Constructivism

Constructivism

Constructivism has its origins from Russia, Constructivism was primarily an art and architectural movement. The term construction art came up by Kasmir Malvich in reference to the work of Aleksander Rodchenko. Graphic design in Constructivism was the production of product packaging to logos, posters, book covers and advertisments. Jan Tschichold was one of those who inspired himself from this movement.

The aim of Rodchenko, of this movement was that Art/artists should contribute towards the ‘construction’ of the new communist state. Rejection of the idea of ‘art for arts sake’ ex. art should serve a social/political purpose. Devoted themselves to industrial design and visual communication, Tatlin

turned from sculpture to making an efficient stove, suits and coats, and Rodchenko left paintings for graphic design and photo journalism.

The characteristics of this movement are geometric shapes, Reds,white and blacks, sans serif typography and photomontage.

El Lissitzky

El lissitzky is a Russian, he is an artist, designer, typographer, photographer and architect. His ideas were very influential in the development of the Bauhaus and the constructivist art movements. His experimentations and techniques that he used in the 1920’s and 30’s have been an influence on graphic design since. Lissitzky in his work he uses a lot of geometric shapes that he referres to them ‘prouns’. The shapes were developed in a 3-dimensional space, that often contained varying perspectives, which was a direct contrast to the ideas of suprematist theories which stressed the simplification of shapes and the use of 2D space only. This technique was applied to poster art as propaganda for the communist party.

We can see simple shapes, symbolism propaganda, blocks of colour maximum visual effect, positive and negative space.

Aleksander Rodchenko

Rodchenko is an artist and designer he used another mediums like painting, photography, sculpture, advertising and packaging. He was a member of the Productivists, which pushed for the introduction of art into everyday life, a concept which in many ways describes modern day graphic design. At first his main medium was painting but by the time he began to experiment with photography and photomontage. Most of his work that he designed was packages, advertisements, logos, posters, book covers to

bookmarks, photomontage and illustration, and even set and costume design for various Russian theatres. Rodchenko used photomontage to alert the reader to the ‘construction’ of the cinematic process.

These are some posters of today that were inspired from Constructivism:

References:

Constructivism : Design Is History. 2015. Constructivism : Design Is History. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/1920/constructivism/. [Accessed 29 January 2015].

Aleksander Rodchenko : Design Is History. 2015. Aleksander Rodchenko : Design Is History. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.designishistory.com/1920/aleksander-rodchenko/. [Accessed 29 January 2015].

El Lissitzky : Design Is History. 2015. El Lissitzky : Design Is History. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/1920/el-lissitzky/. [Accessed 29 January 2015].