5 Examples of Modernist Design

Bridging the Gap, a poster for the London club. The layout  is set to a tight grid layout, it's well set and the colour palette is contrasting enough to draw attention yet lacks any pull. As an image it's effective even though it's abstract, but as a piece of advertising it doesn't. There isn't any link to say that it's a club at first glance. The type adheres to the Swedish set style of grotesque type, another connection to the modernist style as well as the grid layout. The only problem that comes from this is that the information the viewer may want to find out is jumbled within all of it, there's too much information on the poster making it hard to find out what you want.

This is a horribly vibrant modernist piece, the layout and the simplification of the album cover show this. It communicates it's message of what the album is through the use of the image of the wall. It's effective in drawing in attention through the use of colour and contrast.

Pocketmag, a modernist know-how website . It seems to be a call back to the international style: the grotesque typefaces, grid layout (along with the guidelines in the background showing it's construction.) Overall it's a really nice piece of design that won't age too much, due to it's stick to the minimalist modern style. It'll stand the test of time, but I think it'll appear aged as a reference to the Swiss style in the same sense, as a copycat.

Modernism is very apparent within Ikea's branding much of it uses a grid, tight layout and grotesques typefaces. Universal use of brand names for their products throughout all language, a trait of the 'international style' without the translation instead opting for using the same name in all language. It's interested me why they never changed it for the translation, but It's nice to have something called Ivar rather then Table-set, It adds character to the mass produced product. It's very successful and fitting, above, been an example of the work and branding. Simplistic and minimal, The lack of colour would further suggest this.

A magazine for the 'New Graphic Design', one of the first examples of the international style in full play, followed along with the all languages used to play on to that as well. Modernism is very apparent here, the grotesque typeface, grid layout. 'Modernism had the urgency of utopianism: to make the world better by design.' As Vignelli say it was an attempt of trying to make the world better but personally I'd say that in the process of doing that they created something that comes off cold and soulless in that because it lacked character, the example here been one such item where it's apparent.

Vignelli. M (1991) 'Long live modernism' AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, Vol 9, No. 2