Helvetica

Eduard Hoffmann, managing director of the Haas Type Foundry, commissioned Max Miedinger to draw a typeface that would unseat a popular family offered by one his company’s competitors. Miedinger, was an artist and graphic designer before training as a typesetter. This was the beging of the story of Helvetica, which took part in the year of 1956 in the Swiss town of Münchenstein. The typeface's name wasn't  Helvetica from the start!

Work on Neue Haas Grotesk began early in the fall of 1956. Over the following months Miedinger and Hoffmann exchanged a lot of drawings, proofs, and comparisons with the old grotesks. Miedinger, came up with a design based on Hoffmann’s instructions, and by the summer of 1957, produced a new sans serif typeface which was given the name “Neue Haas Grotesk.” which means “New Haas Sans Serif.” Neue Haas Grotesk was an immediate success it was adopted by many graphic designers it became a hallmark of contemporary Swiss graphic design.

To truly compete with other sans serifs in the global type market, Hoffmann knew it was important to make Neue Haas Grotesk available for machine composition. In June 1959 he made a deal with D. Stempel AG in Germany to manufacture Neue Haas Grotesk for the popular Linotype machine, making the typeface more practical to use for an even larger customer base.

Heinz Eul,  who was the sales manager at Stempel, suggested “Helvetia” but Hoffmann was not convinced, especially since a sewing machine manufacturer and insurance company already carried the same name. He instead suggested “Helvetica” – “the Swiss”. This embodied the spirit and heritage of the face.

Helvetica is among the most widely used sans serif typefaces and has been a popular choice for corporate logos, some examples which make use of the Helvetica typeface are:

•  3M
•  American Airlines
• American Apparel
•  BMW
• Jeep
• JCPenney
• Lufthansa
• Microsoft
• Mitsubishi Electric
• Orange
• Target
• Toyota
• Panasonic
• Motorola
• Kawasaki
• Verizon Wireless

 Apple has incorporated Helvetica in the iOS platform and the iPod device. Helvetica is widely used by the U.S. government, most notably on federal income tax forms, and NASA selected the type for the space shuttle orbiters.

In 1982 Linotype set out to revise and systematize the hodgepodge of fonts Helvetica had become over years. Adopting a numeric naming system from the former competitor typeface, Univers, styles and weights were coordinated and complemented. The height of capitals and lower case were aligned throughout the family. Yet the wish for regularization led to new compromises: condensed and expanded styles required squarer forms, which had to be adopted for the normal width, again sacrificing some of the personality of the rounder original.

In 2004 Christian Schwartz was commissioned to digitize Neue Haas Grotesk. The project, which he refers to as a restoration, was completed in 2010. With “as much fidelity to the original shapes and spacing as possible”, he carefully redrew the typeface to match Miedinger’s original forms.
Schwartz divided the family into two groups – display styles, which retained the characteristically tight spacing of the original’s larger sizes, and text styles, slightly sturdier and spaced more loosely for smaller sizes. Additionally, he incorporated alternative glyphs, like the straight-legged R which had been available in pre-digital formats. Other amenities like an Ultra Thin weight, drawn by Berton Hasebe, and additional numeral sets were added, but the essence of Neue Haas Grotesk was preserved throughout.

Bibliography

The font Berue, 2011, ''Neue Hass Grotesk'' [online] available at:<http://www.fontbureau.com/nhg/history/> [accessed 19 December 2014]

Find your type, ''Helvetica'' [online] available at: <http://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/helvetica#product_top> [accessed 20 December 2014]

Swiss design

This style emerged from the modernist and constructivist ideals, the Swiss Style can be defined as an authentic pursue for simplicity – the beauty in the underlines of a purpose, not beauty as a purpose in itself.

Swiss design became famous through the art of very talented Swiss graphic designers, but it emerged in Russia, Germany and Netherlands in the 1920’s. This style in art, architecture and culture became an ‘international’ style after 1950’s and it was produced by artists all around the globe.
 Despite that, people still refer to it as the Swiss Style or the Swiss Legacy.It originated in Switzerland in the 1940s and 50s was the basis of much of the development of graphic design during the mid 20th century. This style is Often referred to as the International Typographic Style or the International Style. Led by designers Josef Müller-Brockmann and Armin Hofmann, the style favored simplicity, legibility and objectivity.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove.” Said Antoine de Saint-Exupéry  [Vitaly Friedman and Sven Lennartz. 2006-2014]

ARMIN HOFMANN
By the age of 27 Armin Hofmann had already completed an apprenticeship in lithography and had begun teaching typography at the Basel School of Design. His colleagues and students were integral in adding to work and theories that surrounded the Swiss International Style, which stressed a belief in an absolute and universal style of graphic design. The style of design they created had a goal of communication above all else, practiced new techniques of photo-typesetting, photo-montage and experimental composition and heavily favored sans-serif typography.

JOSEPH MÜLLER-BROCKMANN

As with most graphic designers that can be classified as part of the Swiss International Style, Joseph Müller-Brockmann was influenced by the ideas of several different design and art movements including Constructivism, De Stijl, Suprematism and the Bauhaus. He is perhaps the most well-known Swiss designer and his name is probably the most easily recognized when talking about the period. He was born and raised in Switzerland and by the age of 43 he became a teacher at the Zurich school of arts and crafts.

Develop from the two schools where Brockmann and Hofmann taught: the Zurich School of Arts and Krafts and the Basel School of Design. The use of, sans-serif typography, grids and asymmetrical layouts were used. Also stressed was the combination of typography and photography as a means of visual communication.

 The primary influential works were developed as posters, which were seen to be the most effective means of communication.There was a keen attention to detail, precision, craft skills, system of education and technical training, a high standard of printing as well as a clear refined and inventive lettering and typography.

The grid system was used, it is a rigid framework that is supposed to help graphic designers in the meaningful, logical and consistent organization of information on a page.The core of these ideas were first presented in the book Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Müller-Brockmann which helped to spread the knowledge about the grids thorough the world. One of the strongest characteristics of the Swiss style typography is the use of sans-serif typefaces such as Akzidenz Grotesk and Neue Haas Grotesk also known as Helvetica.

These words will briefly discribe the swis design style:

• simplicity, minimalism
• order, clarity, grids
• geometric, abstraction
• typography, legibility
• rational, objective
• universal, unity

Flat design today.

One can describe this style as flat, and flat design is once again becoming polpular again. One can conclude that much of what we consider the fundamental principles of design arose from Swiss design and the movements that influenced it. While aesthetic styles have certainly come and gone, the guiding principles of Swiss design have never left us and have served as the foundation for graphic design ever since.

Bibliography

DangerDom, Design is history,[web] available at :<http://www.designishistory.com/> Accessed at 10 December 2014.

Vanseo Design 2005–2014, Swiss (International) Style Of Design: The Guiding Principles That Influence Flat Design, [web] available at :<http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/swiss-design/> Accessed at 10 December 2014.

Vitaly Friedman and Sven Lennartz. 2006-2014, Lessons From Swiss Style Graphic Design
By Diogo Terror, [web] available at :<http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/17/lessons-from-swiss-style-graphic-design/> Accessed at 10 December 2014.

Studies of a contemporary Work of Art, by Sam Wolfe Connelly.

The chosen work of art for this assignment is going to be on Sam Wofle Connelly's work called 'Sunder'. For this research Erwin Panofsky's theory is going to be used as to study in detail the iconography and the meaning and values of this work.
His theory has three levels which one should use to achieve in understanding the work of art. These are the three levels:
Primary or Natural subject matter. One must only describe the work of art without allowing our mind to connect the image to any mental construct.

Secondary or conventional subject matter. (Iconography) One, must make an iconographic analysis by connecting the image to a known story or recognizable character.

Tertiary or intrinsic meaning or content. ( Iconology ) One will decide what the meaning of the art work is, by considering the time in which it was made, the reason for its production and the artist who made it.

'Sunder' Sam Wolfe Connelly.

Subject matter.

In this work of art there is a female presence. The female is a young lady and she is found in a dark coffin. She is directly looking at the viewer and she is removing her shirt/dress (the only clothing she is wearing). Next to her there is a dagger.

Iconography.

The work of art's name is 'Sunder' and according to 'The free dictionary', sunder means: to break or wrench apart (separate), to break into parts.
When seeing 'Sunder' I connected the image with the story of Romeo and Juliet, there is passion in this image and there is also the presence of death and the dagger. I also made a connection between this artefact and that of Manet's , 'Olympia'. She is also a young lady, not a goddess, looking straight in the eyes' viewer and naked but not completely because she is wearing a flower in her hair, a necklace and a bracelet.

Iconology.

Who is the artist and what is his style? If one understand the artist and his style one will easily understand his art creations.
He started doing illustration after seeing Sam Weber illustration on the Cover of Communication Arts.
 Now that designing is his career he looks to no artist because if so he feels that his work isn’t his own. He like to indulge a sort of mystrey in his work and hide some elements from the viewer, he tries to stay true in what he find fascinating. In an interview he said,”I just take a step back and ask myself what do I really want to express? rather than what should I express?”
He works on his piece firstly by figuring out what he need to say, than breaking it down into basic elements that he wants to include and tries to fit tham into a nice composition using thumbnails. Once he figures out the blocking and shapes, he’ll do a final sketch in actual size on newspaper and transfer it over to his final paper than he makes his final drawing in graphite and bring it into photoshop and add some colouring.
Sam Wolfe Connelly always starts manualy than translates it to digitaly, and this is the thing that  really intrested me in his works. Eventough he edit his  graphite paintings, graphite is still visible.

Bibliography.

Sam Wolfe Connelly,[Web], Available at:< http://samwolfeconnelly.com/pages/info.html> [Accessed 5 November 2014]

Spark notes, 2014, Romeo and Juliete, [Web], Available at:< http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/romeojuliet/summary.html> [Accessed 6 November 2014]

Greg Watson,15th February 2012, panofsky three levels, [Web], Available at :<http://gregwatsonsthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/02/panofskys-three-levels.html> [Accessed 7 November 2014]

Farlex,2014, the free dictionary,[Web], Available at :< http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sunder> [Accessed 10 November 2014]

Media Temple Professional Hosting,abduzeedo,[web],Available at: < http://abduzeedo.com/interview-sam-wolfe-connely> [ Accessed 3 october 2014].