Art and Design – High or Low

by admin | Sep 13, 2015 | Artists & Designers

Assignment Four

Select a current artist and designer and relate the process and design format for each. Compare and contrast the process and style to each other please use distinct historical references. Since this class is based on visual references particular attention is paid to composition and format. Students are asked to review and select these artists and designers from a modern style – 1930s to 1980s and from a post modernist style – 1980s to present. A supplemental reading is prescribed, typically one that deals with the concepts of “high” and “low” art. The student is asked to identify each selected work as “high” or “low” art and to contrast and compare the work as it pertains to its communicative ability within its historical context and its reach and interaction towards a combination of art or design. Students are then asked to critique the work from the prescribed design vocabulary and to write to that fact within their papers. A formal presentation is done to expose the class to a wider range of artists and designers.

Paper 4 Outline

Artists and Designers

This assignment is focused on showing the similarities and differences between a specific artist and a designer. In some cases the two worked at the same time and in other cases they were offset by decades.

The images will be discussed as they pertain to the Elements, Principles and Components of Design and how successfully they used these to communicate the concept and substance of the work.

David Carson – Dada Typography
Comic Book – Roy Lichtenstein
Stefan Sagmeister – Andy Goldsworthy
Paula Scher – Paula Scher
Milton Glaser – early Picasso
Alexey Brodovitch – Robert Motherwell
Dan Wieden – Andy Warhol
April Greiman – Heartsfeld
Aaron Draplin – Coats of Arms
Chuck Anderson – Larry Poons (early work)
Chip Kidd – Fernand Leger
Supreme branding – Barbara Kruger
Erik Marinovich – Toulouse Lautrec
Violaine & Jeremy – Albrecht Durer
Louise Fili – Gustav Klimt

Elements

Line –

Shape –

Space – Illusion, Implied, Actual and Pictorial

Texture/Tone –

Color –

Principles

Balance – Symmetrical/Asymmetrical

Rhythm –

Unity/Variety –

Proportion/Scale –

Emphasis –

Components

Dominant –

Subdominant –

Focal Point –

Motion –

Counter Motion –

Henri Émile Benoît Matisse was a French artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter.^[1] Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts throughout the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture.

Analyze Matisse’s work via Elements, Principles and Components of Design.

Element	Usage
Line	minimal line is used – primarily full shapes
Shape	shape is the primary element used to define the image/message
Space – Illusion, Implied, Actual and Pictorial –	Pictorial space is used primarily as that the image fills the plane and only minimally goes off of the plane
Texture/Tone	the tone is flat with no sense of volume or gradation
Color	mostly monochromatic or analogous only using contrast to access the focal points

Principles	Usage
Balance – Symmetrical/Asymmetrical	Mainly asymmetrical balance
Rhythm	Confined tight – used mainly with green squares
Unity/Variety	Very unified – variety used for emphasis – gathering into one shape
Proportion or Scale	Mainly in proportion but scale used to emphasize dominance
Emphasis	Color and shape changed used to create focal point

Components	Usage
Dominant –	Used via body shapes and common color
Subdominant –	Smaller star-like shapes and different body parts
Focal Point –	Red shape in center of body
Motion –	Mainly circular moving towards viewer
Counter Motion –	Large red bar behind flower-like object

Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum; August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) was an American art director and graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, UPS, Enron, Morningstar, Inc., Westinghouse, ABC, and NeXT. He was one of the first American commercial artists to embrace and practice the Swiss Style of graphic design.

Rand was a professor emeritus of graphic design at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut where he taught from 1956 to 1969, and from 1974 to 1985. He was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972.

Analyze Rand’s work via Elements, Principles and Components of Design.

Element	Usage
Line	minimal line is used – primarily full shapes
Shape	shape is the primary element used to define the image/message
Space – Illusion, Implied, Actual and Pictorial –	Pictorial space is used primarily as that the image fills the plane but in some go off of the plane for emphasis
Texture/Tone	the tone is flat with no sense of volume or gradation
Color	mostly monochromatic or analogous only using contrast to access the focal points – also using tone to establish unity in background elements

Principles	Usage
Balance – Symmetrical/Asymmetrical	Mainly asymmetrical balance
Rhythm	Starts to move randomly – used mainly with purple squares
Unity/Variety	Very unified – variety used for emphasis – supporting main complimentary shape
Proportion or Scale	Mainly in proportion but scale is used to emphasize dominance and to create rhythm
Emphasis	Color and shape changed used to create focal point

Components	Usage
Dominant –	Used via body shapes and common color
Subdominant –	Smaller star-like shapes and different body parts
Focal Point –	Red shape in center of body
Motion –	Mainly circular moving towards viewer
Counter Motion –	Large red bar behind flower-like object