Blog Nine 13th April 2009

Today's lecture encompassed the subject of American corporate design. The forerunner of this, who defined a new American graphic design that turned away from European sources, was Paul Rand. He invented form for both symbolic and communicative forms, also bringing branding to a new level. I found it fascinating that this branding of corporations such as IBM, VW and UPS where able to with stand time and its basic essence has remained untouched. Another occurrence during this period is creating a branding promise. Meaning, branding now carried more meaning than just identifying a company, its was the utmost important visual feature that helped to shaping the company or corporations reputation. Other mentionable names of the time were Brabury Thompson, Chermayeff and Geisman, Vigneli Associates and Saul Bass. Of these names, Saul Bass stood out the most for me, this is because he is one of the great pinoneers of motion graphics. He introduced the use of basic cutout elements to created phonomanal pieces for his time as well as employing the use of kinetic typography. i feel that it is very important to study his work because he was the one who first began expirementing with all the design elements in motion, creating key pieces of his time. To create great art one needs to understand the greats and be able to learn , appreciate and effectively take elements from these pieces and then be able to implement it in your own unique way.