Ryan Megrath

Style: Recognized as one of the first designers to embrace computer technology as a design tool

April Greiman (born 22 March 1948) is a designer who is also a thinker and artist. Her Transmedia projects, innovative ideas and projects, and hybrid-based approach, has been influential worldwide over the last 30 years. Since the early 1980s, April Greiman has been instrumental the acceptance and use of technology within the art and design process.

Examples of April Greiman Artwork:

Interaction Futures:

William Gibson: “The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed.” 

Many designers were influenced by William Gibson and many of his future designs and ideas. Throughout the world, we are continuously faced with brand new technology with the ever expanding technology within the world.

Leap Motion: 

The branding title of the website is “reach into the world” illustrating the new interactive technology brought into the world.

Smart Watches:

Smart watches is an example of new technology with the organisation Apple bringing a wide range of Apple watches. With its own wireless data capabilities, a fully functional Android operating system, 1.5-inch touch screen, GPS, and dual-core processor, the device is basically a tiny smartphone.

Proportions:

Considering the relationships between elements lies at the heart of designing for the fluid web. Inspiration can be drawn from architecture. 

Sir Christopher Wren, one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history used harmonic ratios like the Golden Section and the Rule of Thirds in the creation of his masterpieces. The Golden Ration is a very common ration used today when determining the size and proportions of designs.

Hierarchy:

HTML is a design element as we can apply this at the markup layer. Wim Crouwel is well known for his information driven approach to design. The organisation and structure of elements and content on a screen needs to be considered to develop a systematic approach to design.

Typography:

We experiences can be enhanced due to the opportunities provided to people and so results in people using rich web typography. The days of people continuously using Arial and Times New Roman font is gone due to the introduction of range of typefaces.

Composition:

The understanding of composition and elements and how they relate to each other can now be understood not only from paper but also through the internet. A designer who is known for his composition work is Josef Müljer-Brockmann. His work emphasises the underlying grid systems.

Systems:

To achieve flexible and creative designs, systems should be established so that they can serve multiple outcomes of design. Erik Spiekermann is a prime example of a designer who likes to take a systematic approach to design.

Narrative:

Style: Graphic designer and typographer.

Stefan Sagmeister (born August 6, 1962) is a New York-based graphic designer and typographer. Stefan Sagmeister co-founded a design firm called Sagmeister & Walsh Inc. along with Jessica Walsh in New York City. He has designed album covers for some of the worlds biggest artists such as Jay-Z, Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones.

Examples of Stefan Sagmeister Artwork:

The launch of the Apple Macintosh in 1984 saw the true beginning of the computer revolution within the 20th century, many designers became concerned with the rise of technology. 

The Apple Mac was beginning to make an impact on the design industry. The key to the computers success, apart form dedicated design-based software was the intutive interface. Apple's graphical user interface made it very easy for those not familiar with computers to interact with the system and its software.

Style:  Graphic designer and typographer

His work is categorized as Swiss typography and he is credited as "the father" of New Wave or Swiss Punk typography. Weingart spent his childhood in Germany before moving to Lisbon in 1954 with his family. He then later returned to Germany in April 1958 and then began his studies at the Mertz Academy in Stuttgart.

Examples of Wolfgang Weingart Artwork:

Postmodernism describes both an era and movement during the mid 20th century across art, architecture and design. Postmodernism illustrated these aspects leaving the modernism era.

Wolfgang Weinkarte is seen as being the Father of Postmodernism through his designs and ideas. He studied under Emil Ruder and Armin Hofmann at the Basel School of Design. He is a prime example of artists within the Postmodernism period.

Style: German graphic designer and typographer

Otl Aicher (13 May 1922 – 1 September 1991) was a German graphic designer and typographer. He is best known for having designed pictograms for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. He is also known for designing the typeface Rotis. Aicher also co-founded the Ulm School of Design which became one of Germany's leading educational centres for design from its founding until its closure in 1968.

Examples of Otl Aicher Artwork:

Style:  Typographer, book designer, teacher and writer

Jan Tschichold (2 April, 1902 – 11 August, 1974) claimed that he was one of the most powerful influences on Typography in the 20th century. Jan Tschidhold was raised in Germany where we worked Paul Renner before moving to Switzerland due to the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. Tschidhold began working with Typography at a very early age.

Examples of Jan Tschidhold Artwork:

During WWII, many Europe’s best designers were forced to flee to safety with many of them moving to America. This then enabled the Ulm School of Design to picks up the pieces in Germany.

The Ulm School of Design sought to redress the balance in Europe. The origins of Ulm School of Design goes back to the Scholl Foundation. The Scholl Foundation was created in 1950 by Inge Scholl

Otl Aicher and Max Bill founded the Ulm School of Design in 1953 where it quickly gained a reputation ans one of the finest design schools in the world, sceond only to the Bauhaus.

Designers who were eager to learn Modernism had to flee Europe for the US and some of key designers of the American Modernist movement included Alexey Brodovitch, Herbert Bayer, Herbert Matter, Paul Rand, Saul Bass and Milton Glaser.

Style: Swiss Graphic Designer

Amin Hofmann (June 29, 1920 -). He began his career in 1947 as a teacher at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel School of Art and Crafts. Hofmann followed Emil Ruder as head of the graphic design department at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel (Basel School of Design) and was instrumental in developing the graphic design style known as the Swiss Style.

Examples of Armin Hofmann Artwork:

Style: Swiss graphic designer and teacher who is also well known for his theatre posters.

Josef Müller-Brockmann (May 9, 1914 – August 30, 1996) was a Swiss graphic designer and teacher. He studied architecture, design and history of art. In 1936, he opened his Zurich studio specialising in graphic design, exhibition design and photography. He is perhaps the most well-known Swiss designer and his name is probably the most easily recognized when talking about designers during his period.

Examples of Josef Müller-Brockmann Artwork:

During week 7 of the DES106 module, we looked at the International typographic style. This style is also known as the Swiss Style, is a graphic design style that emerged in Russia, the Netherlands and Germany in the 1920s. The style was then later made famous as it was developed by designers in Switzerland during the 1950s.

Still influencing designers today the movement was refined at two design schools design. In Basel it was led by Armin Hofmann and Emil Ruder while Josef Müller-Brockman headed the movement in Zurich.

The movement plays a major role in influencing contemporary design. This is because many of the principles found in the current trend for flat design bound can be found in the Swiss Style.

Other contemporary versions include:

Swissted

“The ultimate goal of all art is the building! The ornamentation of the building was once the main purpose of the visual arts, and they were considered indispensable parts of the great building. Today, they exist in complacent isolation, from which they can only be salvaged by the purposeful and cooperative endeavours of all artisans. Architects, painters and sculptors must learn a new way of seeing and understanding the composite character of the building, both as a totality and in terms of its parts. Their work will then re-imbue itself with the spirit of architecture, which it lost in salon art.

The art schools of old were incapable of producing this unity – and how could they, for art may not be taught. They must return to the workshop. This world of mere drawing and painting of draughtsmen and applied artists must at long last become a world that builds. When a young person who senses within himself a love for creative endeavour begins his career, as in the past, by learning a trade, the unproductive “artist” will no longer be condemned to the imperfect practice of art because his skill is now preserved in craftsmanship, where he may achieve excellence.

Architects, sculptors, painters – we all must return to craftsmanship! For there is no such thing as “art by profession”. There is no essential difference between the artist and the artisan. The artist is an exalted artisan. Merciful heaven, in rare moments of illumination beyond man’s will, may allow art to blossom from the work of his hand, but the foundations of proficiency are indispensable to every artist. This is the original source of creative design.

Bauhaus was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts. The Bauhaus was founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar. Colour theory was covered by leading artists of the time – Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and later Josef Albers.