Icons of Modernism in American Illustration and advertising Paul Rand Saul Bass Ivan Chermayeff

N. C Wyeth, Howard Pyle Masters of this style of illustration were N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle with very strong composition and heroic rendering.

Milton Glaser Most editorial illustration in the US for the first 3/4 of the century wass very narrative

-t Paul Rand Paul Rand studied European Modern Art - cubism and surrealism - and brought modernists techniques (such as collage) and modernist approaches to pictorial space to American advertising. - t modernist Influences opics

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- t Visual systems opics - t Paul Rand opics As the material furnished him is often inadequate, vague, uninteresting, or otherwise unsuitable for visual interpretation, the designer’s task is to restate the problem. This may involve discarding or revising much of the given material. By analysis (breaking down of the complex material into its simplest components—the how, why, when, and where) the designer is able to begin to state the problem.

- - t Paul Rand opics One hallmark of Rand’s design is the combination of symbols and abstract shapes to construct more complex messages. He translated ideas very literally into simple, easy to recognize shapes, using the simple colors and deceptively-simple renderings to soften the aggressive implications of the concept.

Paul Rand Combination of Word and image Turns images and forms into symbols by simplifying, juxtaposing and manipulating the context - t Visual systems opics - t Paul Rand opics

One of his more powerful recontextualizing of motifs: The barbed wire becomes both a package ribbon and a cross, the tag implies both package and dog-tags/toe tag, the red spots blood spatters and confetti, The sum of this is a powerful and complex amalgam of meanings in the magazine cover for December t - t Paul Rand opics

- t Visual systems opics - t Paul Rand opics

- t Visual systems opics - t Paul Rand opics Producers of advertising have discovered the value of audience participation. Collage and montage permit the integration of seemingly unrelated objects or ideas in a single picture; they enable the designer to indicate simultaneous events or scenes which by more conventional methods would result in a series of isolated pictures. … In one sense montage and collage are integrated visual arrangements in space, and in another sense, they are absorbing visual tests that the spectator may perceive and decipher for himself. He may thus participate directly in the creative process. Paul Rand, a designer’s art

Film poster: Vertigo 1958 Saul Bass

Film poster: Vertigo 1958 Saul Bass

Identity Systems Film poster: Exodus 1961 Saul Bass

Identity Systems Film posters and scene from Psycho Saul Bass

Ivan Chermeyeff :

George Lois