brandknewmag.com
36
EL LISSITZKY: COMMUNICATE WITHOUT WORDS
In 1921, Russian designer El Lissitzky was among a group of artists who broke away from Kasimir Malevich’s Suprematists--who
believed art need not serve any function beyond its intrinsic, spiritual
value--to focus on practical design to aid Russia’s new communist state.
These were the Constructivists.
Lissitzky, whose work had several distinguishing characteristics--layouts
structured on a grid, limited color palettes, tense diagonals, sans serif
type, and repetition of pure geometric forms, believed that art and
design could communicate in a nation where much of the population
was illiterate. He aimed to establish a visual language using shape
and color instead of letterforms; in his famous political poster Beat
the Whites with the Red Wedge, geometric shapes tell the story of the
revolutionaries shattering the establishment.
LADISLAV SUTNAR:
UNDERSTAND YOUR USER
Czech-born Ladislav Sutnar collaborated
with writer Knud Lönberg-Holm to improve
Sweet’s Catalog Service, which compiled
the catalogs of different manufacturers
in the construction industry. Recognizing
that people look for products in different
ways, they developed a system that crossreferenced each item by company, trade,
and product name. Sutnar clarified the
vast amount of information, using colors,
shapes, charts, and graphic symbols to
guide the reader. He established hierarchy
by emphasizing type--changing scale and
weight, reversing out of color, and using italics
and parentheses--which made skimming,
reading, and remembering easier. (He also
established the standard protocol of putting
phone number area codes in parentheses.)
Sutnar was moving beyond the single page
and embracing the double-page spread,
creating designs that weren’t just visually interesting, but also helpful.
The way he steered readers through complex information sounds much
like what we now call information design or information architecture,
which has been further developed by Edward Tufte and Richard Saul
Wurman, as well as by digital and web designers everywhere.
ALVIN LUSTIG: SUGGEST, DON’T EX RS