote and illustrated a number of children’s books.

Thesis statement

Stefan Sagmeister is a world-renowned innovative and influential designer who allows his soul to shine through his work, reflecting his personality while still communicating effectively.

Psychedelic Posters

“Poster mania” took place in the 1960s as an American poster craze that embraced the social activist spirit of the young nation. Its grassroots beginnings came from self-trained designers and artists who gathered inspiration from art nouveau, comic book, and pop art, among other art movements. These posters used flowing curves, recycled images from popular culture, intense colors, swirling imagery and warped letterforms. The posters related “anti-establishment values” and commented on social movements like civil rights, the Vietnam War, the women’s liberation and the search for alternate lifestyles. Artist Peter Max (with his “Love” poster), and David Lane (with his symmetrical, contour, simple lined posters) were two of the influential poster designers of the psychedelic poster mania.

I really liked the flowing nature of these posters and how well they represent the era that they were created in. The colors and visual vibration resonate with the “psychedelic mentality” of the public that were viewing the posters. The imagery and color really helped to convey the mentality.

I just wish that there were more recognizable poster examples given in the book; or from sources that we would recognize, like propaganda for the Rolling Stones, etc.