alexey brodovitch

MASTER OF AMERICAN DESIGN

BRODOVITCHALEXEY

CONTENTS

1Background

2Brodovitch & Surrealism

3Brodovitch & Color

4Brodovitch & Photography

5Brodovitch & Teaching

6References

Brodovitch was a Russian born photographer, designer and instructor who is most famous for his art direction of fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar from 1934 to 1958.

1

BACKGROUND

Brodovitch was born in 1898. By the age of 20, he emigrated to France spending the decade of the 1920s immersed in the avant- garde atmo-sphere of the Paris. Finally, in 1930 he sailed to the United States, where he would spend the rest of his working life.

While some immigrants never make a successful adjustment to their new environment, Brodovitch thrived on what was foreign to him.

Brodovitch did much more than design Harper's Bazaar magazine. While working for this maga-zine, he still worked as a free lance designer and illustrator. He was also art director and art editor of the pioneering graphic- arts magazine Portfo-lio. He devoted what spare time he had left to painting and photography.

2

SURREALISM

“The Bal Banal” poster is the very first success Brodovicth had ever earned in his design career.

“The girl of tomorrow” cover, using the Trylon and the Perisphere, symbols of the 1939 World's Fair, shows most clearly the influ-ence of Surrealism on his work of the late thir-ties and early forties. The use of the mask recalls his first success, the poster for the Bal Banal. Besides borrowing graphic ideas from others, Brodovitch also recycled his own work.

He understood the connection between fashion and the subconscious mind. Fashion, like Surre-alism, has an irrational, irresistible appeal.

Harper’s Bazaar coverFebruary 1939.

Bal Banal poster. 1924

3

COLOR

Colors are relatively new in magazines of the 1930s, when full-color illustration required laborious preparation and long lead times.

However, by using process or second color inven-tively, Brodovitch was able to give the Bazaar an added sense of currency and luxury.

Junior Bazaar coverJanuary 1947. Art Directors:

Alexey Brodovitch and Lillian Bassman.Photographer: Ernst Beadle.

4

PHOTOGRAPHY

From the very first issues he designed for Harper’s Bazaar, Brodovitch was sensitive to photographs as no other art director had been.

He was especially attentive to the shapes within the frame and used them to cue the placement of text and headlines.

He arranged photographs on the pages like playing card but in his layouts, overlaps or positions rarely seem unintentional.

Influenced by Surrealism, Brodovitch empha-sized mirroring and spatial illusion in many of his page designs.

Brodovitch often used photographs as if they were frames in a slow motion film, repeating a pose or dress several times across the page to create a narrative temporal feeling.

He increasingly encouraged blurry and out of focus photographs.

Harper’s Bazaar, October 1934Photographer: Man Ray

Harper’s Bazaar, October 1934Photographer: Man Ray

Harper’s Bazaar, March 1938Photographer: George Hoyningen- Huene

Harper’s BazaarMarch 1936Photographer: Man ray

Harper’s Bazaar, April 1945.Photographer: Henri Cartier- Bresson.

Harper’s Bazaar, September 15, 1939.Photographer: George Hoyningen-Huene

Harper’s BazaarNovember 1934.

Harper’s Bazaar, October 1944.Photographer: Martin Munkacsi

Harper’s BazaarApril 1950.

Ballet, designed by Brodovitch using photographs he had taken in the late thirties while standing backstage at performences of the Ballets Russes.

5

TEACHING

From 1930, when he first set foot in the United States, until 1966, when he returned to France, Brodovitch promoted the tenets of graphic design by teaching.

He had trained and inspired a generation of post-war designers, illustrators and photographers.

Central to his method was the peripatetic Design Laboratory

6

REFERENCES

Andy Grundberg, Brodovitch: Masters of American Design. 1989.

http://www.iconofgraphics.com/alexey-brodovitch/

http://diary.rebeccahawkes.co.uk/spot-light-on-alexey-brodovitch/

“ If you see something you have seen before, don’t click

the shutter.”Alexey Brodovitch

THE END