CD Release Poster

CD Case

Herman Obrist

1. Krupp fountain in the courtyard of the Munich Kunstgewerbehaus, 1912

2. Fantasy, Composition with Roots,c. 1898, drawing

3. Sellete, forged iron, 41.7 x 15 x 15 in

So THIS is where H.R. Giger got his ideas. I think Giger took these Art Nouveau-ish design aesthetic, with the curvilinear/natural, symetrical forms, and threw all the crazy, morbid, occult, air-brushed imagery all over it. 

Paula Scher

1. Moleskin notebook

2. detail

3. Florida (part of map series), painting

4. Africa (map series), painting

Paula Scher is a grammy nominated graphic designer, who started out doing album covers for CBS Records and Atlantic. She moved on to magazine advertsing, then created her own firm, Koppel & Scher. She's now a principal at the NY office of the Pentagram Design Consultancy. 

The design work I saw on the internet is good, nice and dense, dynamic, exciting. But the large scale "Map" paintings are what's really get my attention. I'm really digging how she is jam-packing the composition with verbal information. What is at first seen as texture or details to a map turn out to be extreme details and information about the particular region, that doesn't just span topographical features, but delves into the political, economic, and cultural realms of the area as well. 

Jugend

From Jugendmagazine.net:

"Germany in the late 19th century.Jugend was a cultural weekly publication. It soon became a style-setting icon that launched the German art nouveau movement, named Jugendstil after the magazine.

Today, the word is still used by German graphic designers and by collectors who look for the uniquely German arts and crafts that came from this period."

(titles and dates for works unknown)

These lithographs are beautiful. One can see the proto-Art Nouveau style here, especially in Jugend cover image of the lady by the pond. The other two images are similar more in content and the use of curvilinear forms and emphasis on nature. Looking at these it is obvious these formed the basis for the all-out art nouveau explosions of artists like Mucha. 

Helvetica: Wim Crouwel

"Crouwels’s position of subjecting highly different appearances of art under the same typographic style would not be acceptable to some artists. But i also had to appreciate that transferring most different artistic trends and tem-peraments into typography might lead to a typographic chaos.”  - Eduard de Wilde

“When you're a functionalist you want to make things comprehensible, readable, make your ideas visible. I feel myself being a modernist, a functionalist, but aesthetics always stand in the way.” - Wim Crouwel

1. Vormgevers. 1968. poster, 95X64cm

2. Vormgevers, detail

3. Hussem en Bouthoom. 1961, poster

4. Gesel Van De Oorlog. poster.

From Crouwel's work I get a sense of uniformity and neutrality. Simple, straightforward designs that are easily read and assimilated. Beyond that I see this guy as a biiig influence on the whole American Apparel branch of the indie scene.

 

Movie Poster -- The Voodoo Tower