A Study On The Concept And Theory Of Modern Western Graphic Design

The development of design of modernism is the most important progress and breakthrough in the twentieth century. The design of modernism laid the foundation of modern design and provides the possibilities for the evolution of design.Not only there has some consistency between the theory and practice of modern graphic design in Western, but also has clear context and inheritance relationship in their deveolpment. The specific background leads to different styles, it’s not an isolated nor incident thing, but interweave with the factors of society, science, technology, economy, culture and so on. The emphasis on modern graphic design theory results in the prosperity of western graphic design.At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young designers unabashedly confronted their society through design. Surrounded by chaos-industrialization, technological upheaval, world war, they sought order and meaning, and try their best to change the world. These artists created posters, books, magazines, and typography using strikingly new visual vocabularies. They urged against traditional aesthetic, such as adornment and symmetry, and draw inspiration from the machine and the development of science and technology with innovative vision. Through such ideas there sprang up the movements of Futurism, Dadaism, De Stijl, Constructivism, New Wave and so on, These ideas clashed and converged to form the foundation of modern graphic design.Graphic design of Constructivism believe that follow the objective principles and based on the form of the universal values will be a kind of ideal model, they established a pure geometrical language, original, with a particular aesthetic value color and form of expression; De Stijl saw the graphic design as a precision tool of the human spirit, and supported that will be able to integrated the accuracy of expressions and perfect execution. Graphic design in Bauhaus absorbed and fusionend the avant-garde design concepts, then developed the important foundation of theories and form. The New Wave Typography launched by Wolfgang Weingart increased the new standards and redefined the value of typography by experimental practices and study the theory of syntax.Growing up all of us could not be immune to Modernism, It was the pervasive Zeitgeist, the spirit of the time, and also the beginning of Bauhaus thought, which believe the idea that beauty is the inevitable consequence of appropriate form. Modernism has made great strides as a way of contemplating and dealing with the visual and tactile world. Modernism is the most important issues in the theoretical study of the graphic design, it dominates the trends and directions of modern graphic design, but is also being questioned. Both of the critique and defense exist in design criticism at the same time towards Modernism. The development of modernism over one hundred years shows that it’s always an open framework and a system, which is impossible to be completed. So the announcement of its death is premature.The principal views of modernistic design is that to find an objective way to communicate information, but the situation might have some difference along with the practice expanding. The postmodernists believe that the diversity exists both in the individual and collective while they challenged the modernistic concept of "universal", and they constantly transfer the meaning of visual form. Nowadays many designers are keen to explore their ideas, whatever the purpose of that, the insistence towards artistic style always reflects the honourable and precious of design practice.The concept of "modernity" brings an idea and attitude of awareness to typography. The transition produced from variety of experimental works in the early twentieth century, it replaced the pursuit towards classics and beauty in design with the new way of manipulating all kinds of abstract relations in typography. This means changed the convention of typography and took some advantages to the development of composition in it.The theory as "author" raised the questions to designers related to philosophcal, aesthetic and political aspects, it inspired the design practice as a means to rethink design process and expand design methods, and the design theory might change its existing thinking either.There has a strong driving force of culture behind the brilliant phenomenons of western graphic design. From a historical point, the progress of science and technology provided the necessary requirements for the modernization of western civilization. The whole fields of Art, including graphic design, has totally transformed with it, and become the pioneer which lead the trends of world’s civilization. However, it is not enough to discover it, and it may result us in an illusion that the culture and art could develop with the progress of technology and economy. In analysising the graphic design ideas and theories, we could draw a conclusion that the technology and economy are external factors but the thought and creativity of human being are the decisive internal cause to these phenomenons above.