Jessie's Wise Thoughts About Graphic Design: April 2011

I chose to create a poster illustrating one of my favorite albums: For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver. This is what the album looks like:

More importantly, this is what the album sounds like:

Bon Iver - For Emma, For Ever Ago - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Here's some explanation of how my work characterizes many of the important components of the Arts and Crafts Movement as well as the Art Nouveau style.

1. The Arts and Crafts Movement was characterized in part by a desire to elevate the fields of print and design to "their rightful place beside painting and sculpture," essentially applying the importance of the "fine arts" to all forms of visual and creative expression. Therefore, this poster, which symbolizes many of the themes of Bon Iver's album For Emma, Forever Ago, embodies the idea that visual work created for the purpose of communication is just as valuable as work created for expression's sake.

2. The Arts and Crafts Movement sparked a growing interest in the areas of typography, graphic design, and printmaking. The growth in book design led to a renaissance in typography and revival of the printed arts. The typeface that I used for the album title is called De Roos. This font is a mimicry of the work of Dutch type designer Sjoerd H. De Roos, who is known for his careful attention to detail in symmetrical layout, margin proportion, leading and kerning (space between lines and letters in a document). His dedication to pristine typography led to a new standard for typefaces that were practical, aesthetically pleasing, and easily legible.

3. One of the most recognizable names of the Arts and Crafts Movement is William Morris, a craftsman and type designer known for his philosophy that design was the vehicle that could unite art and industry, bringing art to the working class. His accomplishments in the design of beautiful typefaces, as well as ornate, lavish book decorations, set his books apart and blurred the line between printing and artmaking. The floral border is taken from Morris' trademark design for the Kelmscott Press, and the background design is another example of Morris' exquisite attention to detail.

4. The rise of the Art Nouveau style is led by a drastic shift away from the busy, detailed ornamentation of the Victorian era toward the simplicity of modernism. This is seen especially in graphic works that used bold shapes and blocks of color to communicate various forms. I incorporated an illustration of a flower in a vase by American designer Will Bradley because it is a good example of the rising minimalist illustration methods that became recognizable characteristics of the Art Nouveau movement.

5. After looking through quite a few examples of work that represents the Art Nouveau style, I noticed a specific recurring color palette and tried to incorporate these colors into my design to accomplish a successful mimicry of the emotional quality of Art Nouveau work. Many of the posters mentioned in our readings and in class use very bold, brightly contrasting colors, usually reds and yellows outlined by stark black shapes and linear designs.

6. A popular artist from the Art Nouveau period was Alphonse Mucha, who became famous for his elegant illustrations, characterized by their organic, plantlike linear forms and exploration of the stylized, romanticized feminine form as a subject matter. I used one of Mucha's famous illustrations as the main subject of my collage because I think the style and tone of this piece truly captures many of the most important aesthetic qualities of the Art Nouveau movement.

7. Some of the recognizable characteristics of Mucha's work, along with similar artists of the time, are the busy aesthetic and the seeming desire to cover every available space with intricate, interactive designs. This is represented in my use of overlapping pattern and intricate design. I tried to create a style that reflected this aesthetic, hence the asymmetricality and heavily ornamented style.

8. Another wildly popular Art Nouveau artist was Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a French artist and designer known for ushering in the style of modernism. By combining drawings with typography, his posters unified art and functionality, which is one of the identifiable characteristics of art nouveau design, from graphic design to architecture to object design, etc. In a sense, the collage I created does just that, because it is a visually expressive piece that aims to communicate the themes of a body of musical work to the viewer. I chose to incorporate Toulouse-Lautrec's iconic image of the creepy man in the bright red scarf, because I think it represents Justin Vernon's self portrayal in his album For Emma, Forever Ago. (I'll explain this later).

9. Toulouse-Lautrec's style, as well as that of fellow artists Aubrey Beardsley and Theophile Alexandre Steinlen, has been defined as a major influence in the shift from Victorian to Art Nouveau. These artists emphasized stylized, flat forms of color, along with "simplified symbolic shapes" and "dynamic spatial relationships." These bold forms drew interest toward the trend of invented lines and designs that seem like glorified doodles, which became the precursors to abstract art. The flat shapes that create the man in the red scarf and the funky red flower, as well as the abstract design behind the woman in the Mucha piece, all illustrate these aspects of the Art Nouveau movement.

10. Many of the philosophical ideas of the time came through in the art of the Art Nouveau period. Artists used their work to express their philosophies, and many of the famous pieces from the time carried a heavier symbolic meaning than had been associated with visual art in the past. The Art Nouveau movement is characterized by rapid growth in the close collaborations between visual artists and writers, and so the art that comes from this time is seen as a more personal expression of cultural ideals than ever before. The reason I chose to illustrate For Emma, Forever Ago was because I think this album incorporates many themes that relate not only to my personal life this year, but also to the way I have come to view my society and the process of living life as an American college student. The album itself is the frontman Justin Vernon's account of a time he spent isolated in a cabin in the woods of Wisconsin, escaping from the world to spend time dealing with and growing from a few harsh blows that life had dealt him. Some of the themes that I personally appreciate and identify with are broken relationships, dealing with change and uncertainty, realization of one's weakness, and the process of growing and changing. The basic idea of my poster is that the two individuals represent people that have experienced life together and are learning to grow apart and learn from their mistakes. I think the concept of incorporating these personal and even spiritual themes is an important component of the Art Nouveau movement.

Here's a closer look at the individual works I drew from, as well as some information about each piece: