DES 570-01 - Research Blog Entry #1

This week's design inspiration comes from Swiss designer Claude Kuhn . He is known for his creative boxing posters and is the art director and exhibition designer for the Museum of Natural History in Bern, Switzerland. His use of Gestalt principles especially figure ground helped revolutionize poster design during the 80's and early 90's. He received the Swiss Sports Award in '92. The final assignment for my Graphic Design III class is recreating a movie poster. I think I am going to try to do something in a similar simplistic yet bold style.

This week's blog is focused on graphic designer Nolen Strals . Initially gaining acclaim for his hand-printed music show posters and facades of landmarks, he has gone on to design book covers, packaging, and even had his work featured in the New York Times. He helped lead the design studio Post Typography for over a decade before taking the role of Associate Creative Director at Telegraph Creative. I first learned about his work after seeing one of his show flyers displayed in Ellen Lupton's book Thinking with Type . After which I decided to find his website and dive deeper into his work. His portfolio boasts a wide variety of impressive projects from wayfinding signage for his hometown of Baltimore to redesigns for large brewing companies and even video and animation.

 The website I chose for this week's research blog is that of Stefan Sagmeister , Austrian graphic designer and typographer based in New York. He has done design work for musicians from Lou Reed to Jay Z and Aerosmith. From 2011-2019 he worked with designer Jessica Walsh as Sagmeister & Walsh Inc. I chose Sagmeister's website because he has a very diverse portfolio, yet has many music-related projects consistently placed throughout his site. Though this is not exclusively the type of work I am looking to go into, it is a subject that has always interested me. Another cool section of his website is the "ANSWERS" tab which serves as an FAQ that one might find on any other company's website. However, the questions are all meticulously categorized and the responses have an almost interview/interviewee tone to them. There are questions about Sagmeister's personal design approach, inspiration, and even advice for students. There is a lot to explore on this site ...