U N I T 1 A NEW STYLE FOR A NEW CULTURE In this Unit you will be introduced to the design arts of the century, which witnessed the development of the profession of graphic design. This Unit traces the history of classical typography introducing key concepts and examines contemporary developments both in graphic design and typography. A. ART NOUVEAU STYLE In the latter part of the 19th century, an entire generation of designers in Europe believed that the urban world created by the Industrial Revolution lacked beauty. These artists shared William Morris s desire to make the world a place of aesthetic realization and to unify the different arts, using a set of basic stylistic principles. Morris was a Victorian design reformer who made a fundamental contribution to the establishment of the graphic design profession and dedicated his life to improve the quality of British design. He used to say I do not want Art for a few, any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few ; he believed that design arts had a role to play in improving the lives of ordinary working people, even if he made hand-crafted objects which could only be afforded by the very rich. While he had looked to the past, his colleagues tried to create a new style for the industrial world in which they lived. Therefore, Art Nouveau, or New Art became an umbrella term to designate the various movements influenced by Japanese art, i.e. designers, who were trying to create a series of styles with a new vocabulary that celebrated the pulse of life, found the poster to be a more appropriate form of art presentation. The most important ones were Jules Chéret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Alphonse Mucha, they were all influenced by Paris s decadent nightlife. Jules Chéret revolutionized the look of posters by using illustrations as the dominant features and by reducing texts to a minor explanatory role, so that even illiterate people could understand. His most famous poster Folies Bergère advertised a ballet. Chéret employed an industrial medium, the mass-produced chromolithograph, which allowed him to create over a thousand brightly-coloured posters with a wide range of hue, which were then followed by literally millions of mass-produced posters. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec created posters such as La Goulue ( The Glutton ) and Troupe de M.lle Eglantine, which are part of the history of Paris as well as the history of graphics. La Goulue shows the artist s style, governed by a free-flowing line and a striking sense of colour. It is a lithograph commissioned by Jane Avril, his muse, to advertise her tour to London. The participation of artists such as ToulouseLautrec in the design of posters had a beneficial effect on the status of graphic design; it helped to create the impression that making posters was artistically valid and related to the fine arts, not just a commercial activity. Alphonse Mucha was a Czech living in Paris, who combined decorative brilliance with popular taste. With his acclaimed poster, Gismonda (Sarah Bernhardt), he developed his peculiar style, an elongated figure in the middle of a charming field of flat, decorative pattern. GLOSSARY feature: characteristic. free-flowing: moving freely. hand-crafted: produced by hand labour. hue: tone. 198 illiterate: uneducated, a person who cannot read. Jane Avril: can-can dancer. to lack: not to have. pattern: a repeated decorative design or a recognizable way in which something is done. The Glutton: Louise Weber, cancan dancer and performer who called herself that because she liked drinking a lot.