creating an info graphic for the anatomy of type

Surrealist movement: 1920-1930

Surrealism was an artistic and literary movement, dedicated to expressing the imagination as revealed in dreams, free of the conscious control of reason and convention. Surrealism inherited an anti-rationalist sensibility from Dada, and was shaped by emerging theories on our perception of reality, especially Sigmund Freud's model of the subconscious.

Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali was a key artist in the surrealist movement. Though chiefly remembered for his painterly output, in the course of his long career he successfully turned to sculpture, printmaking, fashion, advertising, writing, and, perhaps most famously, filmmaking in his collaborations with Luis Bunuel and Alfred Hitchcock. His paintings also evince a fascination for Classical and Renaissance art, clearly visible through his hyper-realistic style and religious symbolism of his later work.

Max Ernst 

Max Ernst was a German-born Surrealist who helped shape the emergence of Abstract Expressionism in America post-World War II. Armed with an academic understanding of Freud, Ernst often turned to his work-whether sculpture, painting, or collage-as a means of processing his experience in World War I and unpacking his feelings of dispossession in its wake.

1920-30

Prohibition (increased crime rate, alcoholic poisoning, rise of gangsters)
Aftermath of WW1 (increased military power, political tension etc)
Crime and murder (gang violence)
Threat of communism, fascism and socialism
Taxes began to benefit big business over the wage earners

German Politics

The democratic German republic, known as the Weimar Republic (1919-33), was affected by hyperinflation and other serious economic problems. Nationalist elements under a variety of movements, including the Nazi Party led by the Austrian Adolf Hitler, blamed Germany's "humiliating" status on the harshness of the post-war settlement, on faults of democracy, on Social Democrats and Communists, and on the Jews, whom it claimed possessed a financial stranglehold on Germany.

In Germany, like in the radically diminished Austria, the citizens, or at least the educated classes, remembered the pre-war years under autocratic rule as prosperous – the post-war years under democratic rule (due to the failings of Proportional Representation under the Weimar Government), however, as chaotic and economically disastrous. Social tensions after the world wide economic depression following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 aggravated the political situation. Anti-democratic parties in the Reichstag (parliament), both left-wing and right-wing, obstructed the parliamentary work, while different cabinets resorted to governing by the special emergency powers of the Weimar constitution, which enabled the President and the Cabinet, in concert, to effectively bypass the parliament.

Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler (Chancellor) on January 30, 1933.

Investigation of Graphic Designers

Ladislav Sutnar

Ladislav Sutnar was a progenitor of the current practice of information graphics. For a wide range of American businesses, he developed graphic systems that clarified vast amounts of complex information, transforming business data into digestible units. He was also the man responsible for putting the parentheses around American telephone area-code numbers when they were first introduced.

Lester Beall

Lester Beall studied the dynamic visual form of the European avant-garde, synthesized parts into his own aesthetic and formed graphic design applications for business and industry that were appropriate, bold, comprehensive, and imaginative. He proved to American business that the graphic designer was a professional that could creatively solve problems and at the same time deal with pragmatic issues such as marketing and budgets. Beall produced solutions to design problems that were fresh and innovative. He studied the dynamic visual form of the European avant-garde, synthesized parts into his own aesthetic and formed graphic design applications for business and industry that were appropriate, bold, and imaginative. In his mature years he led the way with creative and comprehensive packaging and corporate identity programs that met the needs of his clients. The qualities and values that led to Beall's effectiveness are timeless and provide contemporary practitioners with an historical reference base upon which to evaluate present standards.

Leo Lionni

Leo Lionni has wedded fine art to applied art, elevated the level of graphic design criticism, launched the careers of many formidable practitioners, and engaged the minds and hearts of several generations in a variety of roles throughout his career: committed teacher, author, critic, editor, painter, sculptor, printmaker, designer, cartoonist and illustrator. Leo Lionni was born in Holland in 1910, into a world on the cusp of radical change—with cultural and political revolutions in the air and on the streets. His father was an artisan, a diamond cutter from a well-to-do Sephardic Jewish family, and his mother was a singer. Her brother, Piet, an architect, allowed his adoring, five-year-old nephew to play with his drafting supplies. And two other uncles, both collectors of modern art, fed his artistic inclinations by osmosis.

James Miho

James Miho, recipient of a 2004 AIGA Medal, is an art director of seminal campaigns for Champion Papers and the Container Corporation of America, a design educator, and a photographer. James Miho has spent a large part of his 50-year career in focused traveling, collecting the images and impressions that would inform a remarkable body of work for some of the most design-conscious clients of the 20th century. Miho was born into a wealthy Japanese family in northern California. With the onset of WWII, he and his family were interned for four years at Tule Lake on the California-Oregon border. Upon his return from fighting in the Korean War, Miho enrolled at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA. The art and architecture he had seen during a two-week sojourn in Japan had inspired him to pursue a career in design.

Design Movements

Arts and Crafts:

The Arts and Crafts Movement developed in 19th-century Britain as a rebellion against the fashion for inventive sham and over-elaborate design and as an attempt to reverse the growing dehumanisation of work in society. It was based on simple forms, truth to materials and the use of nature as the source of pattern. Young London-based architects were inspired by the ideas of John Ruskin and William Morris. They founded the Art Workers' Guild in 1884 to break down barriers between architects, artists, designers and makers. The Arts and Crafts movement is all about pattern, design and even poetry. Artists such as William Morris defined the art movement. William Morris was a leading member of the Arts and Crafts Movement. He is best known for his pattern designs, particularly on fabrics and wallpapers. His vision in linking art to industry by applying the values of fine art to the production of commercial design was a key stage in the evolution of design as we know it today.

William Morris was an artist, designer, printer, typographer, bookbinder, craftsman, poet, writer and champion of socialist ideals. He believed that a designer should have a working knowledge of any media that he used and as a result he spent a lot of time teaching himself a wide variety of techniques. Like many designers of his time, Morris was skilled in a wide range of arts and crafts.

Art Nouveau:

Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that was most popular during 1890–1910. A reaction to academic art of the 19th century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, not only in flowers and plants, but also in curved lines. Architects tried to harmonize with the natural environment. Art Nouveau is considered a "total" art style, embracing architecture, graphic art, interior design, and most of the decorative arts including jewellery, furniture, textiles, household silver and other utensils and lighting, as well as the fine arts. According to the philosophy of the style, art should be a way of life. Alphonse Mucha, was a Czech Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist, known best for his distinct style. He produced many paintings, illustrations, advertisements, postcards, and designs.