As I bounce around online looking for images I always look for the extraordinary, the esoteric, the naive, and the emblematic of a time; works that are not the pieces we often see in design history books. As a teacher of design history, I am interested in how we got here and how design has evolved.
This may seem obvious to many people, but I find it less obvious to a great number of working designers, especially younger ones, who seem completely unaware of their design lineage. Just as a map helps us find our way and shows us where we are, looking at design from years past helps us better understand the trajectory contemporary design has taken.
Today when we see names like, Rand, Bass, Scher, Bierut, Glaser, Chwast, Goldberg, Sahre, Sagmiester and Carson, we can see their works in our mind's eye; we recognize their contribution to our profession, innovation and the cultural landscape. But if we come across names such as Lebedev, Marinetti, Sandberg, Zwart, Werkman, Borges, Oliverio Girondo, Torres Garcia, Reiner, Van Doesburg and Carra, we are less likely to have the same visual familiarity. These designers are often the forgotten pioneers (or the precursors) of the work we see today. While some of the work may seem dated, much of it feels as fresh and revolutionary as it was some eighty-plus years ago.
This morning I received a note about an amazing collection of images that Miguel Oks had posted to his Flickr site. It is a remarkable body of work and an important window to a pivotal period of design.
I would highly recommend spending time pursuing the collection of Notgeld, the German inflationary currency used after World War One. With the German economy in tatters after the war, money was virtually worthless — you needed a wheelbarrow of cash to buy a loaf of bread. Cities, towns and even businesses issued their own currency, and designs were created by (mostly) anonymous commercial artists and local printers. During the current global financial meltdown, perhaps we will again see new forms of Notgeld (emergency money) around the world. I hope not.
I want to extend my most sincere thanks to Miguel Oks, who took the time and effort to assemble such a wonderful and important collection of works.
Comments [21]
Thanks for the great post. As a professor of graphic design, I'm amazed at how the internet has become such a valuable resource for finding images that have been left out of graphic design history books. It's no wonder it's the first place students head to when conducting research. I also appreciate this week's intro paragraph with the images. Keep up the good work.
02.14.09
04:05
But, your images are great & your words express a bunch!
WT
02.14.09
04:53
02.14.09
08:26
02.14.09
11:58
02.15.09
12:59
02.15.09
01:37
02.15.09
04:06
As for myself, these works look "dated" and are not very good. I don't mind their being in the dustbin of history.
02.15.09
08:55
No computer. Just outstanding talent!
02.15.09
01:30
While it is certainly possible that some of this work may not have been seen as "good" during its time, its actually just as likely that it was put aside for other reasons. I'm sure you know from your history classes that history of wars has always been written by the "winners." The same is true of graphic design. I think in today's internet age, we really do believe that anyone can publish (for argument's sake, I won't argue that here) so therefore good work always finds its way into the right hands. However, back THEN, that was certainly not true. There were but a handful of publishers and writers discussing graphic design at the time and to be published you had to 1. know the right people and 2. have your work meet that publishers standards and ideology. The last part is of particular importance, because these gatekeepers allowed work to be seen and therefore have its importance spread. Its very safe to say that this is no different than PR games that many offices work hard to do now. Some people at that time were great champions of their work, others chose to work and not self-promote. One has to consider how those consequences have come to affect where we currently stand. Had the Expressive movement in the Bauhaus "won," we might see a design today very different from what it is now. Perhaps the Modern movement was "destined" to win that fight, but I somehow doubt things have that natural and decided an evolution.
As for this particular set of work, it looks "dated" because it is! I know there has always been a PR marketability for "timelessness"--it sounds so nice and makes us publishable forever (see what I'm saying?)--but I think we can, ideologies aside, admit that that's an impossibility--there is no such thing.
02.15.09
03:04
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness...
02.16.09
10:11
To consign the work of Hendrick Werkman (executed by the Gestapo in 1945), Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (founder of the Futurist movement) or Piet Zwart (founding member of the De Stijl movement)... to the "dustbin of history" is not only arrogant but quite sad.
That is akin to throwing out all of your family's photos and letters and history. To disregarding that which went before as "rubbish".
I would encourage Mr Marten to take a long, hard look at his own work before tossing off such inane comments. They only make you sound silly.
02.16.09
02:00
I take influences from everything that is around me not just from "great" design. You have to look, and you have to look everywhere.
And just because something is labeled as great or amazing does not mean it is.
As always amazing images! Thanks for the refreshment, this consumerist design world has made me parched.
02.16.09
02:21
02.17.09
07:45
Makes me want to get trade in my computer for a nice drawing table and a T-square.
02.17.09
09:32
Neat trick, considering he was blind for most of his adult life.
02.17.09
12:02
02.17.09
12:13
02.17.09
02:44
Borges was not only a writer and a graphic designer, he was a champion weightlifter, a knife-fighter, and a seducer of Europe's most beautiful countessas. He was able to recite the entirety of the "Odyssey" in Latin (the first language he learned to read) and he once sang Verdi at La Scala. He invented the acrostic puzzle, the dithyramb, and the carbeurtor. He was known to outdrink Gardel on more than one occasion, and they always drank grappa.
He was not, however, blind for "most of his life." He developed blindness in his late fifties and lived to be 87. So he was blind for less than half of his life. (These facts are readily available in Wikipedia, which is itself, of course, a poor Borges rip-off.)
If Borges teaches us anything, it's that if you are going to invent fictions, then go ahead on and INVENT.
02.19.09
11:15
02.24.09
10:05
02.27.09
08:17