Creativity and design have always been intriguing and somewhat intangible to me. Last fall, I took Graphic Design History which sparked my awareness and imagination. Our final blog post was to write about our inspiration. I've included a few paragraphs from this post at the bottom of the page. These views are the starting point for me this semester.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Herman Miller Poster - Balance

I learned about Armin Hofmann, a famous graphic designer in the Swiss Style, when I took Graphic Design History last fall.  I fell in love with Swiss Style and was especially attracted to this poster because of the asymmetrical balance of the design, the abstraction of the images of the chairs, and the desire for a Herman Miller Aeron Chair in true black (sigh).  I looked up the designs of Armin Hofmann on the MoMA website: http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=2697.  I think this poster was commissioned by The Herman Miller Company and was used to promote a Herman Miller Chair Collection in Switzerland in 1962.  The audience was probably the community interested in art installations, Herman Miller chairs, and followers of Armin Hofmann (his posters are still available online through many retail sites). 
This composition represents the Swiss/International style in so many ways.  Some typical attributes of the style that are represented here include: asymmetrical design, color scheme of red, white, & black, tilted axis, clear presentation of visual information, san-serif style typography, and geometric abstraction of shapes.
The typography deserves special treatment – it is no doubt Helvetica or one of it predecessors.  The Swiss designers used this san-serif style font exclusively for their designs, typically flush left with a ragged right margin.
The artwork is also very prominent in the design.  The flow of the geometric abstraction of the chairs leads the eye from the bottom left to the upper right of the poster.  Although the shapes are simple, the idea of the “chair” is never lost.
Herman Miller’s red logo is still used today on their website: http://www.hermanmiller.com/global.  The dimensions and colors may have changed (not sure about either of these suppositions) but the idea is still the same.  I love how its shape represents the “M” in Miller in a sleek style.
I think this composition is an amazing work which represents balance in graphic design. The visual weight of the piece is influenced by the size, color, and shapes of the text boxes, typeface (addressed previously), and shapes of the chairs.  The red text (top and bottom) and the Herman Miller logo balance the strong black representations of the chairs.  The vertical lines of the text boxes highlight the dates and location of the installation – the date is further left to emphasis the closing date as well as balance the poster. The vertical orientation of the piece and the weight of the black chair shapes make the piece stable yet it appears that the chairs are floating off the page at the top. The overall balance of the composition is asymmetric with a tilted axis from the lower left to the upper right through the chairs.  A balance line is created through this axis.  There is lots of energy in the poster with the chair shapes changing and generally lightening in size and visual weight – just enough variation to this rule to keep it interesting. 

4 comments:

  1. I had no idea that those were chairs until reading through your post. I love the continuation of the line and how each 'chair' fits into the next. This is a great example of a successful asymmetrical design.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the poster for the chairs. Amazing asymmetrical design. Now if only we can get our little squares in our class exercise to look as good. Each one of those chairs is a design in and of it's self. Did you see that there are 10 chairs and the stack of word are also set up as 10 rows? The eye is automatically balancing each of those groups. This piece is just an eye dance all the way through.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love this work. It's so simple yet, like you said, there is variation in it to keep it interesting. I love the variations of the chairs' thicknesses.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Alm333: I have been trying to get my hands on this poster (or a reproduction of it) for years, with no luck. When you write "still available online through many retail sites," can you please post again and tell me specifically which ones?
    Thanks.
    TW

    ReplyDelete