OUGD401 Modernism and Postmodernism

Modernism

Rejection of ornament (Adolf Loos, 1908) ornament and crime.

-           This is were everything is stripped back and less is more. This was adapted by  Ludwig Mies van der Rohe who was a famous architect and designed on a minimalist design.

Form follows function. (Louis Silivan 1896) The tall office building artistically considered)

-                This is where the function should come before the form. This means that the first role in whatever is made should be made to function well before making it stand it.  It should communicate the intended purpose.

International typographic style

-                Switzerland post World War 2.

-                Grid

-                Flush Left, ragged right text

-                Abandoning of drawn illustrations in favour of photography.

Aksidenz Grotesk

-                Simple

-                No decorative serifs

-                Nothing unnecessary

Universal Typeface by Herbert Baye

Le Cabuser ‘Plan Voisin’ 1927.

-                Remove equality

-                Human and personal element

During the seminar we watched various videos but one that caught my eye was Wim Crouwel talking about Helvetica. Wim Crouwel says everything needs to be neutral. ‘It should be clear, it should be readable, it should be straightforward.’ Modernism is about order. Wim Crouwel uses the grid to create this order.

In the same documentary ‘Helvetica’ Massimo Vignelli says that typography is really white and that it isn’t even black.  It is the spacing between the black that makes it typography.

 

An example of modernism is the Byker Housing project.  This is a building made in Newcastle and was one of the first project to unite community with architecture.  The building looks very organised and follows a grid format.  The building was used to get rid of people living in poverty and to enhance structure.

Another example is Massimo Vignelli’s Manhattans subway map. This is a prime example that shows the key factors of the grid and how form follows function. The image only uses colour to differentiate the subways used.

Postmodernism

-                Rejection of International Swiss Style

-                Pessimism

-                Exhaustion

-                Pluralism

-                Reaction to modern life, technology, new materials and Communication

It is equivalent to late capitalism and an artistic and stylistic eclecticism.

According to Charles Jencks on July 15^th 1972 at 3:32pm modernism died.  This is due to an image of the Pruitt-Igoe housing development which lasted less than 20 years after they were destroyed. The building was created to bring families together and ironically created anger and fear.

Postmodernism was a period during the 1980’s and 90’s taking what modernism believed in and going against it. It was chaos and rupture to modernism. Postmodernism was a period were artists went crazy and would reject modernist beliefs. 

After researching about modernism I looked at one artist in particular, Ed Fella.  His artwork consisted of letters going over one another even to the point where it is not readable. It consisted of random colours causing chaos and confusion.

Another artist I looked at was Paula Scher who hated Helvetica. She is an artist who wanted to create chaos against Helvetica. Paula created one poster that instantly caught my eye and indeed went viral when it was made in 1995. It was called ‘The Public – Da Funk’ which consisted of words being varied in size, colour and angle. Paula wanted to created something that had a life of its own and was witty.

David Carson - 'Don’t mistake legibility for communication.'