Assignment 2
Russian Constructivist Book Cover
Instructions:
To design a book cover in the style of Russian Constructivism. This will be done in Adobe Illustrator. Choose a book (and title) that you enjoy and execute it in Adobe Illustrator.
Objectives:
To familiarize yourself with the Contructivist movement. To proficiently select objects, draw bezier curves and convert anchor points. To create a clipping path. Two understand the paint style palette and layers. To begin to familiarize yourself with Adobe Photoshop.
Guidelines:
Design and create a full color book cover, spine and back. Final size will be up to you. You should also have at least one image that you took with a digital camera that is outlined using the clipping path feature in Photoshop. You must have one scanned image with a clipping path. Finished comprehensive may be spray mounted onto a actual book to assimilate a book cover. A thrift store may be a good source for books. Consider hard cover vs soft cover. No images off the web. All images must be photographs that you took or images that you scan.
Due:
Issue Assignment: Monday, February 10
Final Due Date for DeStijl Poster: Monday, February 24
(A printed hard copy trimmed to 11"x17")
In Progress Critique Book Cover: Wednesday, February 26
Final Book Due/Critique: Wednesday, March 4
Inspiration:
USSR Posters
Russian Books
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Constructivism
Art For Arts Sake vs. Art For Society
The Birth of Russian Constructivism
I. Constructivism
A. Techtonics
B. Texture
C. Construction
D. Modern Advertising
II. Order, Organization and Vitality
A. Sans serif typography
B. Geometric construction
C. Horizontal and vertical forms
D. Pure color
E. Balance, space and form
III. Techniques
A. Photography - Organize page
B. Montage / photomontage
C. Hand lettering
D. Overprinting
E. Kiss registration
• El Lissitzky and Rodchenko not only were two of the most innovative painters in Russia but were also two of the greatest typographic innovators
• Constructivists attracted to suprematism - non objective art that consisted of geometric shapes flatly painted on pure canvas
• Visual communication and other applied arts used to better serve the communist society - art became utilitarian
• Practical applications of art were advocated
• Constructivism = tectonics - visual form used to express communist ideology, texture - a study of materials and how they could best be used by industry, and construction - the creative process and the development of the laws of visual organization
• Vitality in visual expression
• Order and organization necessary to communicate effectiveness without sacrificing the graphic excitement and vigor needed to attract, lure and retain readers
• Depth achieved by using advancing and receding planes
• Visual ideas about balance, space and form stem from El Lissitzky's early paintings
• Rebel against the limitations of metal typesetting
• Typographic elements placed in dynamic balance relative to each other
• Clarity and order to encourage reading
• Transform intellectuals meetings from idea bazaars into action factories
• Modern advertising "the artists own touch is of no consequence"
• Layout of the text on the page, governed by the laws of typographical mechanics, must reflect the rhythm of the content
• Advent of photography helped organize the page, in effect, to fragment it
• Geometrically constructed designs
• Revolution accelerated the art movement, a role rarely assigned to art movements
• Renounced art for art's sake to devote selves to industrial design, visual communications, and applied arts serving the new communist society
• Prouns - project for the establishment of a new art - " an interchange station between painting and architecture".
• El Lissitzky's tremendous energy, and range of experimentation with photomontage, printmaking, graphic design, and painting enabled him to become the main conduit through which Suprematist and Constructivist ideas flowed into western Europe
• Visual relationships and contrast of elements, the relationship of forms to negative space of the page, and the understanding of printing possibilities were important in his work
• Montage and photomontage for complex communications messages pushed to its potential
• The Isms of Art - edited with Dadaist Hans Arp shows three column vertical grid structure used for the title page and the text, and two column vertical structure used for the contents page became an architectural framework for organizing pages
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• Sans serif typography and bars early expression of modernist style
• Strong geometric construction, static horizontal and vertical forms placed in machine rhythm relationships
• Overprinting, kiss registration, and photomontage
• Contrast of bold blocky type hard edge shapes against softer shapes and edges of photomontage
• Large areas of pure color, concise legible hand lettering, heavy sans serif hand lettering became the source for the bold sans serif types widely used in the Soviet Union today
• Russian photomontage coincided with the development of montage in film - it shared some of the same vocabulary - superimposing images, extreme closeups and perspective images often together, and rhythmic repetition of an image
Russian Constructivism
The link between fine art and applied art
Lazar(El) Markovitch Lissitzky
Lissitzky saw the Russian revolution as the beginning of mankind. Communism would create a new social order. He sought to form a unity between art and technology. It was his desire to construct a world of objects to provide mankind with a richer environment. This way of thinking put him in touch with graphic design as a way to move from the realm of the gallery of fine-arts to mainstream life. He had tremendous energy and range. He experimented with photomontage, printmaking, painting and graphic design. He was the main source from which Constructivism flowed from Russia to Western Europe.
As a graphic designer he did not decorate but rather constructed the whole page by realizing it as a total object. He was one of the first designers to realize that white space can function as its own element. Visual relationships, contrast, relationship of forms to the negative space of a page, and a thorough understanding of the possibilities of printing were very important to him. He pushed the potential of montage and photomontage to communicate his ideas. He believed that the layout of text on a page should reflect the rhythm of the content. His ideas were to come into sharper focus when Constructivist ideas and De Stijl ideas came together to play a key role in influencing the Bauhaus.
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