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American Graphic Design ExpressionAuthor(s): Katherine
McCoySource: Design Quarterly, No. 148, The Evolution of American
Typography (1990), pp. 3-22Published by: Walker Art CenterStable
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4091231 .Accessed: 17/07/2014
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American Graphic Design Expression 3
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4
Katherine McCoy
Is graphic design an art, a science, a business, or a craft?
Since the inception of graphic design in the United States, each of
these distinct identities has held sway at one time. But in today's
practice, these classifications may exist side by side in a variety
of projects, or they may combine to form a duality, for example, as
craft and business or science and art. This identity crisis is
reenforced by the lack of agree- ment on a name for the field:
graphic design, visual communications, and visual design are all in
current use, as are a variety of archaic terms, including the
earliest and now generally disdained commercial art. Unlike its
venerable cousin architecture, graphic design is a relatively new
expression, a phenomenon of the last hundred years. A spontane- ous
response to the communication needs of the industrial revolution,
graphic design was employed to sell the fruits of mass production
to growing consumer societies in Europe and North America in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rapidly expanding
reproduction technologies provided the means for graphic
design's
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John Baskerville Juvenal and Perslus: Satyrae 1761 page
letterpress
F.T. Marinetti Apres la mamne, Joffre visita le front en auto
1915 broadside letterpress
Except where noted, all works Illustrated are offset
lithographs.
participation in the vast economic, political, technological,
and social changes of that era. But the roots of American graphic
design lie in European type cutting and book printing. These
precursors to the profession came to America as part of our
European cultural inheri- tance. From the invention of movable type
in the early Renaissance to the twentieth century, bookmaking,
typesetting, and type design were the elements of an integrated
craft and industry centered in publish- ing houses. This long
tradition approached typography and book de- sign as the visual
presentation of verbal language, with a premium placed, on clarity
and legibility. Decisions in type design emphasized clarity over
expression, relying on the words themselves for the expression of
content. Although letterforms were often inherently expressive,
typog- raphy was neutral to the message and made no attempt to be
interpre- tive. Craft was highly valued and books developed
increasing elegance and refinement as the years progressed,
codifying this classical book approach into the standardized
traditional text format that continues as the standard of book text
today. However artful the book design, the element of function
relegated this activity to the status of craft rather than art. The
predominance of text made this tradition largely a verbal language
expression and illustra- tional imagery was used sparingly in early
books, largely because of technical limitations. When used, it
represented literal phenomena and rarely mixed with the text or
headline typography. Interpretive sym- bolic imagery was left to
"high art," in which for centuries painters have employed whole
vocabularies of nonverbal symbols to convey meaning. Their
audiences were able to decode meaning through learned associations,
the result of shared cultural experience. It was not until the
early twentieth century that meaning was embed- ded in visual
typographic form. The revolutionary artists of Futurism, Dada,
Constructivism, and De Stijl turned their attention to textual-
visual communications as well as the more traditional areas of
art,
5
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Aleksandr Rodchenko L'Art Decoratif U.R.S.S. Moscou-Paris 1925
catalogue cover letterpress Collection Merrill C. Berman
Joost Schmidt Ausstellung Bauhaus 1923 poster Collection Merrill
C. Berman
6
vlsual / / verbal
intuitive rational wholistic | / \ linear
simultaneous , \\ sequential
|IMAGE ||TEXT |
rejecting the inherited, arbitrary divisions between the fine
and ap- plied arts. Functional expression became an integral part
of the self- expressive goals of art, and use was not viewed as the
enemy of art. In particular, the Russian Constructivists retained
their identities as art- ists even as they took on the role of
public communicators for the Russian Revolution. In Germany, the
Bauhaus unified art, craft, and design with a coherent philosophy
and sense of identity. These European revolutionaries explored new
approaches to structur- ing language and imagery that were radical
rejections of the classical text tradition. Their visual poetry
used typographic forms and compo- sition to interpret and extend
the meaning of words. One does not have to read Italian to gain an
appreciation of the Futurists' energetic cele- brations of industry
and political confrontation. Typography became an expressive visual
language as well as a verbal one. This visual-verbal dichotomy can
be understood through a simple dia- gram that charts the process
(in the Western humanist tradition) of the acquisition of meaning.
Seeing and reading are two modes through which we traditionally
think of receiving messages. Image and text are two carriers of
those messages. Typically we think of seeing as a visual process
connected with images-we see the landscape, we see a paint- ing.
This process is intuitive, emotional, and simultaneous, experienced
almost involuntarily. Upon encountering a vivid color photograph of
a fire, a viewer might immediately sense fear and heat with little
need to conceptualize. Or an image of a nude figure might stimulate
sexual feelings instantly and involuntarily. Although associations
gained through life experience influence this process, it is
predominantly a direct experiential one, related to the
philosophical theories of phe- nomenology. On the other hand, the
process of reading is typically connected with the verbal process
of decoding text's written language signs-letters. To do this, one
must know the code. One must have learned to read
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the particular language of the message. This process is
cerebral, ra- tional, deliberate, and linear. If one does not
carefully link the proper sequence of signs, one cannot decode the
message. Linguistics, Struc- turalist philosophy and
Poststructuralism deal with these language dynamics. In addition,
there are two other linkages possible between seeing and reading
and image and text. The early Modernists discovered that text can
be seen as well as read, as the Futurists' experimental poetry
proved. And images can be read. The Neolithic cave painters at
Lascaux knew this, as have most painters throughout history. This
process has been reconfirmed by the Surrealists, by graphic
designers since the 1930s, and more recently by artists and
photographers dealing with text- image relationships. How artists,
designers, or craftsmen define themselves has much to do with their
use of these text-image processes. Nineteenth-century book
designer-printers dealt largely with the reading of text, and
aligned themselves with the verbal side of language. Many early
Modernists saw themselves as integrated creators of communications,
balancing the identities of artist, designer, businessman, and
craftsman, explor- ing all four modes. American book
designer-printers continued the European classical non-
interpretive traditions with extremely literal presentations of
both imagery and text. But with a public that was increasingly
literate, print- ers' activities broadened to include early
manifestations of the mass media: political and commercial
handbills in the late eighteenth cen- tury and newspaper
advertising, popular magazines, advertising cards, and posters in
the late nineteenth century. These required headline- scaled
typefaces and by the Victorian years a great multiplicity of orna-
mental faces had been born and American wood type was developed as
an inexpensive and accessible means of embellishment for popular
communications. This decorative expression spoke with a louder
voice than traditional text, making the reader's experience far
more visual. Yet this larger scale typography contained no coding
in its visual form; the process remained one of reading text.
Advertising, magazines, and posters of the late nineteenth century
stimulated a new and growing field of illustration. These
illustrators rendered highly artful literal depictions of objects,
scenes, and narra- tives with growing skill, using rapidly evolving
reproduction processes. But they employed little symbolism. And
because they served the tainted world of commerce rather than
practicing "serious" art, these first "com- mercial" artists were
relegated to the servant class, despite their large public
followings. American graphic design was finally born out of two new
factors. As the twentieth century got underway, an explosion of new
reproduction technologies stimulated specialization, separating
conception and form giving from the technical production activities
of typesetting and
7
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8
Robert Wildhack Scrlbner's March 1907 poster Collection Victoria
and Albert Museum, London
Herbert Bayer PM6, 2 cover
December 1939-January 1940 ? 1940 PM Publishing Company, New
York
K. Lonberg-Holm and Ladislav Sutnar Catalog Design Progress 1950
Published by Sweet's Catalog Service, New York
5CR jBNEF`CE
printing. Simultaneously the United States received its first
wave of European e6migre6 designers, a migration that reached its
height in the 1930s. They understood design as a balanced process
involving the powerful multiple modes of seeing and reading, and
sensed the possi- bility of theory and method as guiding the
creative process-the first rudimentary seeds of professi'onalism.
These designers, including Herbert Bayer, Ladislav Sutnar, Will
Burtin, L -aszlo6 Moholy-Nagy, and Herbert Matter, brought with
them Modernism's dual paths of ambi- guity and objectivity. They
shared an interest in ambiguity and the unconscious with new works
of visual art, literature, and psychology. Interpretive typography
and asymmetrical compositions seemed more appropriate in a new
world in which the old ways were rapidly disap- pearing. Surrealism
offered symbolic forms of conceptual communica- tion that went
beyond the power of the word. Therefore, these Euro- pean designers
continued early Modernism's exploration of abstrac- tion and
dynamic composition. On the other hand, they believed that
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CA
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Helmut Krone for Doyle Dane Bembach's groundbreaking ad campaign
for Volkswagen 1968-1980s Courtesy DDB Needham Worldwide Inc., New
York and Volkswagen United States Inc., Troy, Michigan
rationalism and objectivity were appropriate for a new world
ordered by commerce and industry and they persuaded their clients
in the United States to minimize advertising copy into brief
essential state- ments, instead of using the text-heavy literal
description favored in earlier American advertising. Rudimentary
ideas of systematic problem solving and composition were offered by
such designers as Sutnar and Albert Kner. The role of the designer
became that of a highly skilled interpreter of messages, a far more
authoritative stance than the one taken by a hireling who follows
the dictates of an autocratic client. Interpretation was central to
the idea of communication. Systematic rationalism drew on science,
while inventive compositions and symbolic interpretation related to
art, bal- ancing the identity between art, science, craft, and
business. These emigres had a tremendous impact on a number of
young Ameri- can designers who grew into maturity in the 1950s,
developing new ap- proaches to composition, photography, and
text-image relationships. Many of their discoveries formed the
basis of the so-called "big idea" method of conceptualizing design
solutions, which placed a premium on the flash of intuition and the
individual designer's creativity-the ah ha! method of problem
solving. Centered in New York in the 1950s and 1960s, this
individualistic process idealized the creative genius symbolized by
the maverick designer working in his studio. (Ralph Caplan has
reproached designers for their willingness to play the role of the
"exotic menial"-the brilliant individual serving the needs of
clients, but a servant nonetheless.) The intuitive, conceptual "big
idea" method became a uniquely Ameri- can expression, exemplified
by Doyle Dane Bernbach's classic Volkswagen Beetle series, which
created intelligent, clever intexplays between verbal and visual
concepts. Short ironic conversational head- lines that came out of
American wit and vernacular speech were juxta- posed with
provocative images, drawing on the lessons of Surrealism.
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10
Emil Ruder die Zeitung (The Newspaper) 1958 letterpress
Collection Gerwerbemuseum, Basel, Switzerland
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon calendar for the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art May 1971 Collection the designer
dle
,eitlng
Unexpected combinations of images and contexts created ambiguity
and surprise. This "picture is worth a thousand words" semantic
approach maximized the process of reading text and image simultane-
ously. Little attention was placed on page structure or systematic
organization. Unfortunately, many designers today associate this
ap- proach with advertising's commercialism and fail to take
advantage of the power inherent in the image-copy concept method.
As this highly successful form of advertising began to dominate
Ameri- can visual communications, the first wave of Swiss design
thinking and form arrived on the American scene. First transmitted
in the early 1960s through a few design magazines and books-Graphis
and the writings of Josef Muller-Brockmann, Karl Gerstner, Armin
Hofmann, and Emil Ruder-a few young American designers began to
assimilate these ideas, and in the mid-1960s, a number of
professional design offices began to practice these ideas to solve
the needs of large corporate clients in Holland, England, Canada,
and the United States. A number of
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corporations and institutions including Container Corporation,
Ciba-Geigy, Herman Miller, IBM, and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology adopted this method and aesthetic. Eventually American
corporate culture adopted Swiss design as the ideal corporate
style. What was originally very difficult to sell to business
clients is very difficult to avoid today. This graphic aesthetic
and method was the second wave of European Modernism to influence
American designers. The antithesis of the "big idea" approach, it
is based on an assumption of Modernist rational method, a codified
approach that is not entirely dependent on the indi- vidualistic
inspiration and talent of the designer. This had a profoundly
professionalizing influence on American graphic design practice,
fur- ther replacing the commercial artist's servant image with that
of a dis- ciplined, educated professional. As this method
influenced the field, graphic design began to split apart from
advertising design, a significant division that persists today. The
classic Swiss method prescribed an ordered process rather than the
genius of inspiration, and promised far more dependable, however
predictable, results. It assumed a rational systems process based
on semi-scientific analysis and problem solving. The goal was the
objec- tive (dead serious) presentation of information, rather than
the subjec- tive expression of an attitude, emotion, or humor.
Swiss suited the cor- porate demand for factual accuracy-the
perfect style for an annual report-while the big idea was more
appropriate to advertising's per- suasive goals. Swiss tended to
rely on representational photography and minimalist typography,
while the big idea was far more image-ori- ented, employing
illustration and symbolic photography. Swiss graphic expression
stressed the syntactic grammar of graphic design with struc- tured
grids and typographic relationships. This form of Modernism ne-
glected some of early Modernism's discoveries with visually
expressive typography and surrealistic imagery. For the most part,
classic Swiss typography was meant to be read and its imagery to be
seen only in the conventional modes. Semiotics, the science of
signs in visual language, was a theory explored in the 1960s in
Europe, especially at the Ulm school in Germany. This scientific
approach to the analysis of meaning in communications was very
compatible with the rationality of the Swiss method. Promising an
alternative to intuitive design, semiotic theory began to inform
the work of some American adherents to the Swiss idea. Although
this difficult and complex theory was inadequately understood, its
"scientific" flavor reinforced the objective tone of Swiss design
and the idea that graphic design was more than a personal art form.
Semiotics became the first codified theory of graphic design, a
major step in the evolution to pro- fessionalism. As the
Italian-American designer Massimo Vignelli has so often reminded
us, theory as well as history and criticism constitute the
essential trinity that distinguishes a profession from a craft or
trade.
11
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12
Wolfgang Welngart Das Schweizer Plakat 1900-1984 (The Swiss
Poster 1900-1984) 1984 poster Collection Walker Art Center
Dan Friedman Typograflsche Monatsblatter (TM) cover no. 1,
January 1971 Published by Schweizerischen Typografenbund zur
Fbrderung der Berufsbildung
This first wave of Swiss was strongly identified with the Zurich
designers M'uller-Brockmann and Gertsner who were applying Bauhaus
ideals. Their strict minimalist codified expression of functional
mes- sages may be described as Classic Modernism. No sooner had the
Zurich Swiss become established in the United States than a second
more mannered formn of Swiss developed that could be called Late
Modern- ism. Work from the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel was far more
experi- mental and complex than its forebear. Coming from a school
where students and faculty had the luxury of time and a desire for
experimen- tation,, many rules were broken and sensibilities were
developed to a high level of refinement and complexity. The
irreverent Wolfgang Weingart rebelled against the minimalism of his
predecessor, Emil Ruder, and in the late 1960s he initiated a body
of work with his stu- dents that pushed early Modernism's
Constructivist experiments to their logical extremes. Enlarging on
the earlier Swiss issues of struc- ture and composition, he
explored increasingly complex grids and
W:e~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TM " ' SIP~
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Tost-Modern Typography. Recent American Developments' represent
a survey of recent visual
design that usem typography not only to lafoor but to egoesag -
type that explaina
an ide and in
:Men almost visually beeoms Ui the idea.
It is the firset aho of its kind to depict a body of work
in which the typography is o c e n t isteaded to go beyoo- _thl
utter fEwtLolit n cn
of msodern typography to an
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typography in experimental compositions that became quite
painterly. Yet the typographic play was mainly about the grammar of
typography, and neglected semantic expression. This highly formal
work may be la- beled Baroque or Mannerist Modernism. The Basel
school's faculty began to come to the United States in the late
1960s to lecture and teach, and in the early 1970s knowledgeable
young Americans began to migrate to Basel for postgraduate training
in graphic design. By the mid-1970s some of this complexity began
to embellish American-Swiss design in the form of bars and rules
and a playful mixing of type sizes, weights, and faces in an
essentially formal- ist agenda, sometimes humorously called "type
and stripe." As classical Swiss discipline was gaining followers
and even before Basel became an influence, Robert Venturi shook the
cultural scene with his 1965 polemical treatise, Complexity and
Contradiction in Architecture. Although most graphic designers
remained unaware of his premises for many years-and many may not
yet realize his profound influence-
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Wilbum Bonnell Post-Modem Typography: Recent Movements 1975
poster Published by the Ryder Gallery, Chicago Collection Katherine
McCoy
Ken Hiebert Agricultural Development In Bangladesh 1974 poster
Published by the Mennonite Central Committee Information Services,
Akron, Pennsylvania Collection the designer
The Museum of Modem Art Papers on Architecture: Complexity and
Contradiction In Architecture by Rober Venturi Published by The
Museum of Modern Art, New York 1966
13
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14
Milton Glaser The Push Pin Monthly Graphic. No. 19 cover
? 1959 by The Pushpin Studios, New York Collection Ron Rae
_.~E
Photograph courtesy Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown,
Philadelphia
his challenges to Modernist dogma sent shock waves rippling
through the architecture and design worlds, stimulating new work
that came to be called "Postmodern." His arguments in favor of
historical pre-mod- em architectural forms and crudely energetic
commercial American vernaculars eventually contributed to a new
phase of American graphic design. The emergence of a graphic design
history in the 1970s dovetailed with Venturi's rediscovery of
pre-modern design. The recognition that graphic design had a
history was a definite sign of maturation. Until then graphic
designers felt that they were still inventing the discipline. The
field seemed completely new-without a history-a premise supported
by the Bauhaus ideal of constant newness. The first books and
conferences on design history provided a banquet of historical
forms for designers. The results ranged from historical homage, ap-
propriation, and quotation to eclecticism, imitation, and outright
cannibalism.
re11: Ft"." r?1 ( 3 ;. mlIlItTlSX
But Pushpin Studios of the 1960s created a highly popular design
stream paralleling American-Swiss design; they already knew about
the pleas- ures of history. This New York studio's sophisticated
eclecticism re- vived, exploited, imitated, and occasionally
parodied decades of de- sign styles, but with an essential
difference of intention from the more academic Postmodern
sensibility. Pushpin pursued a hedonistic "if it feels good, do it"
free borrowing from history's nostalgia, with essen- tially the
same intention as the Victorian eclecticism they so often imitated.
Postmodernism's historicism was a more intellectualized self-
conscious critique of history. Venturi, a professor as well as a
practic- ing architect, applied a semiotic analysis to historical
and vernacular styles, interpreting form as a language invested
with cultural meaning. Buildings were si'gns meant to be read.
Popular culture vernacu~~~~~~las hitoy an th Basel scoo' Maneis
Modernism~~~~~~~, cam toete in th mi-90 tocet_ e,hgl
formal expression most often called New Wave graphic design.
Bored__ _,-
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April Greiman advertisement for China Club 1979 Collection the
designer
with the rigidity and minimalism of corporate American-Swiss
design, American designers began to experiment. Starting from a
modernist foundation, they began to dissect, multiply, or ignore
the grid and to explore new spatial compositions, introducing
complexity and pattern, and frankly nonfunctional design elements.
Hand-drawn gestures and vernacular "bad taste" were artfully
introduced into highly aestheti- cized, layered compositions. This
expression was still strongly linked with Modernism's interest in
syntax and structural expressionism, al- though by now it was
personal and hedonistic rather than impersonal and informational.
The typography shared Basel's visual complexity and was mainly
expressive of itself with little semantically-encoded sym- bolic
meaning. The use of American vernaculars was also mainly a for- mal
borrowing of popular forms with little of Venturi's understanding
of context or intention. But it was a lot more fun than classical
Swiss, and New Wave quickly became an accepted graphic form. Just
as Modernism's classic Swiss, this new style too was accepted in
the busi- ness arena and is used today in a wide variety of
corporate applica- tions. In fact it is so accepted that the
historian Philip Meggs calls it the New Academy, as prescribed a
method as the Beaux Arts school of nineteenth-century French
architecture. Although often described as Postmodern, this phase
may be more correctly called decadent American Modernism. New
Wave's graphic Postmodernism is essentially formalist with a rather
minor involve- ment with content-content being more a jumping off
point for graphic celebrations of style than the core of the
matter. Certainly the "big idea" school of earlier years was far
more dedicated to the communi- cation of content. In fine art, a
more profound aspect of Postmoder- nism has emerged as a body of
self-conscious critical theory and expression. In fact, in much
Postmodern art, photography, and music the central expression is a
critique of our accumulated body of culture. Appropriation and
pastiche recycle our experience in highly
15
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16
Jeff Koons A Project for Artforum: Baptism November 1987 spread
? 1987 Artforum International Magazine, Inc.
to X
referential work that owes everything to what has gone before.
All this has its roots in Structuralist semiotics of the 1960s, as
well as in Venturi's ideas. Although semiotics never became a
practical design method, it and Structuralism's successor,
Poststructuralism, have provided a method of expression for the
visual arts and graphic design. Coming out of literary theory,
visual phenomena are analyzed as language encoded with meaning. In
order to discover meaning, language is "de- constructed," exposing
its underlying power and the manipulation of its form. Graphic
design is now seen as a visual language. Its audience is ap-
proached as readers as well as viewers. In the best of this new
design, content is once again at center stage. Images are to be
read and inter- preted, as well as seen; typography is to be seen
as well as read. Pro- vocative narratives exploit the power of
familiar cliches, vernacular ty- pography, and closeknit text-image
connections, but with a visual- compositional interaction as well
as a conceptual-verbal one. The best new work draws on the formal
lessons of Basel and New Wave while drawing on all four
seeing-reading-text-image modes simultaneously in powerful
conceptual expressions. There are layers of meaning as well as
layers of form. This work has an intellectual rigor that demands
effort of the audi- ence, but also rewards the audience with
content and participation. The audience must make individual
interpretations in graphic design that "decenter" the message.
Designs provoke a range of interpreta- tions, based on
Deconstruction's contention that meaning is inherently unstable and
that objectivity is an impossibility, a myth promulgated to control
the audience. Graphic designers have become dissatisfied with the
obedient delivery of the client's message. Many are taking the role
of interpreter, a giant step beyond the problem-solving tradi-
tion. By authoring additional content and a self-conscious critique
of the message, they are adopting roles associated with both art
and
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10:19:18 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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Rick Valicenti, Thirst Legends Color 1989 Published by Legends
Co., Chicago Collection the designer
Jeffrey Keedy postcard for California Institute of the Arts,
Valencia, California 1988 Collection Katherine McCoy
T?ReSlft,lgrJ C H A N C E J_ , ..4rh, -d R I S K w,
b ~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. ...
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rrause #1 were .1C. 'Oum e r is CHANCE WSEVENSLS " ourelr.
.~~~~~~~~~~ I ! I - I I t - r .1 .r-* : 1. 7 f S * t : r t I
R W%LnISK, TAKER myNV PARINERING YOUR RETAIL U OUR MANuFAcTuRING
RISKt TAKERr SKI SIS WE CAN DO BUSINESS MORE EPFICIENTLY A
PROFITABSY THANU EER BKFORE.*3 yV SESING EACN OTNERS
* * E N TR P RE Nf R L SP I a i T ACREA T I E IN S t INCTS. WE ;
L. BREAK tW GROUN &SETN EW STANAROS FOR
C H A N C E TNK APPAREL iNUSIRY* WE' YE ALL TAKEN A SKANC, THE
RIEK SE EXCITINO & THE PO6SIEUTBE AR EW
literature. Gone are the commercial artist's servant role and
the Swiss designer's transparent neutrality. Wit, humor, and irony
are reappear- ing in irreverent and sometimes self-deprecating
pieces that often speak directly to the reader in the second person
plural, often with multiple voices. Auditory typography speaks with
a tone of voice and mixes image and letter in rebuslike sentences.
Venturi's view of history and ver- nacular as symbolic languages is
finally being explored in graphic de- sign. Forms are appropriated
with a critical awareness of their original meaning and
context.
of the Art /& '* w., '
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Edward Fella Phillip Fike & Bill Rauhauser 1987 exhibition
announcement The Detroit Artists Market, Detroit, Michigan
Collection Katherine McCoy
2 Alexander Isley and Tibor Kalman, M&Co. advertisement for
Restaurant Florent, New York 1983 Collection M&Co.
3 Tlbor Kalman and Marlene McCarty, M&Co. Strange
Attractors: Signs of Chaos exhibition catalogue 1989 Published by
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York Collection
M&CO.
4 Alexander Isley, Tibor Kalman, and Florent Morellet, M&Co.
postcard for Restaurant Florent, New York 1983 Collection
M&Co.
.A :M=- iI ON vlo, _s
rejection of refinement in graphic form vernacular cliche
critical use of vernacular trash
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DIN TUIEUTION
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1 David Frej, Influx business card for Design Logic, Chicago
1988 Collection Katherine McCoy
2 Frankfurt Gips Balkind Time Warner Inc. 1989 Annual Report
spread Published by Time Warner Inc., New York Collection Katherine
McCoy
3 Allen Horl type specimen book for The Typocraft Company,
Detroit, Michigan 1989 cover
Collection Katherine McCoy
critical use of vernacular typography use of Image as word
contextual use of vernacular forms
19
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20
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2
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A. GRE THING .E.....tA ....... .
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Scott Santoro announcement poster for Valentines Day Party,
Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 1988
silkscreen Collection the designer
2 David Frej See Everything 1987 poster silkscreen Collection
Katherine McCoy
3 Edward Fella Christmas greeting card 1988 Collection the
designer
4 P. Scott Makela and Laurie Haycock Sex Goddess 1989 poster
Collection the designers
visual pun multiple interpretation multiple reading unstable
meaning / multiple Interpretation
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10:19:18 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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-
22
This new work challenges its audience to slow down and read
carefully in a world of fast forward and instant replay, USA Today,
and sound bites. The emphasis is on audience interpretation and the
construction of meaning; it goes beyond raw data to the reception
of messages. This direction seems aligned to our times and
technology, as we enter an era of complex global pluralism. Desktop
publishing is placing the produc- tion of low-end print
communications in the hands of office workers and
paraprofessionals. Even the simplest corporate report is now
typeset and formatted, raising the visual expectations of our
audiences. Thus there is a new demand for highly personal,
interpretive, and eccentric design expressions. The new interest in
the personal content of graphic design is built on decades of
progress in methodology, theory, and formal strategies. The
multivalent character of graphic design continues to shift between
the opposing values of art and business, visual and verbal,
European and American, scientific and intuitive-all of which
contribute to its richness and relevance in our complex, rapidly
changing environment.
Katherine McCoy is cochair of the Department of Design at
Cranbrook Academy of Art and a partner in McCoy & McCoy
Associates. Her design practice emphasizes interior and graphic
designfor cultural and corporate clients, including the Detroit
Institute of Arts and Unisys Corporation. She writesfrequentlyfor
designjournals on design criticism and history and has co-produced
a television documentary on Japanese design. She is a Fellow and
past President of the Industrial Designers Society of America, and
an elected member ofthe Alliance Graphique International.
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Article Contentsp. 3p. 4p. 5p. 6p. 7p. 8p. 9p. 10p. 11p. 12p.
13p. 14p. 15p. 16p. 17p. 18p. 19p. 20p. 21p. 22
Issue Table of ContentsDesign Quarterly, No. 148, The Evolution
of American Typography (1990), pp. 1-65Front Matter [pp.
1-1]Editor's Notes [p. 2]American Graphic Design Expression [pp.
3-22]A Time Line of American Typography [pp. 23-54]Typography and
Current Technologies [pp. 55-64]Back Matter [pp. 65-65]