El Lissitzky

El Lissitzky is known as an artist, designer, typographer, photographer and architect, from Russia. Many of his work and exhibitions were designed as propaganda for the Soviet Union in the early 20th century. He helped develop the Suprematist art moment and influenced the Bauhaus and Constructive movements. In his work he tended to use "prouns" which are abstract, geometric shapes in order to "define the spatial relationships of his compositions."

http://www.designishistory.com/1920/el-lissitzky/

Piet Zwart

Piet Zwart is considered a 'pioneer of modern typography' and is known for his typography, photographs, and industrial design in the Netherlands in the 1920's and 30's. He worked for NKF Company where he focused on graphic design, where as after retiring, he spent his time working with interior and furniture design. 

A quote:

"...to make beautiful creations for the sake of their aesthetic value will have no social significance tomorrow... "

http://www.designishistory.com/1920/piet-zwart/

Jan Tschichold

Jan Tschichold was a large influence on 20th century typography. Born in Germany, Jan worked next to Raul Renner, the designer of the type Futura, and became a strong advocate to sans-serif typefaces. He established a standard size of paper and stressed the importance of typographic hierarchy. Later in life Jan refuted back to serif fonts for blocks of copy, but stayed true to sans-serifs and being the most important. He spent a good part of his career designing covers of Penguin Books, over seeing the development of over 500. 

http://www.designishistory.com/1920/jan-tschichold/

 

Massimo Vignelli

Massimo Vignelli was an Italian designer who came over to the United States in the mid 1960's. He may best be known for his subway maps, book designs, grid, furniture and corporate logos. He is also credited for introducing the European Modernist ideals to American design.

"He preached clarity and coherence and practiced them with intense discipline in everything he turned out, whether kitchenware, public singe, books or home interiors."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/business/massimo-vignelli-a-modernist-graphic-designer-dies-at-83.html?_r=0

Paul Rand

Paul Rand was an extremely influential graphic designer in the 20th century. He is known for bringing Swiss Style to American design along with creating memorable corporate logo designs. He was also a teacher for many years at Yale. 

"From 1937–1941, he worked in media promotion and book design; from 1941–1954, he focused more on advertising design; and from 1954 on, he began to concentrate on corporate identity programs, producing some of the most iconic logos and identity marks of the modern age including logos for IBM, Westinghouse, UPS, and ABC television."

A quote

“The sincere artist needs not only the moral support that his belief in his work as an aesthetic statement gives him, but also the support that an understanding of his general role in society can give him. It is this role that justifies his spending the client's money and his risking other people's jobs, and it entitles him to make mistakes. Both through his work and through the personal statement of his existence he adds something to the world: he gives it new ways of feeling and of thinking, he opens doors to new experience, he provides new alternatives as solutions to old problems.” Excerpted from his article “Advertisement: Ad Vivum or Ad Hominem?” 

http://library.rit.edu/gda/designer/paul-rand
http://www.paul-rand.com/foundation/biography/#.VA5HD0tsBBU

Wolfgang Wiengart

"Weingart was born near the Swiss border of Germany, in the Salem Valley, in 1941.... Designer and instructor Wolfgang Weingart is recognized for his typographic explorations and teaching at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel, and who, through the work of his students, created a more experimental and expressive approach to typography that was influential around the world."
http://www.aiga.org/medalist-wolfgang-weingart/

Armin Hoffman

"Armin Hofmann is one of the most exceptionally influential teachers the field of graphic design has seen. He is also a designer of great accomplishment, a leading member of a remarkable generation of Swiss practitioners whose work and thinking continues to have a determining effect on the international understanding of graphic design. There is, however, nothing doctrinaire or circumscribed about Hofmann’s Swissness. His insights and practice transcend any sense of nationality or “school” and attain a level that many of those who experienced the challenge of studying under his tutelage would regard as elemental. A significant number of those students—among them Kenneth Hiebert, April Greiman, Robert Probst, Steff Geissbuhler, Hans-Ulrich Allemann, Inge Druckrey and the late Dan Friedman—went on to become leading designers and educators themselves."
http://www.aiga.org/medalist-arminhofmann/

Stefan Sagmeister

"Long ago, Sagmeister, whose motto was “Style=Fart,” replaced style with attitude. His designs are rooted in disorienting images and self-defining aphorisms. With apparent ease, Sagmeister morphs—as tricksters are wont to do—taking on various skins, from graphic designer to conceptual typographer to performance artist. When the mood strikes, he returns to being a designer, and a completely new cycle of transformation commences."
http://www.aiga.org/medalist-stefan-sagmeister/

Wim Crouwel

"Based on modernist principles, (Wim) Crouwel's lucid and systematic approach to design is underpinned by a grid-based methodology. His process, logical yet experimental, distils a subject down to its absolute essence and in doing so he achieves great impact and purpose in both his exhibition and print design. Through his long and productive career he has produced exemplary work in exhibition design, and designed posters, calendars, typefaces, trademarks and stamps."

http://designmuseum.org/design/wim-crouwel

Matthew Carter

"Carter's life has the contours of a manifest destiny toward typography. His father, Harry Carter, was a respected typographer and authority on the history of type-founding and punch cutting techniques... Carter's typographic achievements over the last five years have proven the wisdom of his move into smaller quarters: some of his finest works—the fonts Elephant, Mantinia, Sophia, Big Caslon, Alisal and Walker."
http://www.aiga.org/medalist-matthewcarter/

     

Adrian Frutiger

Adrian Frutiger is a typeface designer who is best known for creating the typefaces Univers and Frutiger. His work helped influence the growth of digital typography and his fonts are used by many designers still today. 

Frutiger was born in 1928 in Switzerland and from a young age was encouraged to work with print making. He has a love for sculpting, and perhaps one can notice an influence in his work, but his family and professors pushed that he worked with type. At the age of 16 he became an apprentice as a compositor and soon went to a school of the applied arts, finding an interest in calligraphy.

Univers Along side his more popular typefaces, he also designed "President," "Meridien," and "Ondine" to name a few. His font, Univers, was actually created when he was asked by the Public Transport Authority of Paris to look into the metro signage. His goal was to have enough of a font variation to compliment white-on-dark-blue backgrounds in bad lighting. If one wanted to look into his earlier work, they could view Schrift / Ecriture / Lettering: the development of European letter types carved in wood. This uniquely shows his understanding of letterforms and design skills.

Univers, specifically, has a few unique qualities. To start, Univers was the first typeface to include the number system. It also has a higher x hight and an even stroke width which "allows it to be more readable." (1) It also uses what is known to be the Univers Grid. This is simply a chart that grafts the different styles a font may have regarding stroke weight and kerning. 

(1)   (http://melindadraut.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/adrian-frutiger-and-the-univers-grid/)

Embrace Failure

I love the message within this video, his ideas regarding our fears as designers. My fears.

I recognize and or believe that I have week illustration skills, and fear that I will not make my mark within the design community due to that reason.

But after listening to Glaser, I have come to a realization. Yes. I would love to make my mark in the design community. It would be wonderful to have people study my work one day. But honestly, I just want to design because it makes me happy. I enjoy the problem solving, the thrill of figuring out the unknown. I want to 'embrace failure' and recognize my weaknesses, building upon my strengths to help carry me places. I will then practice, and practice with the hope that I will grow and learn when I stumble. That is what school is for. Right? So that we can stumble, we can fall and fail.

As a wise man said (who may or may not have been in a batman movie...)

"Why do we fall?"

"So we can learn to pick ourselves back up."

Pursuit of Greatness

After watching 'Wim Crouwel's Advice for Young Designers,' I recognized that he pointed out a few fears I have regarding my career in graphic design, along with positives that reenforce my desire to be a part of said community.

What scares me is the fact that I will one day need to find my own identity, make my mark, have a 'style.' I find myself afraid that there is nothing new to offer to the world. That everything has been done, and all I have left to do is create repeats. That frightens me.

But then I look to what I love.

Mr. Crouwel said that we need to keep a look out for all the possibilities we can find, taking hold of them, and using them to our advantage. But at the same time, we need to keep our feet grounded, and really follow our passions and dreams, knowing that if we are happy, we have found our calling and can pursue greatness.

I have always found a liking to page layout and typography. As pointed out by Mr. Crouwel, the media is growing. With it, the need for web and mobile designers is rising. If I could pick a sub field within communication design, I would venture into the world of web layout and HTML5/CSS. I just hope that one day I am proud to flip through my portfolio, knowing I have done my best and am happy in my career.