Phoniest Field in Existence Today. Industrial Design, by Concocting the Tawdry Idiocies Hawked by Advertis
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phoniest field in existence today. Industrial design, by Jan Conradi concocting the tawdry idiocies hawked by advertis- ers, comes a close second.” Three decades since it first Merz to Émigré and Beyond: Avant-Garde Magazine Design appeared in print, this quote from Victor Papanek’s of the Twentieth Century by Steven Heller book Design for the Real World still holds some truth. This (Phaidon Press, New York, 2003) ISBN 0714839272, 240 book urges us to cure our professions of such designerly pages, illustrated, hardcover. $75.00 ailments and work more responsibly towards a better future. Writing a book on design history, presumably for an audience of designers, is no easy task. Visual impact is important since most designers are first drawn to and critical of structure and visual content. Substantive writ- ing obviously matters too. Merz to Émigré and Beyond: Avant-Garde Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century, from the prolific Steven Heller, offers plentiful content Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/desi/article-pdf/20/4/89/1713941/0747936042312020.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 both for browsers who are perusing the illustrations and for readers concerned with writing and historical interpretation. This is a design book that actually pays attention to design. The quality of paper, printing, and binding is excellent. The sewn binding opens flat and the overall page structure effectively balances an abundance of images with descriptive captions and a comfortably readable text block. Perhaps the red ink for captions could have more visual weight—the type was difficult to read when lighting wasn’t perfect—but this is a minor quibble. Another distraction is the use of images on the chapter opening spreads. By enlarging, cropping and rotating magazine covers, the chapter openings gain dramatic impact but the change in context from communicative to decorative is out of character with the rest of the book. Heller documents an impressive selection of magazines. Many of the included volumes are familiar to design historians but undoubtedly other magazines are completely unknown to most readers. The decision to photograph each image with a soft drop shadow is an effective touch that gives a sensation of the magazine as a dimensional object. To some extent the photographs even make it possible to discern the printing and paper quality of each publication. Some show the ravages of time on inferior materials, but others are pristine. Covers are emphasized but there are many examples of interior spreads as well to allow fuller understanding of a magazine’s structure and organization. Particularly compelling are spreads which show interior sequencing from Aleksandr Rochenko’s 1940s USSR in Construction and Alexey Brodovitch’s Portfolio from 1950. Both designers had talent for creating visual rhythm or as Heller describes it, adding “cinematic dimension to page turning.” Upon beginning this project, Heller said he’d read an estimate that over a million different magazines and newspapers had been published in the US and Europe by the 1920s. He is democratic in exhibiting representa- tive samples but perhaps including a timeline, even in an appendix, would have given readers a clearer sense of which magazines were contemporaries. Journals that Design Issues: Volume 20, Number 4 Autumn 2004 89 existed for one volume or one year are discussed side by and in a biography written by Alexander Lavrentiev, the side with others that lasted for many years, which makes design of USSR Under Construction is credited to both judging relative impact a challenge. Information on circu- artists. Stepanova is not mentioned in Heller’s book. lation would be beneficial although those figures would However, Heller clearly illustrates the seeming be difficult if not impossible to attain. How large, how omnipresence of the early modernists. Reviewing diverse was the readership for each magazine? Was the publications from several countries makes it clear how primary audience local, regional or international? This is the early modernists such as Lissitzky, van Doesburg, critical information. It would be rare, though not impos- Arp and Malevich had such impact. These artists wrote sible, for a localized, specialized, short-lived magazine prolifically, lectured extensively and traveled widely with limited circulation to have a dramatic impact on throughout Europe and the US, creating vibrant inter- international graphic design. But is design impact really weavings of dada, constructivism, surrealism and DeStijl. the author’s focus in writing this book? In another particularly strong chapter, Heller eloquently The definition and scope of the term “avant-garde” clarifies futurist aims for poetry and publications. It is key. Avant-garde, as Heller uses the term, seems to should inspire readers to think more substantively as Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/desi/article-pdf/20/4/89/1713941/0747936042312020.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 primarily define editorial content and focus. It may or they define and develop their own work. may not translate into innovative or influential design. Heller is somewhat dismissive of design journals, By accident or intent some magazines are undisciplined describing them as insular but that criticism could be in their design. Does lack of discipline make them leveled at other magazines as well. At times, he seems avant-garde? This provides some confusion and raises defensive and perhaps overstates the impact of some questions about the inclusion or exclusion of certain publications. He talks about Screw (which he designed magazines. Heller excludes Neville Brody’s work for in the late 1960s) saying, “first issues were sloppily The Face and Arena, both of which influenced designers designed because the art director was a novice and the in the late 1980s, while including Brody’s collaborative, pre-press technology was as inadequate as its budget.” experimental and admittedly non-traditional Fuse, which The acceptability of their content notwithstanding, sex tested the boundaries of publications and typography for rags get more emphasis than is warranted from a design a few years in the 1990s but had a limited audience and standpoint. For example, there is lengthy discussion of presumably a more limited impact. sex rags in the same chapter with a very brief discussion Heller has extensive knowledge of this topic but at of WET, which was at the vanguard of the Pacific Wave times his enthusiasm leads him to make overly definitive movement in the 1980s and inspired countless typo- statements. Whether design decisions were intuitive or graphic and design experiments and imitators. conscious can’t always be answered. For example, was Overall this is a reference worthy of space on a Futurist artist Ardengo Soffici’s Lacerba masthead typog- design bookshelf. Heller can bring his subject vividly raphy initially chosen for its ambiguity and Tuscan roots? to life with poetic descriptions. He describes a Parisian Isn’t it just as likely Soffici made a pragmatic decision satirical weekly from early 1900s, telling us “L’Assiette’s based upon a printer’s available fonts and that as his contributors refused to accept sacred cows in their edito- typographic experiments evolved, so did his sensitivity rial pasture.” He explains David Carson and fellow to typefaces? As another example, it seems a stretch to unpredictable design explorers at the end of the twen- consider covers for The Enemy, a journal published in tieth century by saying, “But like all fringe sensibilities England from 1927 to 1929 as “a precursor of the Neo- that are eaten up by commercial culture the line toed Expressionist renderings of the digital age.” In a later between unacceptability and warm embrace is often chapter Heller says, “Sixties Underground designers very thin and entirely mutable.” In an epilogue, he raises eschewed the rational New Typography.” Many of questions that only time will answer and leaves the door these designers were self-taught. It is likely most of open for further research into the subject of avant-garde them didn’t know enough about the New Typography communications in the digital realm. Economic reality to consciously rebel against it. will continue to balance against the visionary fervor that Interpreting history is a challenge. New informa- leads to innovative communication in the first place. The tion and connections enrich our understanding of the relationships between art and ideas, publishing and prof- past but must be addressed with care. Heller draws its, will continue to offer a fertile field of study. a tighter connection between Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, Glasgow School and Secession than is usual when he describes the styles as using a shared visual language. The Glasgow School, or at least Charles Rennie Mackintosh, protested that their work was not Art Nouveau. Another area deserving clarification concerns the journal USSR Under Construction. What was the role of Varvara Stepanova? She was married to Rodchenko 90 Design Issues: Volume 20, Number 4 Autumn 2004.