fJenna has 4 post(s)

About Ladislav Sutnar
In 1897, Ladislav Sutnar was born in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. Mr. Sutnar was one of the first designers to take practice in the art of information design. Information design is the process of gathering large amounts of data and putting it into a visual form in a simple way for people to view clearly. Two of the main characteristics of his work were that he focused on using a limited color palette and he used a lot of typography. In his work, he often used a lot of punctuation symbols to represent certain ideas. One of the things that he has done that has had a significant impact on our everyday life, is that he decided to put parenthesis around the area code in telephone books. Sutnar moved to New York to do some work, but while he was staying in the city, the Nazi’s took over his home country, Czechoslovakia. That’s when he decided to stay in New York and start a new life living in America. He began teaching at the State School of Graphic Arts in Prague. After that, he spent almost 20 years working at Sweet’s catalog services and that’s where he spent most of his time creating information graphics. He also went on to create trend-setting designs in glassware, porcelain, flatware and other products. Although english was not his first language, his knowledge of information graphics was so strong that he was able to send a message to his audience that was mostly American.

From a personal standpoint, I think it’s extremely interesting that he was the one to decide to put parenthesis around the area code in phonebooks. I never knew that there was a person to make the decision to do so, I just thought that they were there from the beginning. I looked at a lot of his work and even though he specialized in information graphics, he did a few other kinds of design too.

Highlights about Ladislav Sutnar:

• He decided to put parenthesis around the area code of a phone number.
• He was one of the first designers to specialize in information graphics.
• His information graphics work went on to be the “architecture and design of the web”.

Cover for De Stilj Magazine, Ladislav Sutnar, 1931.

• 
• Cover for De Stilj Magazine, Ladislav Sutnar, 1931.
• 
• 

• 
• Venus in Central Park, Ladislav Sutnar
• 
• 

• 
• Venus / Forever Me, Ladislav Sutnar, 1967
• 
• 

• 
• Design for Die Casting, Ladislav Sutnar, 1945
• 
• 

• 
• Scovill Condenser Tubes, Ladislav Sutnar, 1943.
• 
• 

• 
• Some of Ladislav Sutnar’s information design work.
• 
• 

Sources:
Design Is History: Ladislav Sutnar
ADC Hall of Fame: Ladislav Sutnar
Ladislav Sutnar, Web Design before the Internet

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I want to do with my life. Last year, I thought I wanted to be a cosmetologist, and this year I thought I wanted to continue doing graphic design like I did in high school. But now that it’s here, and I’m at college and have so many opportunities to change what I want to do with my life, I don’t know what I want anymore. That being said, I guess that I will just use this class to improve my skills in graphic design that I already have required in my four years of high school. Maybe in the end, I’ll graduate with a degree in graphic design, or maybe I’ll graduate with something completely different. Either way, this class will help me improve the knowledge I already have on the subject.

Brand and Identity Design
In high school, I mostly created logos for local businesses. We also made business cards and letter headers, etc, to go along with them. It was probably one of my favorite part of graphic design, most likely because I got the most practice with it. Logos have such a large impact on our society, and every large business wants to have their brand become huge, so designing logos are a very important part of graphic design. You know what brand something is when you see their logo, such as McDonalds, Facebook, Twitter, Wal-Mart, Target, etc.

I love the fact that something as simple as the Apple logo is so easily distinguished…

…yet at the same time you can see the Starbucks (or even the Patriots logo) logo and automatically realize what the brand is.

Advertising Design
Along with identity design in high school, we also created advertisements for local band concerts or plays happening in the area. In sophomore year, I created a poster for a festival that happens every year in Peterborough, NH called Children and the Arts, and it was chosen to be printed out and posted all over the state of New Hampshire and some of New England. My senior year, I created a poster for a school concert called Sail Away, and that was picked and placed all around our community.

One of my all time favorite ads is the old iPod ads that Apple has ever had. It’s simple but effective, and they put out multiple of them when they first came out.

Not to mention how we wouldn’t be the way we were today if it weren’t for advertisements like one of the most famous WWII propaganda posters, We Can Do It.