Week 8 The Genesis of Twentieth Century Design - A History of ...

A HISTORY OF
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Chapter 12 – The Genesis of Twentieth Century Design
SUMMARY
This chapter focuses on the designers, particularly in
Scotland, Austria, and Germany, who broke with art nouveau
and introduced a more rectilinear, geometric approach
to design. Their concern for spatial relationships,
inventive forms, functionality, and systems thinking laid
the groundwork for twentieth-century design.
The work of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who
saw space as the essence of design, was an inspiration
to European artists and designers who were moving
away from the curvilinear art nouveau toward a rectilinear
approach to spatial organization. Another source of
inspiration was The Studio and its reproductions of the work
of Aubrey Beardsley and Jan Toorop, which influenced
a group of young students who collaborated at the
Glasgow School of Art in the early 1890s: Charles Rennie
Mackintosh, Herbert McNair, and sisters Margaret
and Frances McDonald. “The Four,” as they were called,
innovated a geometric style that blended floral and curvilinear
elements with strong rectilinear structure. Their
designs were also distinguished by symbolic imagery,
stylized form, and bold simple lines that defined flat
areas of color. Among their work featured in this chapter
are the 1895 poster for the Glasgow Institute of the Fine
Arts and the 1896 poster for The Scottish Musical Review,
in which a stylized interpretation of a human figure towers
eight feet above the viewer.
Among those who drew inspiration from The Four
were Jessie Marion King, whose stylized lettering and
medieval-style fantasy illustrations, with their romantic
overtones, widely influenced fiction illustration throughout
the twentieth century. Talwin Morris, the art director
at Blackie’s, a Glasgow publishing firm, embraced
the ideas of The Four and applied the geometric spatial
division and lyrical organic forms of the Glasgow group
to mass communication. He also developed a system
of standard formats for publication series that could be
modified slightly to create distinctions.
In Austria, the Vienna Secession, or Sezessionstil, was
formed by younger members of the Kunstlerhaus, the
Viennese Creative Artists’ Association, who resigned in
protest when the organization refused to allow foreign
artists to participate in their exhibitions. The Vienna
Secession, led by painter Gustav Klimt, architects Joseph
Maria Olbrich and Josef Hoffmann, and artist-designer
Koloman Moser, became another countermovement
to art nouveau. The Vienna Secession’s love of sans
serif lettering, ranging from flat, blocky slabs to fluid
calligraphic forms, can be seen in posters designed to
promote their exhibitions, as well as in their publication
Ver Sacrum, or Sacred Spring, published from 1898 until 1903. Ver Sacrum was
more of a design laboratory than a magazine. Designers
experimented with paper and printing, and layouts that
merged text, illustration, and ornament into a unified
whole. Editorial content included articles about artists
and their work, poems contributed by leading writers of
the day, and critical essays, including a famous article
entitled “Potemkin City” by the Austrian architect Adolf
Loos, in which he challenged all areas of design and
called for a functional simplicity that banished all forms
of useless decoration.
Koloman Moser and his fascination with geometry
played a major role in defining the Secession’s approach
to graphic design. Moser’s poster for the thirteenth Vienna
Secession exhibition and Alfred Roller’s poster for
the fourteenth exhibition, both from 1902, are outstanding
examples of the geometric patterning and modular
design construction that informed the design language
of the mature phase of the Vienna Secession. Moser and
Josef Hoffmann, who were both appointed to the faculty
of the Vienna School for the Applied Arts, launched the
Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops), the goal of which
was to offer an alternative to the poorly designed, massproduced
articles and trite historicism prevalent at the
time. Function, honesty to materials, and harmonious
proportion were important concerns, and decoration was
used only when it served these goals.
German artist, architect, and designer Peter Behrens,
whose advanced thinking about design influenced
architecture, industrial design, and graphic design, set
the stage for the future. Behrens was an early advocate
of sans-serif typography, and his twenty-five-page
booklet, Celebration of Life and Art: A Consideration of the Theater as the Highest Symbol of a Culture, is believed
to be the first to use sans-serif type as a running book
text. In an attempt to innovate typographic forms for the
new century, he designed typefaces that were released

A HISTORY OF
GRAPHIC DESIGN
by Klingspor Type Foundry, including his first typeface,
Behrensschrift.
In 1903, Behrens moved to Düsseldorf to become
director of the Düsseldorf School of Arts and Crafts.
The introductory courses that he developed there were
precursors for the Bauhaus Preliminary Course, for
which two of Behrens’s apprentices, Walter Gropius and
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, served as directors. In 1904,
Dutch architect J. L. Mathieu Lauweriks joined the Düsseldorf
faculty and introduced an approach to teaching
design based on geometric composition. A modular
element composed of a square circumscribed around a
circle was the basic building block for his compositions,
in which the module could be subdivided and duplicated
to create grids and geometric patterns, and to determine
proportions, dimensions, and spatial divisions. Behrens
was influenced by Lauweriks’s theory and applied it to
his own work, which pushed twentieth-century design
toward rational geometry as an underlying system for
visual organization.
Behrens had experimented with the concept of total
design as early as 1900, when, as a member of the
Darmstadt artist’s colony, he designed his house and
all of its furnishings, from furniture to cutlery to china.
When he was appointed artistic advisor to Allgemeine
Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) in 1907 by director Emil
Rathenau, Behrens introduced this concept to industry
with the first comprehensive visual identification system
that included graphic design, architecture, and product
design. That same year marked the founding in Münich
of the Deutsche Werkbund (German Association of
Craftsmen), which advocated a marriage between art and
technology. Behrens, Hermann Muthesius, and Henry
van de Velde, the group’s leaders, were influenced by
William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement; yet
unlike Morris, they recognized the value of machines and
advocated design as a way to give form and meaning
to all machine-made things. Although Muthesius called
for the maximum use of mechanical manufacturing and
the standardization of design for industrial efficiency,
and van de Velde argued in favor of individual artistic
expression, Behrens’s work furthered standardization in
product design for machine manufacture. His work pointed
toward a new design sensibility that would mature in
the 1920s.
In England, the Underground Electric Railways of
London under the leadership of Frank Pick launched a
successful poster campaign to encourage use of public
transportation. Pick selected the designers personally
and provided them simply with a theme or subject. In
1916, he commissioned Edward Johnston to design an
exclusive, patented typeface. The result was a sans-serif
with a consistent stroke weight, whose proportions were
based on classical Roman inscriptions. The identity project
expanded to include signage, station architecture,
product design, and the design of the station platforms,
trains and buses, and coach interiors. Through their commitment
to design and their demonstration that design
can make a positive contribution to the environment, the
Underground became an international model for corporate
design responsibility.
KEY TERMS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE; THE FIRST PAGE NUMBER OF THEIR APPEARANCE IS LISTED)
The Studio, page 233, the first of nearly a dozen new 1890s European art periodicals, it had a strong influence on a
group of young Scottish artists who became friends at the Glasgow School of Art.
The Glasgow School (The Four), page 232, a collaboration of four students from the Glasgow School of Art: Charles
Rennie Mackintosh, J. Herbert McNair, and Margaret and Frances Macdonald. These young collaborators developed a
unique style of lyrical originality and symbolic complexity. They innovated a geometric style of composition by tempering
floral and curvilinear elements with strong rectilinear structure. Their designs are distinguished by symbolic imagery
and stylized form. Bold, simple lines define flat planes of color. Their influence on the Continent became important
transitions to the aesthetic of the twentieth century (Figs. 12-2 through 12-4).
Sezessionstil (The Vienna Secession), page 235, formed by Gustav Klimt, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Joseph Hoffman, and
Koloman Moser. It came into being on April 3, 1897, when the younger members of the Künstlerhaus, the Viennese Creative
Artists’ Association, resigned in a stormy protest. Technically, the refusal to allow foreign artists to participate in
Künstlerhaus exhibitions was their main issue, but the clash between tradition and new ideas emanating from France,
England, and Germany lay at the heart of the conflict. Theirs became a countermovement to the floral art nouveau that

A HISTORY OF
GRAPHIC DESIGN
flourished in other parts of Europe. The group’s rapid evolution ran from the illustrative allegorical style of symbolist
painting to a French-inspired floral style to the mature style, which drew inspiration from the Glasgow School. A major
difference between this group and art nouveau is the artists’ love of clean, simple, sans-serif lettering, ranging from flat,
blocky slabs to fluidly calligraphic forms. Their elegant Ver Sacrum (Sacred Spring) was more a design laboratory than
a magazine (Figs. 12-9 through 12-24).
Ver Sacrum (Sacred Spring), page 237, Designed by the Vienna Secession and published from 1898 until 1903, this was
more a design laboratory than a magazine. It focused on experimentation and graphic excellence and enabled designers
to develop innovative graphics as they explored the merging of text, illustration, and ornament into a lively unity.
The magazine had an unusual square format, and its covers often combined hand lettering with bold line drawing
printed in color on a colored background (Figs. 12-11 through 12-16).
Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops), page 239, An outgrowth of Sezessionstil, this spiritual continuum of William
Morris’s workshops sought a close union of the fine and applied arts in the design of lamps, fabrics, and similar objects
for everyday use, including books, greeting cards, and other printed matter. The goal was to offer an alternative to
poorly designed, mass-produced articles and trite historicism. Function, honesty to materials, and harmonious proportions
were important concerns; decoration was used only when it served these goals and did not violate them. (Figs.
12-25 through 12-28).
Celebration of Life and Art: A Consideration of the Theater as the Highest Symbol of a Culture, page 242, This booklet by
Peter Behrens may represent the first use of sans-serif type as running book text. All-capital, sans-serif type is also used
in an unprecedented way on the title and dedication pages (Fig. 12-29).
Berthold Foundry, page 242, designed a family of ten sans-serif typeface that were variations on one original font. This
Akzidenz Grotesk (called Standard in the United States) type family had a major influence on twentieth-century typography
(Fig. 12 - 32).
Akzidenz Grotesk, page 242, a typeface designed by the Berthold Foundry and called Standard in the United States. This
typeface permitted compositors to achieve contrast and emphasis within one family of typefaces (Fig. 12-32).
Behrensschrift, page 243, Peter Behrens’s first typeface, released by the Klingspor Foundry, was an attempt to reduce
any poetic flourish marking the forms, thereby making them more universal (Fig. 12-34).
Deutsche Werkbund (German Association of Craftsmen), page 245, Founded in 1907 in Munich, this association was created
to inspire high-quality design in manufactured goods and architecture, advocating a marriage of art with technology.
It recognized the value of machines and advocated design as a way to give form and meaning to all machine-made
things, including buildings. Soon after it formed, two factions emerged. One, headed by Hermann Muthesius, argued
for the maximum use of mechanical manufacturing and standardization of design for industrial efficiency. This group
believed form should be determined solely by function and wanted to eliminate all ornament. Muthesius saw simplicity
and exactness as being both functional demands of machine manufacture and symbolic aspects of twentieth-century
industrial efficiency and power. A union of artists and craftsmen with industry, he believed, could elevate the functional
and aesthetic qualities of mass production, particularly in low-cost consumer products. The other faction, led by Henry
van de Velde, argued for the primacy of individual artistic expression
Gesamkultur, page 245, a new universal culture existing in a totally reformed, manmade environment.
Sachlichkeit (loosely translated, “commonsense objectivity”), page 247, a pragmatic emphasis on technology, manufacturing
processes, and function, in which artistic conceits and questions of style were subordinate to purpose.
Analogous colors, page 247, often two or three sequential colors on the color wheel.

A HISTORY OF
GRAPHIC DESIGN
KEY PEOPLE AND THEIR MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE; THE FIRST PAGE NUMBER OF THEIR
APPEARANCE IS LISTED)
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959), page 232, an inspiration for the designers evolving from curvilinear art nouveau toward
a rectilinear approach to spatial organization. He rejected historicism in favor of a philosophy of “organic architecture,”
with “the reality of the building” existing not in the design of the façade but in dynamic interior spaces where people
lived and worked. He defined organic design as having entity, “something in which the part is to the whole as the whole
is to the part, and which is all devoted to a purpose.... It seeks that completeness in idea in execution that is absolutely
true to method, true to purpose, true to character.” He saw space as the essence of design, and this emphasis was the
wellspring of his profound influence upon all areas of twentieth-century design (Fig. 12-1).
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928), page 233, A founding member of The Four, he made notable contributions to
the new century’s architecture, and realized major accomplishments in the design of objects, chairs, and interiors as
total environments. His main design theme is rising vertical lines, often with subtle curves at the ends to temper their
junction with the horizontals. Tall and thin rectangular shapes and the counterpoint of right angles against ovals, circles,
and arcs characterize his work. Abstract interpretations of the human figure, such as in his Scottish Musical Review
poster, had not been seen in Scotland before, and many observers were outraged (Fig. 12-4).
J. Herbert McNair (1868–1955), page 233, founding member of The Four.
Margaret (1868–1933) and Frances (1874–1921) Macdonald, page 233, founding members of The Four. These sisters held
strong religious beliefs and embraced symbolist and mystical ideas. The confluence of architectural structure with their
world of fantasy and dreams produced an unprecedented transcendental style that has been variously described as
feminine, a fairyland fantasy, and a melancholy disquietude (Figs. 12-2 and 12-3).
Jessie Marion King (1876–1949), page 235, She achieved a distinctive personal statement with medieval-style fantasy
illustrations accompanied by stylized lettering. Her grace, fluidity, and romantic overtones widely influenced fiction illustration
throughout the twentieth century (Fig. 12-5).
Talwin Morris (1865–1911), page 235, became art director of the Glasgow publishing firm Blackie’s, which provided him
with a forum for applying the geometric spatial division and lyrical organic forms of the Glasgow group The Four to
mass communications. He often developed formats for series that could be used over and over again with subtle variations
(Figs. 12-6 through 12-8).
Gustav Klimt (1862–1918), page 235, the painter who was the guiding spirit of (and led) the Vienna Secession’s revolt
against the Künstlerhaus. In his first Vienna Secession exhibition poster, he referred to Greek mythology, showing Athena,
goddess of the arts, watching Theseus deliver the deathblow to the Minotaur, a metaphor for the struggle between
the Secession and the Künstlerhaus (Fig. 12-9).
Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867–1908), page 235, an architect who was a key member of the Vienna Secession (Fig. 12-14).
Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956), page 235, an architect who was a key member of the Vienna Secession. He was appointed
to the faculty of the Vienna School for Applied Art with Koloman Moser, and together they launched the Wiener Werkstätte
(Vienna Workshops) in 1903.
Koloman Moser (1868–1918), page 235, an artist-designer who was a key member of the Vienna Secession. He played
a major role in defining its approach to graphic design. His poster for the thirteenth Vienna Secession exhibition is a
masterpiece of the mature phase. This evolution toward elemental geometric form was diagrammed by Walter Crane in
his book Line and Form. Moser was appointed to the faculty of the Vienna School for Applied Art with Joseph Hoffman,
and together they launched the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops) in 1903 (Figs. 12-10, 12-13, 12-15, 12-17, 12-20,
and 12-21).
Adolf Loos (1870–1933), page 237, the polemic Austrian architect who wrote the famous article “Potemkin City.” He
challenged all areas of design, and his writings roundly condemned both historicism and Sezessionstil. He called for a
functional simplicity that banished useless decoration in any form. Standing alone at the turn of the century, he blasted

A HISTORY OF
GRAPHIC DESIGN
the nineteenth-century love of decoration and abhorrence of empty spaces. To him, “organic” meant not curvilinear but
the use of human needs as a standard for measuring utilitarian form.
Alfred Roller (1864–1935), page 239, made significant innovations in graphic design with a masterly control of complex
line, tone, and form. A set designer and scene painter for theater, his principal work as a graphic designer and illustrator
was for Ver Sacrum and Secession exhibition posters. Cubism and art deco are anticipated in his 1902 poster for the
fourteenth Vienna Secession exhibition, and his poster for the sixteenth exhibition, later that same year, sacrificed legibility
in order to achieve an unprecedented textural density (Figs. 12-11, 12-12, 12-15, 12-18 and 12-22 through 12-24).
Berthold Löffler (1874–1960), page 239, anticipated later developments with his reductive symbolic images of thick
contours and simple geometric features. Figures in his posters and illustrations became elemental significations rather
than depictions (Figs. 12-25 through 12-27).
Peter Behrens (1868–1940), page 242, the German artist, architect, and designer who played a major role in charting a
course for design in the first decade of the new century. He sought typographic reform, was an early advocate of sansserif
typography, and used a grid system to structure space in his design layouts. He has been called “the first industrial
designer” in recognition of his designs for such manufactured products as streetlamps and teapots. His work for the
Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft, or AEG, is considered the first comprehensive visual identification program. He
believed that after architecture, typography provided “the most characteristic picture of a period, and the strongest
testimonial of the spiritual progress” and “development of a people.” His typographic experiments were a deliberate
attempt to express the spirit of the new era. His twenty-five-page booklet, Celebration of Life and Art: A Consideration
of the Theater as the Highest Symbol of a Culture, may represent the first use of sans-serif type as running book text. He
also designed the Behrensschrift typeface. In 1903, he moved to Düsseldorf to become director of the Düsseldorf School
of Arts and Crafts, where his purpose was to go back to the fundamental intellectual principles of all form-creating
work, allowing such principles to be rooted in the artistically spontaneous and their inner laws of perception rather than
directly in the mechanical aspects of the work. His work from the beginning of the 1900s is part of the tentative beginnings
of constructivism in graphic design, where realistic or even stylized depictions are replaced by architectural and
geometric structure. He formed the Deutsche Werkbund (German Association of Craftsmen) with Hermann Muthesius
and Henri van de Velde, and developed the Behrens-Antiqua typeface for the exclusive use of AEG. He also designed industrial
products, including electric household products such as teakettles and fans, as well as streetlamps and electric
motors (Figs. 12-29 through 12-35 and 12-37 through 12-46).
J. L. Mathieu Lauweriks (1864–1932), page 245, a Dutch architect who was fascinated by geometric form and developed
an approach to teaching design based on geometric composition. His grids began with a square circumscribed around
a circle; numerous permutations could be made by subdividing and duplicating this basic structure (Fig. 12-36).
Emil Rathenau (1838–1915), page 245, the director of the AEG who appointed Peter Behrens as its artistic advisor. A
visionary industrialist who sought to give a unified visual character to the company’s products, environments, and
communications.
Frank Pick (1878–1941), page 251, a statistician and attorney who provided the vision necessary to lead the Underground
Group to the forefront of innovative publicity and design. He responded to the jumble of advertisers’ posters competing
with transportation information and publicity by designating poster boards at station entrances for Underground
posters and maps, then limited advertisers’ posters to gridded spaces inside stations and on platforms. Underground
station signs introduced in 1908 had a solid red disk with a blue bar across the middle bearing the station name in white
sans-serif letters. These bright, simple designs stood out against the urban clutter. He commissioned Edward Johnston
to create a new typeface specific to the Underground. His design advocacy expanded to include signage, station
architecture, and product design, including train and bus design. Station platforms and coach interiors were carefully
planned for human use and design aesthetics.
Edward Johnston (1872–1944), page 251, the eminent calligrapher commissioned by Frank Pick to design an exclusive,
patented typeface for the Underground in 1916. He crafted a sans-serif typeface whose strokes have consistent weight;
however, the letters have the basic proportions of classical Roman inscriptions (Figs. 12-47 and 12-48).