The Design Journal

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Grafică făra Computer (Graphics without

Computers)

Artemis Yagou

To cite this article: Artemis Yagou (2015) Grafică făra Computer (Graphics without Computers),
The Design Journal, 18:4, 613-620, DOI: 10.1080/14606925.2015.1109213

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2015.1109213

Published online: 06 Apr 2016.

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BOOK REVIEW
Grafică făra Comput-
er (Graphics without
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Computers)
40 Years of Modest Achievements. Volume
(1.) 2010. Colour illustrations.
Hardback ISBN 9789738892316.
Letters. Hand-drawn, Embossed, Volumet-
ric. Volume (2.) 2011. Colour illustrations.
Hardback ISBN 9789738892323.
Trademarks, Acronyms, Logos. Volume (3.)
2013. Colour illustrations.
Hardback ISBN 9789738892330.

The Design Journal  DOI: 10.1080/14606925.2015.1109213

Artemis Yagou

+
The title of this three-volume set on graphics from
Romania, ‘Graphics without Computers’, makes
a strong statement. It attracts attention, but, in its
ambiguity, is misleading for two reasons. First, the title might
be mistaken for a neo-Luddite message favouring hand-
made graphic production to that created with the use of
computers. This is not the case, as the title is simply a fac-
tual reference to a mode of graphic production before com-
puters were available. Second, the title’s emphasis on the
lack of computers obscures the fact that the graphic works
presented in the book were shaped less by the unavailability
of computers than by several other major absences: namely,
a lack of appropriate materials and production technologies,
and, above all, a lack of freedom. The impressive three-­
volume set is the outcome of an effort to record the graphic
legacy from Romania’s communist era (1948–1989).
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Figure 1
Stamp for the first anniversary of the creation of the Pioneers group, 1950.
Drawing by Nazarie Pavlin, © Muzeul National de Istorie a României (Romanian
National History Museum, Bucharest).

The first volume presents various forms of printed material, such

as posters, product labels, book covers, stamps and advertise-
ments; the second focuses on letterforms themselves, whether
hand-drawn, embossed or volumetric; and the third volume is ded-
icated to trademarks, logotypes and badges. The texts are bilingual
(Romanian and English) and all three volumes are lavishly illustrated,
containing altogether more than a thousand images – a real visual
feast! The main material is complemented by a very useful appendix
with a chronology of events, list of publishers, newspapers, journals,
and other sources. Additionally, the editors have developed the bi-
lingual website www.graphicfront.ro – which is a priceless resource,
especially as most relevant archives from the communist times were
destroyed after the fall of the regime.
Drawn in by the atmosphere of communist factories, ruins and
wastelands, the editors (graphics and communications specialists
and academics) have revisited their country’s past to collect and
study the visual heritage of those days, an initiative which led to this
valuable publication. The effort became more systematic, partly due
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to the realization that often high quality was produced, as well by the
inevitable comparison with graphic production in the present, when
the use of massively better tools often leads to mediocre results. At
the same time, the editors make a distinction between works ‘of a
more modest standard’ – those having a communicative, utilitarian
role – as opposed to graphic imagery of a higher artistic value (such
as book illustrations and cultural posters).
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Figure 2
Cover of the Scientific and Technical Annual, 1965, ©Atelierul de grafica
collection.

As a whole, the material presented offers an ideal case study in

how design – an activity considered by some to be inexorably linked
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to a free-market economy – can operate under a centrally planned

and highly controlled system. The first phase of the regime (1948–
1953) was defined by highly repressive measures and the imposition
of the Soviet (Stalinist) model. The second phase (1953–1965) wit-
nessed a certain relaxation of the communist regime and the gradual
de-Stalinization of Romanian society and culture, leading to the next
major phase of promotion of national values and an opening towards
615

the West (1965–1974). The final period (1974–1989) was charac-

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Figure 3
Poster for the International Festival of Popular Music, Braşov, Romania, 1969.
Designed by Armand Crintea, © Atelierul de grafica collection.

terized by the creation and enforcement of a cult surrounding the

regime, which came to an end in 1989 with the fall of communism
616

all over Eastern Europe.

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Figure 4
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Cover of sociolinguistics book, 1975. © Atelierul de grafica collection.

Writing at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the editors

state that the communist message, viewed from a distance, appears
as something ‘amusing, ridiculous and at times absurd.’ Viviana Ia-
cob claims in her essay that socialist realism was a representational
system meant to transform life, not just illustrate it. Images within
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Figure 5
‘Rāu’ (Wrong) poster, no date. © Atelierul de grafica collection.
The Design Journal

that system were glamorous, mythical representations creating a

horizon of expectations, a reality towards which everybody had to
work. As Călin Torsan notes, such material presented a constructed
reality and people were trying to find themselves in the typologies
they were presented with. The internalization of enforced optimism
(‘joy as a state policy’) by the local population was in a sense ben-
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 Book Review

eficial, as it offered a space in which the conditions of life could be

negotiated.
Soviet beliefs on culture (‘kulturnost’), together with other Stalinist
doctrines, were transferred to Romania as disciplinary prescriptions
for the masses and specified rules for every aspect of daily life. A
State-imposed and strictly regulated process promoted order, effi-
ciency, and vigour through innumerable instructions, directions, and
warnings. The aesthetic system that corresponded to this political
model consisted of images that were easy to read, elegant, serene,
and devoid of ambiguity or complexity. Numerous examples of sig-
nage from various public spaces as well as from workspaces are
presented, some of them the work of amateurs, as the State was
supporting such work and propagandized the creativity of the mass-
es. However, cultivation of originality was encouraged within a strict-
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ly prescribed framework. The book presents a proliferation of visual

clichés, like the star, the compass, the atom, various folk themes,
stylistic devices inspired by Russian constructivism, and imagery in
the style of social realism; according to Şerban Alexandrescu, most
of the work is precise but poorly executed, suffering under an ex-
cess of discipline. The results entail no risk, and no humour; they are
devoid of initiative – products of design that were in the end sterile.
Architecturally related work such as signage was so omnipresent,
dominant, and repressive that it ended up being invisible to people.
Through the third volume, such despised and neglected signage be-
comes a focus of attention, albeit not as functional artefacts but as
the subject of scholarship. What is significant to understand is how
the creators of these works made the best of the inhumane condi-
tions imposed upon them. But who was actually designing the sig-
nage? Alexandrescu answers that it was primarily created by archi-
tects, engineers and draughtsmen, i.e. those with a technical rather
than an artistic background, people he also describes as ‘techni-
cians’ retrained as ‘occasional graphic designers’. He compares
this phenomenon to a similar situation today: the appropriation of
graphic design by inappropriately trained individuals, thanks to the
computer tools widely available. This is a rather questionable com-
parison that might require further clarification and contextualization.
Most of the articles included in the three volumes have a personal
tone; they are emotionally loaded and echo the bitter, painful, and
life-defining experiences of the authors in communist Romania. To
the outsider, the accompanying texts exude a striking sincerity and
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humility – much needed values for the often over-hyped world of

graphic communication today. A particularity of the first volume is
that it includes several examples from other countries (Yugoslavia,
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Germany, France, Portugal, Estonia, Lat-
via, Norway, India, and Japan) in order to provide a comparative per-
spective, although this thread is not further developed and does not
lead to any concrete results. In any case, the multitude and variety of
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 Book Review

images offer a breath-taking resource, open to a range of analyses

from different disciplinary perspectives.
After the fall of communism, the State-controlled institutions
that commissioned and produced these works were discontinued
and their archives destroyed. Younger Romanian graphic design-
ers operating in the new democracy did not have access to these
reference works and followed a rather straightforward imitation of
Western aesthetic and production models. Knowledge of this visual
repository could be a great asset for young designers. To this point,
Alexandrescu claims that it is a professional obligation to know the
history of your profession, the ‘roots of your trade’. From anoth-
er perspective, I argue that it would be illuminating to analyse the
images as examples of creative professional practice in an environ-
ment defined by intense restrictions and severe shortages. Design-
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ers in communist Romania had to operate within a system that has

been defined by eminent Hungarian economist János Kornai as the
Shortage Economy1; limitations were obstacles to be overcome re-
sourcefully and creatively. In this highly diverse material, in the beau-
ty as well as in the weaknesses of the works presented, one can
identify the creativity, strength, and persistence of their co-creators:
the designers, consumers and users of graphic design in commu-
nist-era Romania.

Note
  1. János Kornai, Economics of Shortage, Amsterdam:
North-Holland, 1980.

Biography
Artemis Yagou (PhD) was born in Athens, Greece, and is currently
based in Munich, Germany, where she teaches at the Macromedia
University for Media and Communication. She is senior research-
er for the ERC (Horizon 2020) project ‘Luxury, Fashion and Social
Status in Early Modern South-Eastern Europe’. Her research inter-
ests include the uses of nationalism in design, design in relation to
technology, and the history of dress. Her book Fragile Innovation:
Episodes in Greek Design History (2011), explores the moderniza-
tion of Greece from a design history perspective. She is a member of
the Editorial Board of The Design Journal, the International Advisory
The Design Journal

Board of ThRAD, A Design Culture Journal, and Book Review Editor

of ICON, the journal of ICOHTEC. www.yagou.gr
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