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Job No:11-22360 Title:RP-Language of Graphic Design
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2120
(Text)
line
2
One of the most basic and
pervasive visual elements
of a graphic designer’s
visual vocabulary is a line.
A line’s functions are limitless. It can join, organize, divide, direct,
construct, and move other graphic objects. A line can be read as
a positive mark or a negative gap. Lines can be actual or implied.
“The geometric line is an invisible thing. It is the track
made by the moving point . . . . Here, the leap out of the static
into the dynamic occurs.”
Wassily KandinsKy (1866–1944), Russian, Painter
line \'l n\ n
1: the path traced by a moving point
2: a thin, continuous mark, as that
made by a pen, pencil, or brush applied
to a surface
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Job No:11-22360 Title:RP-Language of Graphic Design
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th e la n guag e of gr ap hic d es i gn
(Text)
C+G Partners LLC
New York, New York, USA
MirieLLo GrafiCo
San Diego, California, USA
They can be realized as edges or boundaries
to objects as well as contours to shapes and
forms. A line can lead the reader’s eye as
well as provide movement and energy to any
composition. When used properly, a line
can improve readability, immediacy, and the
ultimate meaning of any visual message.
Historical References
We are taught “a line is the shortest distance
between two points.” While this fact is true,
we have never been taught to appreciate the
other inherent characteristics and qualities of
a line. Since man felt the need to visually
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Zurich, Switzerland
1955
Josef Müller-Brockmann (1914–
1996), designer, writer, artist, and educa-
tor, was one of the pioneers of functional,
objective graphic design and the Swiss In-
ternational Typographic Style. His poster
series for the Zurich Tonhalle is a seminal
example of this modernist, constructivist
style and set the standard for the use of
pure geometry, mathematical systems, and
the grid in visual communications.
During the 1950s, he explored various
theories of nonrepresentational abstrac-
tion, visual metaphor, subjective graphic
interpretation, and constructive graphic
design based on the sole use of elements
of pure geometry without illustration, nu-
ance, or embellishment.
Each poster in the Tonhalle series
uses geometric elements such as circles,
squares, arcs, and lines as visual metaphor
and is visually orchestrated with rhythm,
scale, and repetition. Müller-Brockmann
said that these posters were “designed in
which the proportions of the formal ele-
ments and their immediate spaces are al-
most always related to certain numerical
progressions logically followed out.”
For example, the Zurich Tonhalle
poster he designed for a concert featuring
the work of Igor Stravinsky, Alan Berg, and
Wolfgang Fortner was based on a series of
photographic studies he had been work-
ing on earlier. One study was composed of
intersecting lines of varied thickness and
lengths, where the dimensions of each line
were determined in relationship to each
adjacent line. These spatial relationships
were also used in defining the spaces be-
tween each line. The overall composition
is angled by 45 degrees so that each line
appears to move diagonally in two direc-
tions across the poster.
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