Bauhaus - my assignment journey

So the latest assignment for my course was to create an ad for Myer's 5 day sale at their City Store.  I had already based my research for this section of my course around the Bauhaus movement (1919 - 1933 in Germany).  Partly because I've been to the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, and partly because I like their central theme that form follows function.

FUNCTION
---------------
FORM

I find that this central theme is really applicable to today's web design and development.  In essence, I equate it to Usability.  So while I'm not a fan of the period's architecture, or other outputs, I am a fan of the idea behind it.

So, back to my assignment.  I researched posters of the time, and with those in mind I created my first iteration:

I was lucky enough to have a designer-friend who is interested in Bauhaus to review my design.  He reviewed my design and came up with a couple of really interesting comments.

Colour

First of all, I'd used a cream background and muted colours.  He questioned why and then realised I'd been looking at the posters from the time for my inspiration.  He pointed out that the posters are old and the colours have faded, the paper aged.  I felt a bit silly at that point - it was a 'doh!' moment.  He suggested 'punchier primaries'.

Grid

So I knew that Bauhaus introduced the grid, and I also knew they were into their angles, but somehow I didn't marry those two things together.  He pointed out that the lines should be at right angles to eachother - that although it was angled, the grid is still important.  Another 'doh!' moment.  Of course, the grid should be rotated by 45degs to cope.  Of course.

So after those comments I had another pass and came up with:

I'm still using the P22 Bayer Universal font.  But the grid is a strong 45degrees, the background is white, the colours are strong.

I like that I've got a bit of Mondrian going on (I love his work) and I feel that this design is a lot clearer than my first iteration.

To be honest, I really could've spent so much more time on it.  But I guess another thing I'm learning is that I have to say 'enough' to myself and submit.  Otherwise I'd probably still be tinkering with it!

The Bauhaus Movement - collated research

I'm currently writing an essay for my course on the Bauhaus movement.  I did a ton of research and thought I'd share my collection of links:

Background information

Wikipedia’s article on Bauhaus was a great starting point:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus

The Art Story was a great source of background information, plus links to other articles:

https://www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus-artworks.htm

The Bauhaus Museum website provided information about what was taught at the Bauhaus school:

https://www.bauhaus.de/en/das_bauhaus/45_unterricht/

The Tate has some general information about Bauhaus:

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/b/bauhaus

Videos

Zillion Designs produced a great video on the essentials of Bauhaus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X8SKcGiLCQ

The ABCs of the Bauhaus was a good introduction using the shapes and images of the movement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_c6AlBBCCI

Bauhaus: the Face of the 20^th Century is a longer video about Bauhaus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uN9JK66-vs

Graphic Design

The GreenGinger article ‘Why is Bauhaus still so influential today’ provided background information on the movement and how it influenced Graphic Design today:

https://greengingerdesign.co.uk/why-is-bauhaus-influential-today/

DesignLab outlined lessons for today’s designers about Bauhaus and why the web is still Bauhaus:

https://trydesignlab.com/blog/bauhaus-school-five-lessons-for-todays-designers/

Fonts

Digital Arts was an introduction to Adobe’s free Bauhaus fonts:

https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/typography/5-ways-incorporate-bauhaus-graphic-design-in-your-work/

Looking further into Bayer and his fonts led me to the New York Times article:

 https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/style/30iht-DESIGN3.1.8541433.html

Influential artists

99Designs was good for information about the influential artists in the Bauhaus movement:

https://99designs.com.au/blog/design-history-movements/know-your-design-history-the-bauhaus-movement/

AIGA was good for examples of Bauhaus design:

https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/5-examples-of-bauhaus-graphic-design-that-shaped-the-movement/

Art work

My Modern Met showed how the avant-garde movement transformed modern art along with the history of the Bauhaus movement:

https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-bauhaus-art-movement/

Smashing Magazine is a great collection of Bauhaus artwork:

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/08/bauhaus-ninety-years-of-inspiration/

I really like Piet Mondrian’s work, and looked into his influence on the Bauhaus movement.  The Art Story was a good resource for information that ultimately led me to conclude he wasn’t a key figure in the Bauhaus:

https://www.theartstory.org/artist-mondrian-piet.htm

http://mentalfloss.com/article/66842/15-things-you-should-know-about-piet-mondrian

Is skeuomorphism back?

I've just been looking at the various incarnations of the QANTAS logo.  From 1944 to 2016 it's had rather a few changes.  A great site to see the journey is: http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Qantas.

In 2007 the logo changed to be the flat version that a lot of companies changed to around that time.  The explanation (as I understood it) was that companies were conscious of download speeds, responsive environments, making sure their logos scaled well.

 


In 2016 however, the logo changed again.  Back in is shading, gorgeous curves - the text has been sharpened and made easier to read - the tail fin now looks like an aircraft tail fin.  It looks .. modern! 



So when did logos start getting shading again?

Photomedia - Gordon's Dad - FINAL

So, I've pulled together all of the elements in Photoshop and produced the final image.  I used Gordon's model village as the background and arranged the buildings into a bit of a courtyard.  This image was then enhanced in Photoshop with a photograph I took of the sky as the backdrop.  Finally I put in the cleaned and sharpened photo of Gordon's Dad.

I gave him a shadow to make it a bit more realistic and resized the image to fit the output - which was a 30cm x 30cm canvas print I ordered from VistaPrint.

Any feedback on the final image is welcome!

Photomedia - Gordon's Dad - Part 3

So, I've picked out the model buildings for the background - now it's time to try and get the original fuzzy image into something a bit more usable.  I used the Filter -> Other -> High Pass filter with the 'Hard Light' layer type.  That seemed to produce the sharpest image.  I also played with the levels and managed to go from:

to:

Which I'm not too unhappy about.  It's not perfect, but I think it's okay for this purpose.  So the last thing to do is sort out the composition and pull all the elements together.

Photomedia - Gordon's Dad - Part 2

So I've been trying to figure out what background the main character (Gordon's Dad - Alan) should go onto.  First of all I thought a photo from Morpeth where he lives would be cool.

But it didn't really work.  Because the main figure is holding a drink, he really needed to be in front of an appropriate background, like a pub.  Gordon makes models, so I thought it would be cute to use one of his current diorama which is Victorian London.

Again, this didn't work either, he's wearing the wrong period to fit neatly into this environment.  So we dragged out an old set of models that fit the time period of the costume much better:

This was much better - and definitely the backdrop I'll progress with.

Photomedia - Gordon's Dad - Part 1

I have a photo of Gordon's Dad dressed up in 18th Century Costume.  I've decided that it would be a good subject for a Photomedia project (as part of my design course) - to take the photo and put it into an 18th Centure setting.  It will also make a great birthday pressie - and I'm all about killing two birds with one stone!

So the first thing I'll do is come up with a rough idea of what I want to achieve.  I have some initial thoughts, but I want to have a detailed examination of the imagery I already have and figure out what imagery I'll need to either photograph myself or source (complying with all copyright of course). 

This will help inform what the final image will look like.

I'm going to start with this image - the central image of the piece:



I've put together a moodboard of some images that might be appropriate. In my research I've found images from a street scene created by Gordon in 28mm models.



I'm still debating about whether to have him in an alley, or out the front of a pub, which seems like it would be a more natural environment for someone cheersing with a glass of wine!