Milton Glaser very well may be one of the most simplistic and straightforward designers to ever make it famous. Although his name is not nationally recognizable or particularly well-known, one of his pieces is distinguishable worldwide. The "I Love NY" symbol is a creation of Milton Glaser's and is just one of his many iconic graphic designs. Glaser attended the High School of Music and Art in New York and furthered his education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Italy. In 1958 Glaser became a founder and later a president of Push Pin Studios. In 1968, Glaser became the co-founder of New York Magazine along side Clay Felker. Along with his noteworthy logo design, Glaser also designed the famous Bob Dylan poster and the "DC bullet" logo.
Glaser is best known for being authentic, uncomplicated and direct. He works with various mediums and multiple styles and has been known to use or work with anything to get the message across to the viewer. He is seen as one of history's most hard working graphic designers and has won multiple awards from distinct establishments such as the Art Directors Clubs, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and the Society of Illustrators. Glaser designs everything form advertisements to book covers to drawings and illustrations in newspapers or magazines.
What intrigued me the most about Glaser was how easy his work seems but how difficult I know it had to be to come up with. The "I Love NY" symbol does not even seem like something that would need to actually be designed and up until this day I had no idea it actually even had a designer attached to it. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Its simple, eye-catching and laid out in a such a way that it can be used on t-shirts, coffee mugs and various other usable and wearable consumer products. Only a strategic and communicative designer could come up with a design that could become that outrageously popular and spread like rapid fire.
Works Cited:
"Milton Glaser Biography and Artwork - MetroArtWork." MetroArtWork - MetroArtWork. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://metroartwork.com/milton-glaser-biography-artwork-m-218.html>.
"Milton Glaser - Biography." RoGallery.com - Online Auctions & Select Artworks Online. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://rogallery.com/Glaser_Milton/Glaser-bio.htm>.
"Google Images." Google. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://www.google.com/images?hl=en>.
Nate Duval - Short Bio
Nate Duval is a poster artist for many popular, alternative bands today such as Phish, Broken Social Scene, Wilco and Spoon. Growing up a huge music fan, Duval sees this artistic outlet as the closest he can get to being a rock-star. Although that career goal never seemed to work out, it was always a dream of his to make it in the music world. With album covers and CD art becoming an obviously less needed artistic field, promotional band posters for both new songs and music tours are becoming all the rage. Along with these posters come fan memorbilia such as t-shirts and bumper stickers which contain the same poster art.
The posters that Duval design are usually a limited edition, created specifically for the release of an artist or band's latest project. Since the posters are limited editions, they are a lot more likely to be considered collectors items by fans. This also means that the posters are a lot more intricate in design and work, and take a unique and creative twist by the artist that will specify the image to the work of music by the musician. With music being so quick and available to listeners via the internet and programs such as iTunes, the artwork that consumers used to see coincide with the music is almost lost with the advancement of technology today. Which is why these hip, trendy and visually appealing posters are a huge outlet for artists to get their piece of the puzzle shown in the music business shown.
What I enjoyed most about Duval's work was the uniqueness of his field in the artistic genre and how he has made a career out of interacting and working for the people he admires most. He saw a need for the promotion and creative aspect of music today and ran with it. Duval's work is eye-catching and intricate. It is not so simple where the objective of the poster is straightforward, but rather leaves you looking at the artwork for awhile seeing if there is anything you may have missed. His style is interesting to me as well because he uses paper and layers, sort of like a collage, then makes prints of his work. Everything is done by hand and then he sort of captures it in a picture. His patterns and color-use are appealing and visually pleasing.
Works Cited:
"Post Master - Boston.com." Featured Articles From Boston.com. 03 Mar. 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://articles.boston.com/2011-03-03/ae/29340497_1_posters-small-stakes-phish>.
"Google Images." Google. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://www.google.com/images?hl=en>.
James Dyson - Long Bio
James Dyson is one of those designers who you see on television commercials and use their products almost daily, but never realize how big of an impact they have on the evolution of product design. Born in England, Dyson attended the Royal College of Art and majored in interior design, engineering and also studied furniture. Dyson based many of his inventions off the movement and mobility of the sphere, or ball. His brother is the one who originally thought of changing everyday objects with wheels into ones which used a singular ball. His first invention was in 1970 and was called the Sea Truck. The Sea Truck is a fast moving, boat like watercraft created to move equipment and supplies on water between plots of land or islands. The Ballbarrow, his first invention using his sphere concept, came about later on in life and was a wheelbarrow that used a large ball instead of wheels.
When in his Ballbarrow factory, Dyson became increasingly frustrated with the dust and filth that accumulated when using his standard Hoover vacuum. Although there was a huge market for vacuum filters and bags, Dyson knew there had to be a better way for the suction to occur within a vacuum. Therefore, he created the idea of cyclonic separation. The combination of centrifugal force and the small cyclones inside the vacuum enhanced suction without having a bag to cause clogging. In order to better market his product against the usual vacuum products he created the slogan "lose the bag" and attracted consumers who desired a fuss-free cleaning experience.
Many of the competing vacuum companies attempted to copy his seemingly amazing "bag-less" invention, but Dyson sued and won in both cases. Another extremely popular and fairly modern design of Dyson's is the Dyson Airblade hand dryer, which is actually seen here in many Ohio State University restrooms. It is both extremely functional compared to the typical hand dryer and very sustainable because of its replacement of paper towels. Instead of hot air simply blowing on the hands like a standard hand dryer, the airblade is unheated (energy efficient) and acts like a sheet of air wiping across the hands.
My favorite creation of Dyson's is the replacement of wheels with the ball. It amazes me that someone could think of a way for a product to move better than wheels. The wheel and axis is a fairly standard invention which has never failed and always is able to solve the problem of making a sedentary object have the ability to move. For an invention such as the automobile, wheels obviously are working fine. But Dyson saw a problem with the small scale version of four standard wheels on a vacuum cleaner. When cleaning the house and turning sharp corners around a table or couch, it is oftentimes difficult and a pain to clean every nook and cranny. A ball, on the other hand, as Dyson puts it, can turn on the spot. Although this seems incredibly simple and small scale, it works exponentially better and makes the weekly chore of vacuuming that much easier and enjoyable.
I personally enjoyed Dyson's work because of how he takes a product that is already created and even mass-produced and knows he can some how make it better. To me, that is not only difficult and challenging, but it takes a very marketable and confident person who knows they can change the mind and way of thinking of consumers across the board. This also impresses me because many of his inventions not only make products more usable, but more environmental. Less energy, less waste, less work. Dyson is the type of inventor who takes his own issues with products and improves them. He did not just let his own personal vacuum spit dust out and do a poor job at suctioning up the dirt on his floor, he saw the problem at hand and created a solution.
Works Cited:
Design_at_the_edge. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://ic-pod.typepad.com/design_at_the_edge/2008/04/index.html>.
"James Dyson Biography - Life, Children, Wife, School, Son, Born, College, Husband, House, Time - Newsmakers Cumulation." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2005-A-Fi/Dyson-James.html>.
"Google Images." Google. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://www.google.com/images?hl=en>.
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