Blog Posting for April 24th - Piet Zwart Project, Process Blog
Above is a thumbnail of the main poster I am working on screen printing.
Dada meets De Stijl, the typical romantic rule of “opposites attract” made way for a creation between the two. Dada loved De Stijl’s qualities of functional and dogmatic clarity. She was bossy, Dada liked that. De Stijl swooned at the playful vitality that Dada exhibited. It was love… for a while, atleast long enough to produce Piet Zwart’s style. Zwart’s style was the rebel child, a non-conforming figure who simply fiddled around with the ideas of his parents, ultimately combining both their styles to become a sort of clear, yet vital-attention grabbing player in the world of new typography.
Tall tales aside, Piet Zwart considered himself a “typotekt,” a man having no formal training in graphic design, but a principled length of work in architecture. He was responsible in his text placement, as he was concerned for the reader. He knew that the average reader had little time to sift through endless rows of text to get a main idea. He sold it. He provided text with a clear, readable representation however placed it somewhat unusually to catch the eye of the viewer.
I’ve taken a look at a variety of Zwart works, he played with some photomontage effects and silhouettes, and used bold shapes and multiple font styles. Often not limiting a work for only two or three fonts, he frequently used endless amounts.
To give a further update, as I am still learning about photo emulsion in screenprinting, I have decided to rely mostly on computer illustrations/altered photographs in terms of some of the images on my posters. Otherwise, some parts will be screen printed, with image stamps, as planned. I’m excited to see how they will turn out.
In terms of the film, it will be an overview of the process with some audio, no voice overs. This keeps it’s quick and yet still professional. The focus will then be more on the process and the art itself instead of me.
