Post 2 INFLUENCES IN ART PRACTICE

Rachel D Alfonso

Influences in Art Practice

 The 5 artists I chose

1. Paul Rand

2. Saul Bass

3. Susan Kare

4. Massimo Vignelli 

5. Jessica Walsh

 Themes the artists addressed about making work

1. As Paul Rand said, "Design is so simple that's why it is so complicated". Rand was all about simplicity, his work had a balance between artistic expression and functional communication. He believed that a brand identity was more important than a publicity billboard. He convinced design corporations that design is an effective tool.  He said a logo is more important than a painting because when people see a logo it affects their way of seeing the world.  Throughout his career, he created a link between European modern art and U.S. commercial art. He also talks about the importance of sketching.

2. They call them the man who designed the film. The most striking aspect of Bass´s sequences in his films was the text looked just like posters and most of his film work was transversal to print. His strategy was deconstructing the movie to find a graphic symbol representing its narrative theme. He used basic geometric shapes, primary colors, or pastels.

3. Susan Kare creates icons and digital typography for companies like Apple, where she started her career. She applied her knowledge to transform little squares of black and white pixels into symbols that helped users interact simply with a brand. She designed the trash can, the paint can, and the disk to save archives. She influenced the base of visual language and allowed us to move through a device by clicking on image icons. 

4. Corporate designer who worked on important brands like American Airlines and designed furniture, products, and installations that changed design culture forever.

5. Walsh has worked on projects for clients including Levi's, Aizone, Adobe , and Colab Eyewear, and rebranding efforts for The Jewish Museum of New York and the Aldrich Contemporary Museum in Connecticut. Some other popular clients Walsh has worked with include. BMW, Snapchat, Barneys New York and Parle Argo, “the Coca-Cola of India. In 2019 she opened her own brand studio, and she said it was going to become on of 36 female-led creative studios in the United States. Walsh and Goodman began a second project together, which they described as a "12-step experiment designed to open [their] hearts, eyes, and minds". They set up twelve tasks in which they displayed kindness to people and recorded the results.

 
Challenges the artists faced in making their work

1. After going to Pratt, Rand realized he wasn't learning anything, and the little he learned was by himself. However, his first job was producing illustrations where he learned even more than what Pratt School taught him. He was a great teacher, but he didn't have the patience to sit down and argue about something not being understood, he would come back with a lot of designs and answers to explain, what he meant to say. 

2. Before Saul Bass arrived in the film design field, movie credits didn´t have an important place in movies, until he put it out there with his creativity and he started getting more popular and requested to do that kind of work. 

3. Even though she designed with limited technology for small screens at that time period and also managed to be a woman, she accomplished to be recognized and respected for what she knew. When she got hired by Microsoft, color was the main challenge she faced. Ended up designing the cover of the software and the famous game of Solitary. 

4. The Industrial Revolution had unleashed an unholy cacophony of fonts, made worse by the information overflow of the twentieth century. This typographic deluge yielded what Massimo called the “biggest visual pollution of all times” Massimo intoned that you don’t need letters that look or sound like a dog to represent the word “dog.” 

5.  Jessica said, "Earlier in my career when I started reaching a certain level of success and recognition in the design field, the amount of hate mail, jealous remarks, and outright sexism I experienced multiplied exponentially," the designer added. She also said that the hate was coming from other women and not from men. 

She also said "Time is always the biggest challenge. I feel an obligation for any project we take on to give it 110%. Clients trust us with incredibly important projects, and we have to do the best job we can, which takes a lot of time."

 Inspirations you drew from the artists.

1. Being simple and documenting everything with sketches and logical thinking, so I make others understand my designs.

2. His innovation and audacity to put it out there.  He didn´t limit himself to what the average designs were at that time. 

3. Susan said that good icons should be easy to comprehend and that´s why they should look less like illustrations and more like traffic signs. She initiated pixel art and her most relevant artwork is the Chicago font.

4. The subway map Vignelli did it´s a great representation of informational design that works to this day and it´s very functional in this world 

5. The courage and great vision of saying ok, I'm done working with others, what about I create my own signature, and I make them leaders. 

Things I would like to incorporate into your own work after watching these videos

1. I'd like to incorporate the passion with what Rand defended his ideas.

2. From Saul Bass's work I'd like to incorporate in my art the use of negative space, symbolic imagery and dynamic compositions. 

3. From Susan´s work I'd like to incorporate precision and clarity when designing. Also, her minimalist aesthetic designs are a huge inspiration since they create better communication.

4. I´d like to incorporate Massimo's idealization of "a graphic designer should be able to communicate with no more than 5 typefaces. 

5. From Jessica's work I'd like to incorporate colorful shapes, playful designs, textures, and patterns so they become richer.