1 00:00:00,260 --> 00:00:09,660 In the last lesson, 2 00:00:09,840 --> 00:00:11,520 I told you a little bit about myself. 3 00:00:12,060 --> 00:00:15,820 In this lesson, I'll talk about the artists and designers who inspired me the most. 4 00:00:16,740 --> 00:00:19,160 I studied photography as an art student, 5 00:00:19,640 --> 00:00:20,760 and after graduating, 6 00:00:21,120 --> 00:00:22,480 I became interested in graphic 7 00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:22,980 design. 8 00:00:23,680 --> 00:00:28,440 And so I began looking at graphic design books at the Minneapolis Public Library. 9 00:00:28,680 --> 00:00:33,100 And one of the books I came across completely by accident was this book, 10 00:00:33,580 --> 00:00:35,700 Pete Zawart's Monograph from 1966. 11 00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:41,080 And it's pretty clear to me that if I had not come across this book, 12 00:00:41,160 --> 00:00:43,040 I wouldn't be here today talking to you. 13 00:00:44,100 --> 00:00:46,120 This book really changed my life. 14 00:00:46,980 --> 00:00:47,740 Prior to this, 15 00:00:48,100 --> 00:00:52,020 I really had no idea what European modernism was all about, 16 00:00:52,460 --> 00:00:55,240 especially in regard to graphic design and typography. 17 00:00:55,760 --> 00:00:56,420 But this book changed all that. 18 00:00:56,420 --> 00:01:05,060 When I first took it off the shelf and I saw this cover with the large sans serif P and the black square, 19 00:01:05,380 --> 00:01:08,600 I was immediately taken by its simplicity and its directness. 20 00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:10,280 I couldn't help but pick it up. 21 00:01:11,580 --> 00:01:13,000 When I opened the book, 22 00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:14,280 I was completely blown away. 23 00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:17,300 The designs were just unlike anything I'd ever seen before. 24 00:01:18,080 --> 00:01:20,340 Again, this is the late 1970s, 25 00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:22,400 and people at that time really didn't know that much about the Bauhaus, 26 00:01:22,720 --> 00:01:25,680 not as much as we know now. 27 00:01:26,460 --> 00:01:27,960 So this is all very new to me, 28 00:01:28,180 --> 00:01:29,280 and it was just so beautiful, 29 00:01:29,560 --> 00:01:30,440 and I loved it all. 30 00:01:31,040 --> 00:01:32,560 I was just so taken by everything. 31 00:01:33,060 --> 00:01:36,960 I was looking at contrasts of size and really thinking about that for the first time. 32 00:01:37,660 --> 00:01:39,240 And more than anything else, 33 00:01:39,320 --> 00:01:42,880 and somehow I got through all of art school without really thinking about this too much, 34 00:01:43,180 --> 00:01:46,380 but the relationship of positive and negative space and visual hierarchy, 35 00:01:46,380 --> 00:01:54,100 where you look first and second and third in a composition. All of this was coming clear to me now that I was looking at Zwart's work. 36 00:01:55,100 --> 00:01:59,180 Piet Zwart was a typographer and a graphic designer in Holland, 37 00:01:59,560 --> 00:02:03,540 in the Netherlands, in the early part of the 20th century and worked into mid-century. 38 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:09,020 And his early work was very much based on a lot of the ideas that were prevalent 39 00:02:09,020 --> 00:02:11,020 in European modernism at the time, 40 00:02:11,600 --> 00:02:13,960 especially constructivism, which was happening in Russia. 41 00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:19,420 And you can see some of that stuff happening in his work. The emphasis on very simple colors, 42 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:20,660 red, blue, 43 00:02:21,420 --> 00:02:22,340 off-white backgrounds, 44 00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:25,420 sometimes other colors coming into it, black certainly, 45 00:02:26,420 --> 00:02:30,700 but such an emphasis on positive and negative space and interaction of forms. 46 00:02:32,400 --> 00:02:34,520 The typography was just really expressive. 47 00:02:36,460 --> 00:02:40,940 So after looking at Zwart and becoming familiar with his work and literally checking out this book and taking it out of the library for weeks and weeks and weeks, 48 00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:46,440 and just looking at it every day, 49 00:02:46,820 --> 00:02:50,720 I was convinced this was the direction I was going to go with my life, 50 00:02:50,760 --> 00:02:52,100 is to study this kind of work. 51 00:02:53,340 --> 00:02:55,680 Piet Zwart introduced me to constructivism, 52 00:02:56,060 --> 00:02:57,180 experimental typography, 53 00:02:57,720 --> 00:02:59,540 and European modernist design. 54 00:03:00,380 --> 00:03:02,760 So let's talk about my next influence, 55 00:03:03,100 --> 00:03:03,520 Paul Rand. 56 00:03:05,320 --> 00:03:08,920 The best introduction to Paul Rand is his own book, 57 00:03:08,920 --> 00:03:13,980 A Designer's Art, that he wrote in the 19th century. And it's all about his work and his philosophy, 58 00:03:14,460 --> 00:03:15,740 his teaching, and his practice. 59 00:03:16,980 --> 00:03:19,660 When we open this book, 60 00:03:19,780 --> 00:03:22,340 we immediately see this beautiful collage. 61 00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:25,980 And we see the image of a broom. 62 00:03:26,300 --> 00:03:28,240 It's actually a flat broom, a Shaker invention, 63 00:03:28,620 --> 00:03:29,020 1800. 64 00:03:29,620 --> 00:03:31,980 And it's a chapter in the book called 65 00:03:31,980 --> 00:03:33,220 The Beautiful and the Useful. 66 00:03:34,180 --> 00:03:35,040 And so right away, 67 00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:36,780 we get a sense of what this is all about. 68 00:03:37,660 --> 00:03:38,380 Applied art, 69 00:03:38,680 --> 00:03:38,740 using the tools of the modernist design 70 00:03:38,740 --> 00:03:43,460 using form and function in service to something outside of your own particular purposes. 71 00:03:44,880 --> 00:03:47,860 Another beautiful Shaker design, 72 00:03:48,320 --> 00:03:49,000 a door latch. 73 00:03:49,900 --> 00:03:53,780 These examples are what Paul Rand used in his teaching. 74 00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:56,920 And I was lucky enough to study with him when I went to graduate school. 75 00:03:58,400 --> 00:04:01,840 The book itself is a great example of graphic design. 76 00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:05,440 And one of the beautiful things about book design in general 77 00:04:05,440 --> 00:04:08,300 is that you can learn so much about design just looking at books, 78 00:04:08,900 --> 00:04:12,180 especially when they're designed by great designers like Paul Rand. 79 00:04:12,780 --> 00:04:14,440 A lot of Rand's art is very simple. 80 00:04:15,480 --> 00:04:20,780 And I always think of his work as being reduced down to the fewest possible elements, 81 00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:23,380 taken away until you can't take away anymore. 82 00:04:24,300 --> 00:04:25,260 When I was a student, 83 00:04:25,340 --> 00:04:28,500 as I got to know him and as I became more familiar with his work, 84 00:04:28,500 --> 00:04:34,840 I really fell in love with everything that he represented as far as being an artist and a designer. 85 00:04:35,880 --> 00:04:36,940 He really taught us, 86 00:04:37,460 --> 00:04:38,620 perhaps me in particular, 87 00:04:38,880 --> 00:04:40,880 but I think everyone who was a student, 88 00:04:41,580 --> 00:04:42,620 that to be a good designer, 89 00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:44,140 you had to be a good artist first. 90 00:04:44,740 --> 00:04:50,460 That it was all about capitalizing on your art and design skills in service to something outside of yourself. 91 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:53,040 In his own practice, 92 00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:57,200 you see examples of work that is very inspired, very artistic. 93 00:04:57,860 --> 00:05:00,280 And it's coming out of pure experimentation. 94 00:05:00,880 --> 00:05:02,820 This image over here, for example, 95 00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:06,260 this is a poster for the Aspen Design Conference, 96 00:05:06,840 --> 00:05:08,600 a design conference in Aspen, Colorado. 97 00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:13,000 And it's an egg shape with some splatters of black ink on top of it. 98 00:05:13,900 --> 00:05:19,180 The egg being a symbol of perfection and simplicity and originality. 99 00:05:19,820 --> 00:05:24,260 The black splatters being an expression of creativity, 100 00:05:25,100 --> 00:05:26,920 of surprise, of chance. 101 00:05:27,440 --> 00:05:31,940 And the combination of all those parts just working together to express a very simple idea. 102 00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:33,980 When Rand was my teacher, 103 00:05:34,660 --> 00:05:36,640 he was best known as a corporate designer. 104 00:05:37,220 --> 00:05:42,360 He had designed the logo for IBM and for this company, Westinghouse. 105 00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:44,840 And that's what he was really famous for. 106 00:05:44,980 --> 00:05:47,560 And that's kind of what he taught us to be as corporate designers. 107 00:05:48,860 --> 00:05:52,880 He was actually thinking ahead here, 108 00:05:53,420 --> 00:05:55,920 thinking about the idea of an animated logo, 109 00:05:56,340 --> 00:05:57,800 something we take for granted now, 110 00:05:58,340 --> 00:06:00,860 but at that time was something that was fairly exotic. 111 00:06:02,500 --> 00:06:05,420 This beautiful idea for the Westinghouse logo 112 00:06:05,780 --> 00:06:06,840 coming from a mask, 113 00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:08,720 that was his inspiration. 114 00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:12,960 And you see that in this design. 115 00:06:13,300 --> 00:06:14,100 It's a circuit board. 116 00:06:14,860 --> 00:06:16,920 It's a W for Westinghouse. 117 00:06:16,920 --> 00:06:18,420 But it's also a face. 118 00:06:20,080 --> 00:06:25,020 A very famous UPS logo, 119 00:06:25,520 --> 00:06:27,360 which no longer exists. 120 00:06:28,620 --> 00:06:29,600 Color forms. 121 00:06:31,700 --> 00:06:33,940 And the ABC logo. 122 00:06:35,420 --> 00:06:37,560 Probably one of the best logos that he designed. 123 00:06:37,960 --> 00:06:39,500 It's been around since 1960. 124 00:06:40,300 --> 00:06:42,320 And in a certain form, it preceded that. 125 00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:47,480 And this exemplifies everything that you need to know about logo design. 126 00:06:47,940 --> 00:06:50,860 How a logo needs to function in its purest form. 127 00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:53,360 Absolutely crisp, black and white. 128 00:06:54,060 --> 00:06:56,960 But can also be recognized when it becomes abstracted. 129 00:06:57,180 --> 00:06:58,240 In this case, very blurry. 130 00:07:00,580 --> 00:07:02,780 Prior to being a corporate designer, 131 00:07:03,220 --> 00:07:05,880 a lot of the work that Rand did was for retail design. 132 00:07:06,840 --> 00:07:10,440 His bread and butter account in his younger days was Coronet Brandy. 133 00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:15,400 And he invented this waiter whose head is the shape of a brandy sniffer. 134 00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:18,420 And would deliver brandy in a nest. 135 00:07:19,100 --> 00:07:19,960 Very, very fun. 136 00:07:20,060 --> 00:07:20,600 Very playful. 137 00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:21,300 Very whimsical. 138 00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:24,060 Rand was also a designer of children's books. 139 00:07:24,560 --> 00:07:30,200 And so we see here this beautiful use of typography to represent the body of a child. 140 00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:33,700 With the hat and the shoes being the only parts that are recognizable. 141 00:07:40,440 --> 00:07:43,800 And if we look at his children's book, 142 00:07:44,400 --> 00:07:45,720 called Sparkle and Spin. 143 00:07:47,500 --> 00:07:49,740 One of my favorite books. 144 00:07:50,080 --> 00:07:52,800 You open it up and you immediately see stripes. 145 00:07:53,640 --> 00:07:54,740 But they're not geometric, 146 00:07:54,940 --> 00:07:55,740 perfectly geometric. 147 00:07:55,960 --> 00:07:57,120 They're cut paper stripes. 148 00:07:57,340 --> 00:07:58,900 So there's a little bit of irregularity. 149 00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:01,540 In a beautiful title page. 150 00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:02,320 Sparkle and Spin, 151 00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:05,300 a book about words by Ann and Paul Rand. 152 00:08:05,300 --> 00:08:09,380 So he worked with his wife on this book. 153 00:08:10,180 --> 00:08:11,380 She was a writer, 154 00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:12,340 he was a designer. 155 00:08:13,300 --> 00:08:14,620 And the book is all about words. 156 00:08:16,300 --> 00:08:17,320 So what are words? 157 00:08:17,540 --> 00:08:19,400 Words are how you think inside. 158 00:08:21,380 --> 00:08:23,440 And how to remember what you might forget about. 159 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:25,280 The collage over here, really beautiful. 160 00:08:25,860 --> 00:08:35,420 So it's interesting to see this in regard to his work for IBM. 161 00:08:35,820 --> 00:08:37,440 And Westinghouse and Cummings Diesel. 162 00:08:37,740 --> 00:08:39,980 And all that really hard core corporate design. 163 00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:41,860 That he was very good at. 164 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:43,020 Very famous for. 165 00:08:43,540 --> 00:08:45,800 And then to see that in the context of this. 166 00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:47,540 In this whimsical, very playful, 167 00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:49,320 cut paper, 168 00:08:49,880 --> 00:08:50,800 collage oriented, 169 00:08:51,340 --> 00:08:52,580 very colorful work. 170 00:08:53,540 --> 00:08:57,440 And it was so inspiring for me. 171 00:08:57,800 --> 00:09:00,000 I thought, this is a great way to be a graphic designer. 172 00:09:00,220 --> 00:09:02,060 To have your hands in both areas. 173 00:09:02,180 --> 00:09:03,180 Both corporate work, 174 00:09:03,660 --> 00:09:04,660 which pays the rent, 175 00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:05,860 pays the mortgage, 176 00:09:06,240 --> 00:09:07,200 puts food on your table. 177 00:09:07,900 --> 00:09:10,180 Also can be done in a very beautiful way, 178 00:09:10,380 --> 00:09:11,480 as he did for IBM. 179 00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:14,640 And then books like this, children's books. 180 00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:17,920 Other kind of work that's very playful, very expressive. 181 00:09:18,820 --> 00:09:19,780 I love this spread. 182 00:09:20,020 --> 00:09:21,420 It's all about a toy train. 183 00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:23,820 Expressive typography at the top. 184 00:09:24,220 --> 00:09:25,940 Very simple typography over here. 185 00:09:30,180 --> 00:09:33,240 Just a beautiful use of color. 186 00:09:34,620 --> 00:09:35,640 Beautiful experience. 187 00:09:37,560 --> 00:09:39,260 Just a few more things about Paul Rand. 188 00:09:39,620 --> 00:09:41,300 This little book, 189 00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:44,060 which is called Art Direction Magazine. 190 00:09:45,520 --> 00:09:47,840 And Rand did a number of the covers for this magazine. 191 00:09:48,020 --> 00:09:50,480 But this one in particular is just so beautiful and so simple. 192 00:09:51,140 --> 00:09:53,860 And you look at it and you see these letters on the cover. 193 00:09:54,620 --> 00:09:56,440 And it's a typeface called Badoni, 194 00:09:56,540 --> 00:09:58,160 which he's very famous for using. 195 00:09:59,220 --> 00:10:00,720 He's used it in a lot of his work. 196 00:10:01,180 --> 00:10:02,400 Very classic typography. 197 00:10:02,940 --> 00:10:04,240 And you notice that the A and the D are missing. 198 00:10:04,860 --> 00:10:05,480 Like, 199 00:10:06,940 --> 00:10:08,880 well, OK, so what is this? 200 00:10:08,980 --> 00:10:10,360 This is not telling me anything. 201 00:10:10,540 --> 00:10:11,720 But in fact, it's telling me a lot. 202 00:10:12,700 --> 00:10:14,140 The magazine is called Art Direction, 203 00:10:14,460 --> 00:10:14,980 A and D. 204 00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:17,020 And if you turn the book over, 205 00:10:17,560 --> 00:10:21,540 you see the fragments of those letters back here cut up. 206 00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:26,860 It's really not until you see the whole thing together 207 00:10:27,300 --> 00:10:28,460 does it start to make sense. 208 00:10:29,820 --> 00:10:32,300 So from this, I learned about engagement. 209 00:10:32,740 --> 00:10:37,180 The idea that you can create something that's very abstract. 210 00:10:37,980 --> 00:10:40,320 And if you get the interest of the viewer, 211 00:10:40,620 --> 00:10:41,720 they will engage with it. 212 00:10:41,860 --> 00:10:43,400 They'll take the time to figure it out.