Has the new era of contemporary

design deviated from the

influence of the traditional style
of design to create something
new or is it going in the same
direction?
Aim: I intend to show that the new era of contemporary design has deviated

from the influence of the more traditional design concepts.

Hypothesis: The new era of contemporary design has created a unique style of

design extremely different from the old traditional style of design.

Graphic design gives form to countless messages we see and read each day.

Designers use typefaces, colours, symbols, and images to broadcast visual

information and ideas. It shapes our experience of the world and the things

around us. The use of design in our modern world is very important as it touches

every aspect of our everyday life from the newspapers that we read to the way

our houses are designed. The art of design shapes and moulds the world around

us. It changes the way we perceive life in a way and contributes to our life

fulfilment. How has this changed over the centuries? And has the new generation

of contemporary artist drawn influences from the past or have they created

something new for our generation. I decided on this topic for my essay because I

am extremely fascinated by how great a role design plays in my life personal. I

will be looking at in more detail at how especially the use of typography has

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changed compared to earlier generations of contemporary graphic designers like

the Renaissance and the Bauhaus movement.

Saul Bass was not only one of the great graphic designers of the mid-20th

century but the undisputed master of film title design thanks to his

collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger and Martin Scorsese. His

work in the design industry will be forever recognised as one of the most

influential designers of all time. I will be comparing some of his great works with

the influential works from artist from the Bauhaus movement, which was a

school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for

the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to

1933. I will be comparing the works of these traditional designers with the

contemporary designers of our age like Dan Cole and Saul bass who is an

upcoming contemporary artist who involves typography in a lot of his works.

The question I have focused this study on is “Has the new era of

contemporary design deviated from the influence of the traditional style of

design to create something new or is it going in the same direction?” I

believe through this I will establish how the influence of the traditional style of

design influences this new age of contemporary artist/ designers and their work.

I hypostasise that the new generation has changed the style of design that was

passed down from the previous generation and created a New and modern style

of design.

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 Kurt schwitters was one of the most renowned figures of
the Bauhaus era. Which was a school in Germany that
combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for
the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It
operated from 1919 to 1933.One of his well know
Dadaist pieces was An Anna Blume, a poem written by
the Kurt Schwitters in 1919. This is the book cover for
the poem. It uses typography to its full extent. The
combination of text and line is used carefully making
sure not to tip the balance of text and line art on the
canvas. The influence of Dadaism is strong and
influences the use of elements on the canvas. There is
no apparent order to layout of the typo. Many Dadaist
believed the ideas of conformity and “bending to
society” led to war and strife in the world. A rejection of
all that is orderly and embracing chaos and irrational
thinking led to the birth of Dadaism, this ideology reflects the use of text
with its with its tilted angles and irregular fonts and designs that
borderline on chaos and irregularity on the canvas representing
everything that Dadaism stands for. The use of different mediums in the
printing process also contributes to this effect, the piece is a mixture of
print and hand drawn text, the text is illustrated in three different styles
again going back to this theory of chaos. The use of colour is somewhat
more traditional and natural with print designs in that period with only the
use of two colours it makes the piece very plain but serves the purpose of
the cover which is to convey information about the book to the reader,
and does this with a differentiation of the colour between the background
info and the main information in my opinion. With the main title coloured
in red it jumps out the background. This use of colour, composition and

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most importantly typography certainly influenced the way future artist
and designers saw and dealt with text.

The graphic designer Saul Bass is one of the most renowned

designers of his time. He was the master mind behind some
timeless corporate logos like AT&T, Dixie, and Girl Scouts of the
USA and other well know corporate identities, however it is his work in film
posters that I will be looking at in his period.

In this poster for the movie “Vertigo” by Alfred Hitchcock i

will be looking at the use of typography in this poster and
how it conveys its message as every successful design
should in my opinion. The film vertigo was about two people
behaving in two different people behaving in two different
ways in the two halves of the movie. The duality gave Saul
bass the context. He was asked to design a poster that
enticed the audience .The font used in this poster can be
described as nervous, sometimes the strokes are too long or
too short. The emphasises is certainly on the male figure, he
is the focal point in the posters, he stands out while the
female almost seems to blend into the background and is
very easy to miss. The story focuses on James steward’s
character. Looking at the poster the audience are given a lot of visual
information to consider, like the mood of the film through the use of colour. Red
as the background suggests a thriller or something dark.

The simplistic design of the poster resembles the design style of the Bauhaus
movement; it is no coincidence Saul bass was taught by one of the Bauhaus
designers Gyorgy Kepes. (October 4, 1906 – December 29, 2001) he was a
Hungarian-born painter, designer, educator and art theorist. After emigrating to
the U.S. in 1937, he taught design at the New Bauhaus , later the School of
Design, then Institute of Design then Illinois Institute of Design or IIT) in Chicago
where Saul Bass studied.

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The simplicity and the combination of craft and art in this poster screams
Bauhaus, with its hand crafted text combined with the theory and composition of
art allows it to be closely related with the Bauhaus philosophy which was
combining the teaching of the pure arts with the study of crafts.

Tom whalen is a contemporary graphic designer

/ illustrator famous for his use of modern
technology to create transcription of classic
posters such as the wizard of oz and the
shinning. I will be reviewing his transcription of
the movie poster “dawn of the dead”.

Line

The use of simple but effective line

work

Form

Composition

The composition of the various

elements like the text graphics
displayed in this poster resembles the
design style of the Bauhaus movement with their slanted texts
composition and abnormal image angles. This goes further in proving my
point of how recent design styles are being heavily influenced by more
traditional design practices and theories.

Colour

There are only two colours involved in the designing of this poster, this is
a common feature of all whalens posters, and he keeps the use of colour
to a minimal which helps the audience focus more by allowing audience
focus more by allowing them absorb the information available more
potently .

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Content matter

Material

Content idea

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