Anatomy of Design

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ANATOMY OF DESIGN

The Italian futurist Renato Bertelli sculpted Profilo Continuo del Duce (1933), a

swirling portrait of Italy’s Fascist leader, because the enforced cult of personality

surrounding Benito Mussolini—il Duce (“the Duke”)—demanded his image

ubiquitously appear throughout the nation, on every wall and town square, and

on all posters and newspapers. Mussolini started this fashion for branding

dictators—like products to be consumed. Futurist artists, who understood the

power of advertising and publicity, took heroic liberties with il Duce’s round head

and protruding chin, which in its various graphic compositions was a veritable

logo for a regime that purported to be on the progressive edge of culture and

politics. Bertelli’s work was at once a futurist celebration of speed—the symbolic

representation of progress—and of the power of Mussolini, who by extension

was all-seeing and all-knowing.

Profilo is a tip of the hat to Janus, the two-faced

Roman god of beginnings and endings (thus the reason for the head staring in

opposite directions). Janus was worshipped at the beginning of life’s key

transitions, like the seasons, and also represented such opposites as war and

peace. Futurists enjoyed toying with opposites, upsetting the equilibrium, and

investing static painting, sculpture, and photography, like

Photodynamic Umberto

Boccioni, by Giannetto Bisi, with its sense of motion. Formally speaking, spinning

the head at such high velocity—like the possessed child in The Exorcist—was a

way to defy conventional artistic expectations.

That very act of defiance may be why Karim Rashid was so inspired by

this image that he remade it (with modifications) into an illuminated object

called the “Ego Vase” and used it on the cover of his monograph,

Karim Rashid:

Evolution. Yet whatever the reason, using such an overt appropriation of a

Fascist-era icon is a little disquieting. Borrowing from antiquity (as Bertelli

appropriated Janus, and as Janus came from earlier primitive masks) is

expected in art and design—as pastiche or parody—but referencing politically or

socially dubious images can easily backfire and potentially offend. After all,

despite his adherents, history has not shown Mussolini much mercy, and his

was a repressive dictatorship that influenced Adolf Hitler. Yet removed from its

historical context, Rashid’s plastic, molded vase is startling for its pictorial

resonance and its marriage of realism and abstraction.

Anyone can see why Stephen Schmidt’s cover design is successful. The

vase is like a target that draws the eye. The cross—or

X—is the bull’s-eye, a

time-tested device for attracting attention and sending a simple message.

Although the crucifix is an ancient symbol, even in early Christian and especially

Coptic paintings, the cross was modernized and made perfectly symmetrical. The

classic logo of the Red Cross, devised in 1863, is the epitome of the modern

symbol, but crosses and

Xs have been used in many ways for countless

purposes. Schmidt’s cross might be considered a postmodern version, for

instead of the rectilinear standard, its ends are lozenge-shaped in what

amounts to a stylistic deviation from modern orthodoxy, which prohibits

anything but right angles. Yet such rules, even the orthodox ones, are easily

broken. The type used in the cross, Bauhaus Demi, is a contemporary iteration

of Bauhaus master Herbert Bayer’s 1925 Universal Alphabet, comprising

curvilinear lowercase letters. This was one of many alphabets, like Paul

Renner’s 1927 Futura, that used pure geometry to represent the Machine Age,

an important evolutionary step in the history of type design.

The title

Evolution itself refers to the composite look of the cover.

Despite the vase’s political connotations, its shape hints at evolutionary

movement—even though the face is the same in all directions. The contents of

the book may reveal Rashid’s personal evolution, as the cover design generally

revolves around evolutionary traits in design.

Karim Rashid: Evolution

Designer: Stephen Schmidt/Duuplex

2004 Karim Rashid: Evolution, book

ad: Stephen Schmidt/Duuplex c: Universe Publishing

The title Evolution itself refers to the composite look of the cover. The vase’s shape hints

at evolutionary movement—even though the face is the same in all directions.

Head in rotation

Gold-leaf/metal foil

Cross