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Ephemera Collection
Design through Time
Print Design
Year : 2021
Plant Care Cards
Ephemera Collection
Antheia Botanicals is a theoretical plant nursery that is dedicated to supplying their community with beautiful with rich histories. Antheia is the goddess of flowers, blossoms, vegetation, and human love.
This project was completed over the course of 4 months in a History of Design class. It is an immersive exercise to understand how one design can translate across the different design styles throughout history. The ephemera of this series is plant care cards– hangtags sold on plants when purchased at a nursery. The plant changes along with the design style based on relevant foliage of the time.
The 19th Century Victorian Era of design was characterized by detailed imagery and dense typography, mixed with many accents and borders. The printing press had reached new accessibility as the Industrial Revolution was in full motion, so printers had a wide range of new resources and techniques available to them. Many different fonts were emerging through a new flux of amateur type designers and amateur printers took on many of the designer responsibilities in terms of setting type and constructing compositions. Advancements in printing allowed for relatively detailed illustrative imagery. Printed photography was also possible, but expensive and time-consuming to produce.
During the Victorian Era a so-called “pteridomania”, Fern-Fever, swept through England. The fern motif was used throughout pottery, glass, textiles, sculpture, and print. Many fern enthusiasts arose in pursuit of building their fern collections. The hobby became very competitive and resulted in significantly reduced wild fern populations.
19th Century
The Art Nouveau Era was marked by Japanese printmaking influence and more intentional and compositional design. The era was very "people-centric" with most of the artwork and posters featuring people of some human form. Type paired better with imagery because it was handmade for most pieces individually. This helped to make compositions much more dynamic. France was a leader in Art Nouveau design, fueled by their cabaret culture, creating the most bold and provocative design work. Their most prominent influence aside from Japanese print was their well-known Rococo Renaissance style.
The imagery of this piece incorporates a human element within many different botanical elements and details. Art Nouveau designs frequently featured people and French design was known for their more provocative portrayal of women, so this piece molds flowers and beautiful women together into one. Florals were also very frequent subjects in Art Nouveau design. The overall style of the design takes from the dramatic Rococo style that Art Nouveau was so influenced by.
Art Nouveau 1
As previously mentioned, the Art Nouveau Era was marked by Japanese print-making influence and more intentional and compositional design. As the style progressed, different regions began to focus on more nationalistic and geometric design work. The Four in Glasgow focused on finding a specific visual style influenced by Celtic tradition. Other groups were also forming in Austria and Germany with similar interests in symmetry and simple, clean design. There was also a larger awareness of branding during this time. Weiner Werkstatte branded themselves with logos and specific fonts and Peter Behrens did the same with the AEG, specifying a specific brand identity for all of their design-related items.
Scottish, Austrian, and German Art Nouveau design was still a very human-centric design style, but not nearly as sexualized as in France or as direct as in America. The rose design is significant for the time, as it is known as the Mackintosh Rose. This particular way of designing roses was popularized by Charles Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald-Mackintosh. The square rose symbols in the corners also bear a resemblance to the Weiner Werkstatte rose logo designed by Koloman Moser.
Art Nouveau 2
The Dada Movement was founded in Zurich during 1916 and continued until roughly 1924. Hugo Ball founded the movement at Cabaret Voltaire with the intention of standing in opposition to the suffering caused by the First World War, particularly in the middle class. They asserted that the barbarism of war had brought about a collapse of Western Culture and questioned how European society could claim to be rational, enlightened, or civilized when death was occurring in such huge numbers on the front lines. Aside from pacifism and anti-war sentiments, the Dada movement was also very anti-institutional art. They aimed to break the restrictions of traditional art in order to open up new creative possibilities.
The selected plant for the Dada movement Ephemera is the White Poppy. While red poppies are symbols of remembrance for soldiers who have given their lives in war, white poppies remember all who are killed in was- including victims. The first use of the poppy symbol in WWI occur in the poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, written in 1915. This poem is included on the left side of the back of the ephemera. The concept of remembering all the victims of war aligns very well with the Dada movement’s cause for peace.
Dada
During the early 20th century graphic design was influenced by a series of art movements and “isms” including Cubism, Futurism, Orphism, Purism, and Vorticism. The London Underground was an important example of design at the time. The Underground commissioned many foundational design works including Kauffer’s posters, Johnston’s Typeface, Beck’s Map, and Marx’s fabric design. Edward McKnight Kauffer designed a multitude of posters for the Underground that introduced the cubist style to design. He generally used Johnston’s exceedingly legible san serif typeface in his works. Cubism also went on to inspire art forms such as Orphism and Calligrammes, which impacted design.
The crab apple tree is a fitting plant choice for the early 20th century because at the time, especially in the 20s, plants with berries and fruits were popular for landscaping. This was largely because they would attract birds and bird watching was a popular hobby. The popularity of this hobby is attributed to people’s desire to celebrate and welcome nature in all its glory. The front of the plant care card is inspired by Kauffer’s poster design style. The back mirrors the Orphist design of Delaunay and Cendrar’s work, “Prose Dutransii Represen.”
Modern Art
The First World War spurred a newfound devotion to achieving utopia and finding order after a period of chaos and bloodshed. De Stijl and Russian Constructivism sought to achieve those things through all facets of design and devise an elevated society in which and war like WWI would not happen again. Van Doesburg and Mondrian lead the DeStijl movement, emphasizing deconstructed techniques with bold use of positive and negative space to attempt to achieve compositional balance in an abstract form that was separate from any realistic depiction.
There is a painting of anemone flowers done by Mondrian before he embraced his Neo-Plasticist style. The flower on the front composition is deconstructed from that painting in the famous De Stijl journal cover style. Anemones are a native wildflower to Germany and blue anemones are representative of represent mutual trust, intelligence, love, and respect as well as anticipation for Spring and Summer. This meaning correlates well with De Stijl’s intention to bring about a brighter day with intelligent design thinking.
De Stil
Bauhaus was a German art school founded after World War I that balanced German Expressionist and Russian Constructivism to create a style that celebrated the Machine Aesthetic of urban society. The main principles of the movement were “Form follows function” and “less is more.” A strong emphasis was placed on functionality in design.
Bauhaus design is heavily focused on functionality, so it is fitting that they would advertise tomatoes in their style. These fruits are nutrient rich plants that are the second most popular produce in Germany after potatoes. Their vibrant red also coincides with the use of red
in Bauhaus design. This design experiments with Bauhaus’s typophoto and photo collage techniques.
Bauhaus
The Great Depression was a time of difficulty and emotional hardship for the majority of the American population, so many were looking to the government for guidance and assistance. This made FDR’s Works Progress Administration, a workforce to aid the US on a community level, especially impactful. FDR’s Federal Art Project within the WPA created 35,000 unique design during the time and 2 million published posters. These posters were able to introduce a much more modernist style that other advertisers had held in disdain. These posters used a limited color and print process of silkscreening, allowing them to produce works in large quantities with time and cost in mind. The abundance of this style in government advertising is a large reason why it was able to become popularized as a style..
The 1930s saw the popularization of roses, foxglove, delphiniums, and carnations. Especially in California, these flowers could be found in gardens, bouquets, fashion, and wallpaper. Lilac, Emerald, and bright Orange were all popular colors at the time. Orange is specifically highlighted in the carnations because together they are a symbol of joy, enthusiasm, and success, which were the main aspirations of the time period as the American population strived to triumph over poverty.
World War II
International style was largely brought about by the emigration of many German artists and designers out of Germany and into countries including Switzerland, Italy, and the USA. This movement of creative minds allowed for collaboration and refinement of style that brought about the International Swiss Style. This style employed san serif fonts and a rigid hierarchy. Style of imagery varied throughout regions and individual artists, but there was an overall emphasis on grid and asymetricality.
The 1940s and 50s brought about an emphasis on the backyard as a place for outdoor leisure, particularly in America. Bulb and shrub societies including the American Daffodil Society, American Lily Society, and American Camellia Society were able to integrate themselves well into the growing suburbia. This Lillie’s care guide employs styles inspired by Richard Paul Lohse, Josef Muller-Brockmann, and Nelly Rudin. The back utilizes symbology for the time of year, sun, and water because semiotics and symbology became popular tools during the time.
International
In the 60s and 70s, Southern California was experiencing a prominent psychedelic culture that translated into artwork and poster design. There were many emerging musical artists in need of poster design and the prominence of LDS at the time led designers to try to capture that experience in their artwork. Wes Wilson was one of the most popular poster designers of the era.
During the 70s potted house plants rose to large popularity. This was done in an effort to balance international style designing with an added element of life and natural beauty. Macrame hanging baskets were in their prime and hanging leafy plants, like the philodendron, were some of the most popular indoor plant choices.
Postmodern
In recent years, advances in technology and globalization have allowed graphic design to expand in style and technique. Graphic design has been more prevalent in corporate settings, so it has shifted towards more formulaic and gridded design.
Succulents and other houseplants that were popular in the 70s have made a resurgence in recent years. The use of photography in modern plant instruction cards is very common so that the customer can see the plant at different stages of life.
Contemporary
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