History Of Graphic Design

The MTV logo is one of the most influential devices of “pop culture.” MTV was one of the first television networks to interrupt programming by “popping up” a small version of their logo in the bottom corner of the screen. This small distraction would catch the viewer’s eyes and reinforce to them what they were watching.

The MTV logo has always made an instant connection in the minds of most viewers.  One of the most unique aspects of the MTV logo is that new versions are always being released.

The logos vary in size, but are always made up of a large box-letter, capital “M” complete with lower-case “tv”, in handwriting style font, laid over the lower right quarter of the capital M.  The various (and many) treatments of the MTV logo is effective because the wide variety of variations is “hip” and it catches the viewer’s eye.

Why is this design so good? By keeping the design simple Frank Olinsky (the original designer) and his team left the ‘M’ open for alteration without altering the identity itself. This flexibility has given MTv the opportunity to put whatever they want in the ‘M’, whether a pattern to match a holiday or a color to represent a genre of music. Music is always changing and with a flexible logo, it allows for minor changes. Creating company identities is a long design process and requires a lot of thought. So many things need to be considered, change in time being one of them.

According to John Sykes, one of MTV’s founders, MTV was intended to be, “a mood, not a show”. Programs that air on MTV are almost always cast with youthful people that set trends while portraying the “typical” teenager and/or college student. From what a viewer sees in the form of fashion trends, they can adjust their wardrobe to look like the “cool guy or pretty girl”. Black is associated with power, elegance, death, evil, and mystery. MTV likes to stress the “M” because that is their reason for broadcasting, “the music of life”.

sources: megaessays.com, writingfordesigners.com

Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and Academy Award-winning filmmaker, but he is best known for his design on animated motion picture title sequences like Exodus, The Man With The Golden Arm, North By Northwest, Vertigo, Psycho and many more.

During his 40-year career he worked for some of Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers, including most notably Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Amongst his most famous title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict’s arm for Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm, the text racing up and down what eventually becomes a high-angle shot of the United Nations building in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, and the disjointed text that raced together and was pulled apart for Psycho.

Bass became famous in the industry after creating the title sequence for The Man with the Golden Arm in 1955. The subject of the film was a jazz musician’s struggle to overcome his heroin addiction, a taboo subject in the mid-’50s. Bass decided to create a controversial title sequence to match the film’s controversial subject. He chose the arm as the central image, as the arm is a strong image relating to drug addiction. The titles featured an animated, black paper cut-out arm of a heroin addict. As he expected, it caused quite a sensation.

For Alfred Hitchcock, Bass provided effective, memorable title sequences, employing kinetic typography, for North by Northwest, Vertigo, working with John Whitney, and Psycho. It was this kind of innovative, revolutionary work that made Bass a revered graphic designer. His later work with Martin Scorsese saw him move away from the optical techniques that he had pioneered and move into computerized titles, from which he produced the title sequence for Casino.

He designed title sequences for 40 years, for films as diverse as Spartacus (1960), The Victors (1963), It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and Casino (1995). He also designed title sequences for films such as Goodfellas (1990), Doc Hollywood (1991), Cape Fear (1991) and The Age of Innocence (1993), all of which feature new and innovative methods of production and startling graphic design.

He also designed the sixth AT&T Bell System logo and AT&T’s “globe” logo after the breakup of the Bell System as well as the Continental Airlines’ 1968 “jetstream” logo, which became the most recognized airline industry logo of the 1970s.

sources: >wikipedia,

Milton Glaser is a graphic designer (born in 1929) who is best known for the “I Love NY” logo and a poster of Bob Dylan that was originally contained in Dylan’s 1967 album release, Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits. Additionally, he designed the “DC Bullet” logo that was used by DC Comics from 1977 to 2005 and the “Brooklyn Brewery” logo. He is also one of the founders of New York Magazine.

Glaser is one of the most celebrated graphic designers in the United States. He has had one man shows at the Museum of Moder Aret and The Georges Pompidou Center (in Paris). In 2004 he was selected for the lifetime achievement award of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum.

Glaser first came on the scene in 1954, when he co-founded the groundbreaking Push Pin Studios with his Cooper Union classmates, designer sand illustrators Seymour Chwast and Edward Sorel. Push Pin’s revival of the union of art and typography, as well as its use of cultural references and visual language, came to both define the aesthetic of graphic design by merging genres and styles into something new and fresh. And following World War II, when photography was highly popular in design work, Push Pin greatly revolutionized the direction of modern visual style by reviving the drawn illustration.

Glaser also is a renowned architectural designer with a body of work ranging from the iconic logo to complete graphic and decorative programs for the restaurants in the World Trade Center in New York. He is an influential figure in both the design and education communities and has contributed essays and given many interviews extensively on design.

“Milton Glaser’s contribution to design — it’s unprecedented,” says Susan Scandrett, a San Francisco-based design consultant to a number of national magazines such as Outside and Mother Jones. “Perhaps more than anything, he paved the way for design and illustration to be intelligent. An illustration can communicate more than a photograph. Design doesn’t just pretty up a page. It’s about communicating the message in the most direct and decisive way.”

Almost everything you’d want to know about Milton Glaser can be found at his website.

sources: wikipedia, miltonglaser.com, businessweek