katherine mccoy

American Graphic Design ExpressionAuthor(s): Katherine McCoySource: Design Quarterly, No. 148, The Evolution of American Typography (1990), pp. 3-22Published by: Walker Art CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4091231 .Accessed: 17/07/2014 10:19

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Walker Art Center is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Design Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 69.41.96.102 on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 10:19:18 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

American Graphic Design Expression 3


4

Katherine McCoy

Is graphic design an art, a science, a business, or a craft? Since the inception of graphic design in the United States, each of these distinct identities has held sway at one time. But in today's practice, these classifications may exist side by side in a variety of projects, or they may combine to form a duality, for example, as craft and business or science and art. This identity crisis is reenforced by the lack of agree- ment on a name for the field: graphic design, visual communications, and visual design are all in current use, as are a variety of archaic terms, including the earliest and now generally disdained commercial art. Unlike its venerable cousin architecture, graphic design is a relatively new expression, a phenomenon of the last hundred years. A spontane- ous response to the communication needs of the industrial revolution, graphic design was employed to sell the fruits of mass production to growing consumer societies in Europe and North America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rapidly expanding reproduction technologies provided the means for graphic design's


IVUVZKALII userrai IvL .g UsUdsbShemittXJ Q

flbsu -- S--- _-

tas .ns. . a_.; q_.

--~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.":........ .. ._

* m 614foN .mAi INmm n

-, m- .

,a m- -I -. .. .

.-.

.

Lk .,J-. a on P 4.

+ + Am I +

_e% =?~~ 44 b, __ -

a"

MEITI .m, - _i.ps + V.1W. * b x

John Baskerville Juvenal and Perslus: Satyrae 1761 page letterpress

F.T. Marinetti Apres la mamne, Joffre visita le front en auto 1915 broadside letterpress

Except where noted, all works Illustrated are offset lithographs.

participation in the vast economic, political, technological, and social changes of that era. But the roots of American graphic design lie in European type cutting and book printing. These precursors to the profession came to America as part of our European cultural inheri- tance. From the invention of movable type in the early Renaissance to the twentieth century, bookmaking, typesetting, and type design were the elements of an integrated craft and industry centered in publishing houses. This long tradition approached typography and book design as the visual presentation of verbal language, with a premium placed, on clarity and legibility. Decisions in type design emphasized clarity over expression, relying on the words themselves for the expression of content. Although letterforms were often inherently expressive, typography was neutral to the message and made no attempt to be interpretive. Craft was highly valued and books developed increasing elegance and refinement as the years progressed, codifying this classical book approach into the standardized traditional text format that continues as the standard of book text today. However artful the book design, the element of function relegated this activity to the status of craft rather than art. The predominance of text made this tradition largely a verbal language expression and illustra- tional imagery was used sparingly in early books, largely because of technical limitations. When used, it represented literal phenomena and rarely mixed with the text or headline typography. Interpretive symbolic imagery was left to "high art," in which for centuries painters have employed whole vocabularies of nonverbal symbols to convey meaning. Their audiences were able to decode meaning through learned associations, the result of shared cultural experience. It was not until the early twentieth century that meaning was embed- ded in visual typographic form. The revolutionary artists of Futurism, Dada, Constructivism, and De Stijl turned their attention to textual- visual communications as well as the more traditional areas of art,

5


X [ -- >

|___ I R , | I . | , I _

___s ' 2 I , | , , _ _ s1 l | | | l ! _

___ l | i | l | | i

___

, N I N | * _ I - J l l i l l | _j111 I l | | I g b _t - _

| |

| _

_

F _

. _

_

_ _

_

_

_ _

! . - _r _s

1

a

: _

i a i _ _. a __ .____._ ......... _ _

. . .

f~~~~~

.s -1 1 v

_'iv~~~~~~~~~~~ _ _ W~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ w... i

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~: '.

Aleksandr Rodchenko L'Art Decoratif U.R.S.S. Moscou-Paris 1925 catalogue cover letterpress Collection Merrill C. Berman

Joost Schmidt Ausstellung Bauhaus 1923 poster Collection Merrill C. Berman

6

vlsual / / verbal

intuitive rational wholistic | / \ linear

simultaneous , \\ sequential

|IMAGE ||TEXT |

rejecting the inherited, arbitrary divisions between the fine and applied arts. Functional expression became an integral part of the self- expressive goals of art, and use was not viewed as the enemy of art. In particular, the Russian Constructivists retained their identities as artists even as they took on the role of public communicators for the Russian Revolution. In Germany, the Bauhaus unified art, craft, and design with a coherent philosophy and sense of identity. These European revolutionaries explored new approaches to structur- ing language and imagery that were radical rejections of the classical text tradition. Their visual poetry used typographic forms and composition to interpret and extend the meaning of words. One does not have to read Italian to gain an appreciation of the Futurists' energetic celebrations of industry and political confrontation. Typography became an expressive visual language as well as a verbal one. This visual-verbal dichotomy can be understood through a simple dia- gram that charts the process (in the Western humanist tradition) of the acquisition of meaning. Seeing and reading are two modes through which we traditionally think of receiving messages. Image and text are two carriers of those messages. Typically we think of seeing as a visual process connected with images-we see the landscape, we see a paint- ing. This process is intuitive, emotional, and simultaneous, experienced almost involuntarily. Upon encountering a vivid color photograph of a fire, a viewer might immediately sense fear and heat with little need to conceptualize. Or an image of a nude figure might stimulate sexual feelings instantly and involuntarily. Although associations gained through life experience influence this process, it is predominantly a direct experiential one, related to the philosophical theories of phe- nomenology. On the other hand, the process of reading is typically connected with the verbal process of decoding text's written language signs-letters. To do this, one must know the code. One must have learned to read


the particular language of the message. This process is cerebral, rational, deliberate, and linear. If one does not carefully link the proper sequence of signs, one cannot decode the message. Linguistics, Struc- turalist philosophy and Poststructuralism deal with these language dynamics. In addition, there are two other linkages possible between seeing and reading and image and text. The early Modernists discovered that text can be seen as well as read, as the Futurists' experimental poetry proved. And images can be read. The Neolithic cave painters at Lascaux knew this, as have most painters throughout history. This process has been reconfirmed by the Surrealists, by graphic designers since the 1930s, and more recently by artists and photographers dealing with text- image relationships. How artists, designers, or craftsmen define themselves has much to do with their use of these text-image processes. Nineteenth-century book designer-printers dealt largely with the reading of text, and aligned themselves with the verbal side of language. Many early Modernists saw themselves as integrated creators of communications, balancing the identities of artist, designer, businessman, and craftsman, explor- ing all four modes. American book designer-printers continued the European classical non- interpretive traditions with extremely literal presentations of both imagery and text. But with a public that was increasingly literate, printers' activities broadened to include early manifestations of the mass media: political and commercial handbills in the late eighteenth century and newspaper advertising, popular magazines, advertising cards, and posters in the late nineteenth century. These required headline- scaled typefaces and by the Victorian years a great multiplicity of orna- mental faces had been born and American wood type was developed as an inexpensive and accessible means of embellishment for popular communications. This decorative expression spoke with a louder voice than traditional text, making the reader's experience far more visual. Yet this larger scale typography contained no coding in its visual form; the process remained one of reading text. Advertising, magazines, and posters of the late nineteenth century stimulated a new and growing field of illustration. These illustrators rendered highly artful literal depictions of objects, scenes, and narratives with growing skill, using rapidly evolving reproduction processes. But they employed little symbolism. And because they served the tainted world of commerce rather than practicing "serious" art, these first "commercial" artists were relegated to the servant class, despite their large public followings. American graphic design was finally born out of two new factors. As the twentieth century got underway, an explosion of new reproduction technologies stimulated specialization, separating conception and form giving from the technical production activities of typesetting and

7


8

Robert Wildhack Scrlbner's March 1907 poster Collection Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Herbert Bayer PM6, 2 cover

December 1939-January 1940 ? 1940 PM Publishing Company, New York

K. Lonberg-Holm and Ladislav Sutnar Catalog Design Progress 1950 Published by Sweet's Catalog Service, New York

5CR jBNEF`CE

printing. Simultaneously the United States received its first wave of European e6migre6 designers, a migration that reached its height in the 1930s. They understood design as a balanced process involving the powerful multiple modes of seeing and reading, and sensed the possi- bility of theory and method as guiding the creative process-the first rudimentary seeds of professi'onalism. These designers, including Herbert Bayer, Ladislav Sutnar, Will Burtin, L -aszlo6 Moholy-Nagy, and Herbert Matter, brought with them Modernism's dual paths of ambiguity and objectivity. They shared an interest in ambiguity and the unconscious with new works of visual art, literature, and psychology. Interpretive typography and asymmetrical compositions seemed more appropriate in a new world in which the old ways were rapidly disap- pearing. Surrealism offered symbolic forms of conceptual communication that went beyond the power of the word. Therefore, these Euro- pean designers continued early Modernism's exploration of abstrac- tion and dynamic composition. On the other hand, they believed that

-_ ~ ~~~~~~~ J

t~~~~~~~~~~~~~t

CA


Helmut Krone for Doyle Dane Bembach's groundbreaking ad campaign for Volkswagen 1968-1980s Courtesy DDB Needham Worldwide Inc., New York and Volkswagen United States Inc., Troy, Michigan

rationalism and objectivity were appropriate for a new world ordered by commerce and industry and they persuaded their clients in the United States to minimize advertising copy into brief essential state- ments, instead of using the text-heavy literal description favored in earlier American advertising. Rudimentary ideas of systematic problem solving and composition were offered by such designers as Sutnar and Albert Kner. The role of the designer became that of a highly skilled interpreter of messages, a far more authoritative stance than the one taken by a hireling who follows the dictates of an autocratic client. Interpretation was central to the idea of communication. Systematic rationalism drew on science, while inventive compositions and symbolic interpretation related to art, balancing the identity between art, science, craft, and business. These emigres had a tremendous impact on a number of young Ameri- can designers who grew into maturity in the 1950s, developing new approaches to composition, photography, and text-image relationships. Many of their discoveries formed the basis of the so-called "big idea" method of conceptualizing design solutions, which placed a premium on the flash of intuition and the individual designer's creativity-the ah ha! method of problem solving. Centered in New York in the 1950s and 1960s, this individualistic process idealized the creative genius symbolized by the maverick designer working in his studio. (Ralph Caplan has reproached designers for their willingness to play the role of the "exotic menial"-the brilliant individual serving the needs of clients, but a servant nonetheless.) The intuitive, conceptual "big idea" method became a uniquely Ameri- can expression, exemplified by Doyle Dane Bernbach's classic Volkswagen Beetle series, which created intelligent, clever intexplays between verbal and visual concepts. Short ironic conversational head- lines that came out of American wit and vernacular speech were juxta- posed with provocative images, drawing on the lessons of Surrealism.

Lmm

1. -.-

. C.-

.0

9


10

Emil Ruder die Zeitung (The Newspaper) 1958 letterpress Collection Gerwerbemuseum, Basel, Switzerland

Barbara Stauffacher Solomon calendar for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art May 1971 Collection the designer

dle

,eitlng

Unexpected combinations of images and contexts created ambiguity and surprise. This "picture is worth a thousand words" semantic approach maximized the process of reading text and image simultaneously. Little attention was placed on page structure or systematic organization. Unfortunately, many designers today associate this approach with advertising's commercialism and fail to take advantage of the power inherent in the image-copy concept method. As this highly successful form of advertising began to dominate Ameri- can visual communications, the first wave of Swiss design thinking and form arrived on the American scene. First transmitted in the early 1960s through a few design magazines and books-Graphis and the writings of Josef Muller-Brockmann, Karl Gerstner, Armin Hofmann, and Emil Ruder-a few young American designers began to assimilate these ideas, and in the mid-1960s, a number of professional design offices began to practice these ideas to solve the needs of large corporate clients in Holland, England, Canada, and the United States. A number of


corporations and institutions including Container Corporation, Ciba-Geigy, Herman Miller, IBM, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology adopted this method and aesthetic. Eventually American corporate culture adopted Swiss design as the ideal corporate style. What was originally very difficult to sell to business clients is very difficult to avoid today. This graphic aesthetic and method was the second wave of European Modernism to influence American designers. The antithesis of the "big idea" approach, it is based on an assumption of Modernist rational method, a codified approach that is not entirely dependent on the individualistic inspiration and talent of the designer. This had a profoundly professionalizing influence on American graphic design practice, fur- ther replacing the commercial artist's servant image with that of a dis- ciplined, educated professional. As this method influenced the field, graphic design began to split apart from advertising design, a significant division that persists today. The classic Swiss method prescribed an ordered process rather than the genius of inspiration, and promised far more dependable, however predictable, results. It assumed a rational systems process based on semi-scientific analysis and problem solving. The goal was the objective (dead serious) presentation of information, rather than the subjec- tive expression of an attitude, emotion, or humor. Swiss suited the corporate demand for factual accuracy-the perfect style for an annual report-while the big idea was more appropriate to advertising's per- suasive goals. Swiss tended to rely on representational photography and minimalist typography, while the big idea was far more image-ori- ented, employing illustration and symbolic photography. Swiss graphic expression stressed the syntactic grammar of graphic design with struc- tured grids and typographic relationships. This form of Modernism neglected some of early Modernism's discoveries with visually expressive typography and surrealistic imagery. For the most part, classic Swiss typography was meant to be read and its imagery to be seen only in the conventional modes. Semiotics, the science of signs in visual language, was a theory explored in the 1960s in Europe, especially at the Ulm school in Germany. This scientific approach to the analysis of meaning in communications was very compatible with the rationality of the Swiss method. Promising an alternative to intuitive design, semiotic theory began to inform the work of some American adherents to the Swiss idea. Although this difficult and complex theory was inadequately understood, its "scientific" flavor reinforced the objective tone of Swiss design and the idea that graphic design was more than a personal art form. Semiotics became the first codified theory of graphic design, a major step in the evolution to pro- fessionalism. As the Italian-American designer Massimo Vignelli has so often reminded us, theory as well as history and criticism constitute the essential trinity that distinguishes a profession from a craft or trade.

11


12

Wolfgang Welngart Das Schweizer Plakat 1900-1984 (The Swiss Poster 1900-1984) 1984 poster Collection Walker Art Center

Dan Friedman Typograflsche Monatsblatter (TM) cover no. 1, January 1971 Published by Schweizerischen Typografenbund zur Fbrderung der Berufsbildung

This first wave of Swiss was strongly identified with the Zurich designers M'uller-Brockmann and Gertsner who were applying Bauhaus ideals. Their strict minimalist codified expression of functional messages may be described as Classic Modernism. No sooner had the Zurich Swiss become established in the United States than a second more mannered formn of Swiss developed that could be called Late Modern- ism. Work from the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel was far more experimental and complex than its forebear. Coming from a school where students and faculty had the luxury of time and a desire for experimen- tation,, many rules were broken and sensibilities were developed to a high level of refinement and complexity. The irreverent Wolfgang Weingart rebelled against the minimalism of his predecessor, Emil Ruder, and in the late 1960s he initiated a body of work with his students that pushed early Modernism's Constructivist experiments to their logical extremes. Enlarging on the earlier Swiss issues of structure and composition, he explored increasingly complex grids and

W:e~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TM " ' SIP~


Tost-Modern Typography. Recent American Developments' represent a survey of recent visual

design that usem typography not only to lafoor but to egoesag - type that explaina

an ide and in

:Men almost visually beeoms Ui the idea.

It is the firset aho of its kind to depict a body of work

in which the typography is o c e n t isteaded to go beyoo- _thl utter fEwtLolit n cn

of msodern typography to an

abuolute.

. _ visual_ ci os __

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

V&W1rr; unification

of content

- .s..d_ :

Al. . . .. . .. .. .

..... ' .. , '. . ', _C J C~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.....

typography in experimental compositions that became quite painterly. Yet the typographic play was mainly about the grammar of typography, and neglected semantic expression. This highly formal work may be la- beled Baroque or Mannerist Modernism. The Basel school's faculty began to come to the United States in the late 1960s to lecture and teach, and in the early 1970s knowledgeable young Americans began to migrate to Basel for postgraduate training in graphic design. By the mid-1970s some of this complexity began to embellish American-Swiss design in the form of bars and rules and a playful mixing of type sizes, weights, and faces in an essentially formalist agenda, sometimes humorously called "type and stripe." As classical Swiss discipline was gaining followers and even before Basel became an influence, Robert Venturi shook the cultural scene with his 1965 polemical treatise, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. Although most graphic designers remained unaware of his premises for many years-and many may not yet realize his profound influence-

d -- --" d he

b 0- moi mi "S

M ndIgie due edm... a mwA a- h

_Wk _

ibiw o. boo"d . do.

.~- o.u

L d o.

mlil .

srndaInoirbn .rs.in m ho.I ___ (.b. _w*Ao.d

o. bdr.I..s .. d. mb

Wd6 do pip o. do yb s ofinAs

of _oiObP _m_i ohm do.FM.caw

p do U . ml. 9b.

ad msbb io.I.. n es a~s

.me fbmamb d o. d. b e

bb Can 1 (I) Xmu..d - .d

*A ind AM _ m PM_,

-, &ad db*r an dw rp:= lbsUI Is

_

I IMsl s W _ K.g.jds d

nw6us hibo*d.s d

on" sum |-t

h _ . .

(i). .6 nwwwS .. .= . *hu r-ME as _ 7 . _ _ ,-

ofdo z ok. Ti _w a"X

ii~~~~~bdal* l1r _W

0s - .

I -i~~~~~~~~

Wilbum Bonnell Post-Modem Typography: Recent Movements 1975 poster Published by the Ryder Gallery, Chicago Collection Katherine McCoy

Ken Hiebert Agricultural Development In Bangladesh 1974 poster Published by the Mennonite Central Committee Information Services, Akron, Pennsylvania Collection the designer

The Museum of Modem Art Papers on Architecture: Complexity and Contradiction In Architecture by Rober Venturi Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1966

13


14

Milton Glaser The Push Pin Monthly Graphic. No. 19 cover

? 1959 by The Pushpin Studios, New York Collection Ron Rae

_.~E

Photograph courtesy Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown, Philadelphia

his challenges to Modernist dogma sent shock waves rippling through the architecture and design worlds, stimulating new work that came to be called "Postmodern." His arguments in favor of historical pre-modem architectural forms and crudely energetic commercial American vernaculars eventually contributed to a new phase of American graphic design. The emergence of a graphic design history in the 1970s dovetailed with Venturi's rediscovery of pre-modern design. The recognition that graphic design had a history was a definite sign of maturation. Until then graphic designers felt that they were still inventing the discipline. The field seemed completely new-without a history-a premise supported by the Bauhaus ideal of constant newness. The first books and conferences on design history provided a banquet of historical forms for designers. The results ranged from historical homage, appropriation, and quotation to eclecticism, imitation, and outright cannibalism.

re11: Ft"." r?1 ( 3 ;. mlIlItTlSX

But Pushpin Studios of the 1960s created a highly popular design stream paralleling American-Swiss design; they already knew about the pleas- ures of history. This New York studio's sophisticated eclecticism re- vived, exploited, imitated, and occasionally parodied decades of design styles, but with an essential difference of intention from the more academic Postmodern sensibility. Pushpin pursued a hedonistic "if it feels good, do it" free borrowing from history's nostalgia, with essentially the same intention as the Victorian eclecticism they so often imitated. Postmodernism's historicism was a more intellectualized self- conscious critique of history. Venturi, a professor as well as a practicing architect, applied a semiotic analysis to historical and vernacular styles, interpreting form as a language invested with cultural meaning. Buildings were si'gns meant to be read.

Popular culture vernacu~~~~~~las hitoy an th Basel scoo' Maneis Modernism~~~~~~~, cam toete in th mi-90 tocet_ e,hgl

formal expression most often called New Wave graphic design. Bored__ _,-


April Greiman advertisement for China Club 1979 Collection the designer

with the rigidity and minimalism of corporate American-Swiss design, American designers began to experiment. Starting from a modernist foundation, they began to dissect, multiply, or ignore the grid and to explore new spatial compositions, introducing complexity and pattern, and frankly nonfunctional design elements. Hand-drawn gestures and vernacular "bad taste" were artfully introduced into highly aestheti- cized, layered compositions. This expression was still strongly linked with Modernism's interest in syntax and structural expressionism, although by now it was personal and hedonistic rather than impersonal and informational. The typography shared Basel's visual complexity and was mainly expressive of itself with little semantically-encoded symbolic meaning. The use of American vernaculars was also mainly a formal borrowing of popular forms with little of Venturi's understanding of context or intention. But it was a lot more fun than classical Swiss, and New Wave quickly became an accepted graphic form. Just as Modernism's classic Swiss, this new style too was accepted in the business arena and is used today in a wide variety of corporate applica- tions. In fact it is so accepted that the historian Philip Meggs calls it the New Academy, as prescribed a method as the Beaux Arts school of nineteenth-century French architecture. Although often described as Postmodern, this phase may be more correctly called decadent American Modernism. New Wave's graphic Postmodernism is essentially formalist with a rather minor involve- ment with content-content being more a jumping off point for graphic celebrations of style than the core of the matter. Certainly the "big idea" school of earlier years was far more dedicated to the communication of content. In fine art, a more profound aspect of Postmoder- nism has emerged as a body of self-conscious critical theory and expression. In fact, in much Postmodern art, photography, and music the central expression is a critique of our accumulated body of culture. Appropriation and pastiche recycle our experience in highly

15


16

Jeff Koons A Project for Artforum: Baptism November 1987 spread ? 1987 Artforum International Magazine, Inc.

to X

referential work that owes everything to what has gone before. All this has its roots in Structuralist semiotics of the 1960s, as well as in Venturi's ideas. Although semiotics never became a practical design method, it and Structuralism's successor, Poststructuralism, have provided a method of expression for the visual arts and graphic design. Coming out of literary theory, visual phenomena are analyzed as language encoded with meaning. In order to discover meaning, language is "de- constructed," exposing its underlying power and the manipulation of its form. Graphic design is now seen as a visual language. Its audience is approached as readers as well as viewers. In the best of this new design, content is once again at center stage. Images are to be read and inter- preted, as well as seen; typography is to be seen as well as read. Pro- vocative narratives exploit the power of familiar cliches, vernacular typography, and closeknit text-image connections, but with a visual- compositional interaction as well as a conceptual-verbal one. The best new work draws on the formal lessons of Basel and New Wave while drawing on all four seeing-reading-text-image modes simultaneously in powerful conceptual expressions. There are layers of meaning as well as layers of form. This work has an intellectual rigor that demands effort of the audience, but also rewards the audience with content and participation. The audience must make individual interpretations in graphic design that "decenter" the message. Designs provoke a range of interpretations, based on Deconstruction's contention that meaning is inherently unstable and that objectivity is an impossibility, a myth promulgated to control the audience. Graphic designers have become dissatisfied with the obedient delivery of the client's message. Many are taking the role of interpreter, a giant step beyond the problem-solving tradition. By authoring additional content and a self-conscious critique of the message, they are adopting roles associated with both art and


Rick Valicenti, Thirst Legends Color 1989 Published by Legends Co., Chicago Collection the designer

Jeffrey Keedy postcard for California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California 1988 Collection Katherine McCoy

T?ReSlft,lgrJ C H A N C E J_ , ..4rh, -d R I S K w,

b ~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. ...

. ... .. .....

rrause #1 were .1C. 'Oum e r is CHANCE WSEVENSLS " ourelr. .~~~~~~~~~~ I ! I - I I t - r .1 .r-* : 1. 7 f S * t : r t I

R W%LnISK, TAKER myNV PARINERING YOUR RETAIL U OUR MANuFAcTuRING RISKt TAKERr SKI SIS WE CAN DO BUSINESS MORE EPFICIENTLY A PROFITABSY THANU EER BKFORE.*3 yV SESING EACN OTNERS

* * E N TR P RE Nf R L SP I a i T ACREA T I E IN S t INCTS. WE ; L. BREAK tW GROUN &SETN EW STANAROS FOR

C H A N C E TNK APPAREL iNUSIRY* WE' YE ALL TAKEN A SKANC, THE RIEK SE EXCITINO & THE PO6SIEUTBE AR EW

literature. Gone are the commercial artist's servant role and the Swiss designer's transparent neutrality. Wit, humor, and irony are reappear- ing in irreverent and sometimes self-deprecating pieces that often speak directly to the reader in the second person plural, often with multiple voices. Auditory typography speaks with a tone of voice and mixes image and letter in rebuslike sentences. Venturi's view of history and vernacular as symbolic languages is finally being explored in graphic design. Forms are appropriated with a critical awareness of their original meaning and context.

of the Art /& '* w., '

I 1

18

_THE

IfSo . uirn mm

11I98tIux s l@rat_

I$ - e u 44 2~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ :B * ~ z;+ . ,

A

- S - a

3

Edward Fella Phillip Fike & Bill Rauhauser 1987 exhibition announcement The Detroit Artists Market, Detroit, Michigan Collection Katherine McCoy

2 Alexander Isley and Tibor Kalman, M&Co. advertisement for Restaurant Florent, New York 1983 Collection M&Co.

3 Tlbor Kalman and Marlene McCarty, M&Co. Strange Attractors: Signs of Chaos exhibition catalogue 1989 Published by The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York Collection M&CO.

4 Alexander Isley, Tibor Kalman, and Florent Morellet, M&Co. postcard for Restaurant Florent, New York 1983 Collection M&Co.

.A :M=- iI ON vlo, _s

rejection of refinement in graphic form vernacular cliche critical use of vernacular trash


SX^i

. :z.:* ..... -a .

*11 ii~~~

DIN TUIEUTION

2

~-

- -~-

3

1 David Frej, Influx business card for Design Logic, Chicago 1988 Collection Katherine McCoy

2 Frankfurt Gips Balkind Time Warner Inc. 1989 Annual Report spread Published by Time Warner Inc., New York Collection Katherine McCoy

3 Allen Horl type specimen book for The Typocraft Company, Detroit, Michigan 1989 cover

Collection Katherine McCoy

critical use of vernacular typography use of Image as word contextual use of vernacular forms

19


20

F D~~~~~~F I

1

Ls e e, Er~~~~~~~~~~~~...........

2

.. sa.

A. GRE THING .E.....tA ....... .

3 :

4: .. .f "

Scott Santoro announcement poster for Valentines Day Party, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 1988 silkscreen Collection the designer

2 David Frej See Everything 1987 poster silkscreen Collection Katherine McCoy

3 Edward Fella Christmas greeting card 1988 Collection the designer

4 P. Scott Makela and Laurie Haycock Sex Goddess 1989 poster Collection the designers

visual pun multiple interpretation multiple reading unstable meaning / multiple Interpretation


Aumple Noolive' 1% Givem .-s The I'rtwitbu1% fi4womIs ipirl

- 11-1.1 * h ,41# Xz* pf 1 . | 1 fr1hr Ohfl- a... nJ [h-- -ne- ,. I h.8 H.- W> d a W I n. 'hh- U-1-1" ..d i.bh.11-1. ; '

-| W ""$ %ahz Il f whelf j h tf' f w ...dling ezr > |areh . ........ i| s1 *81! si ;n Al ?5irf l A ndi811* * 5 . * Ifd g*

:1.~ ~ ~~~hd-11

> rv *r* w t fg?f I I

11 * 11, 1 r , 1 ., .h . a %Pzj en~~~~~9 li t. esi-*8sFs w ox8 n *hlanjue H 11 11 h041t* ot 111en @16

22

This new work challenges its audience to slow down and read carefully in a world of fast forward and instant replay, USA Today, and sound bites. The emphasis is on audience interpretation and the construction of meaning; it goes beyond raw data to the reception of messages. This direction seems aligned to our times and technology, as we enter an era of complex global pluralism. Desktop publishing is placing the production of low-end print communications in the hands of office workers and paraprofessionals. Even the simplest corporate report is now typeset and formatted, raising the visual expectations of our audiences. Thus there is a new demand for highly personal, interpretive, and eccentric design expressions. The new interest in the personal content of graphic design is built on decades of progress in methodology, theory, and formal strategies. The multivalent character of graphic design continues to shift between the opposing values of art and business, visual and verbal, European and American, scientific and intuitive-all of which contribute to its richness and relevance in our complex, rapidly changing environment.

Katherine McCoy is cochair of the Department of Design at Cranbrook Academy of Art and a partner in McCoy & McCoy Associates. Her design practice emphasizes interior and graphic designfor cultural and corporate clients, including the Detroit Institute of Arts and Unisys Corporation. She writesfrequentlyfor designjournals on design criticism and history and has co-produced a television documentary on Japanese design. She is a Fellow and past President of the Industrial Designers Society of America, and an elected member ofthe Alliance Graphique International.


Article Contentsp. 3p. 4p. 5p. 6p. 7p. 8p. 9p. 10p. 11p. 12p. 13p. 14p. 15p. 16p. 17p. 18p. 19p. 20p. 21p. 22

Issue Table of ContentsDesign Quarterly, No. 148, The Evolution of American Typography (1990), pp. 1-65Front Matter [pp. 1-1]Editor's Notes [p. 2]American Graphic Design Expression [pp. 3-22]A Time Line of American Typography [pp. 23-54]Typography and Current Technologies [pp. 55-64]Back Matter [pp. 65-65]

katherine mccoy

Documents

inception of graphic

visual design

design quarterly

jstor terms

graphic designs

terms conditions of

amall use subject

jstor archive