1960s & protest | philosophers & designers

key terms:

ken garland first things first manifesto, 1964; first things first 2000; last things last, 2012
marshal mccluhan, understanding media, 1964; the media is the massage, 1968
wolfgang weingart

• graphic design plays a key role in this era

wolfgang weingart: 

-internationally known graphic designer & typographer

-work is categorized as Swiss typography

-credited as "the father" of new wave or swiss punk typography

-turned typography into turmoil

-fearing that his work had become too repetitive, he began to challenge the rigid geometries & principles of rationality that were well known with the swiss style
-belief was that was no competition between imagery & text, but that there should be a harmonious alliance between the two
-encouraged students to not follow one particular style
-set the example by playing with the scale of letters, combining font weights, breaking the grid by printing at angles, & text abstractions
-teaching philosophy acknowledges that due to the very structure of what a teaching institution it is, it is hard not to produce uniformity in design
-set up his teaching philosophy as a “triangular relationship between design idea, typographic elements, and printing technique” with an underlying belief that you must know the rules to break the rules

reminder of swiss style

1962 typographic investigation

protest against all that he had been taught

still follows grid
still has some justified left
asymmetric still
different typographic weights
image overlaps words

• used both wood & metal type

ken garland:

-british graphic designer & teacher

-held the position of art editor for Design magazine shortly after his graduation from London’s Central School of Arts & Craft in 1954

-fresh out of school and in his position Garland was quickly thrown into the world of commerce and specifically, designing for commerce

cover & layouts for design magazine
played with bold color fields, lines of action, easy to read san serif text & fonts
creating depth on a two-dimensional plane

• leaving Design, began his own graphic design studio: Ken Garland & Associates (1962)
• one of his most notable clients, Galt Toys, allowed Garland & Associates to build their image & branding from scratch

colorful layers & photomontage imagery of children in action & expressing emotions
needed little text beyond the company name to market the toys to families

first things first manifesto (1964)
ken garland along with 20 other designers, photographers & students
his most famous piece of writing about the ethics of graphic design
advocated in favour of the more useful & more lasting forms of communication
reclaimed graphic design as an art form, not just a tool for marketing & sales
reaction to the staunch society of 1960s Britain
called for a return to a humanist aspect of design
lashed out against the fast-paced & trivial productions of mainstream advertising,
calling them trivial & time-consuming
solution was to focus efforts of design on education &
public service tasks that promoted the betterment of society

first things first 2000- new group of graphic artists' renewed manifesto 
originally published in 1999 in emigre magazine
 same call for graphic designers to use their skills to expand global discussion
rather than cater to the commercial & corporate world

• 2012: flight to barcelona, garland wrote follow up piece called last things last for eye magazine

-not a manifesto, but a clarification discussing the roles of clients & artists
-states that there is no “us vs. them” in his life or work mentality
-clients & artists must be partners because both parties will always be around each other

herbert marshall mcluhan:

-canadian professor, philosopher, & public intellectual

-work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory 

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man- Marshall McLuhan (1964)
-pioneering study in media theory
-proposes that the media, not the content that they carry, should be the focus of study
-suggests that the medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered through it, but also by the characteristics of the medium
-dividing various media outlets between “Hot Media” or “Cool Media,” McLuhan investigates the effective form of the media
-hot media = medium that requires little or low participation from the audience, like a movie in a theatre; encasement of a person in a theatre provides less distractions & therefore less work on focusing on the film
-cool media = medium that requires a higher level of participation from the audience, such as a television in a living room; television in a living room has more distractions coming from the household, thus requiring a viewer to actively focus on the screen

• extension of this theory provides the thesis of McLuhan’s book the medium is the massage

-was supposed to be "the medium is the message" but there was a typo & he liked it
-this smaller collage style book was co-created with designer Quentin Fiore to help convey & distribute McLuhan’s theory to broader masses
-uses visual & written language to propose that all media are designed to be an extension of the human form

-McLuhan is known for predicting the World Wide Web almost thirty years before it was invented

-The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects is 160 pages in length & composed in an experimental, collage style with text superimposed on visual elements & vice versa

-some pages are printed backwards and are meant to be read in a mirror

-some are intentionally left blank

-most contain photographs & images both modern & historic, juxtaposed in startling ways

-the book was intended to make McLuhan's philosophy of media & communication, considered by some incomprehensible & esoteric, more accessible to a wider readership through the use of visual metaphor & sparse text