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Artist Profiles

The Jazzy Blue Notes of Reid Miles

Every now then, as you stumble through design history, you trip over and fall on your ass.

When you look closer at what caused you to stumble, you realise it’s a rather a big rock, one that you should have seen coming. Perhaps it was a big moment when things changed in our industry, in society, in theory and you’d simply been ignorant to it until that moment that it got caught under your foot.

More often than not it’s a person. When we first start studying we hear the names Josef Muller-Brockmann or Paul Rand and when we see more of their work, or read some of their words, we wonder how we didn’t know of them sooner. We could learn of them on our third day of study and argue that we should have heard of them on our first.

For me, the latest person whose name caused me to happily hit the dirt is Reid Miles, an amazing modernist designer who designed over 500 LP covers for Blue Note Records through the 1950′s and 60′s.

Blue Note Records

Blue Note Records was known for their selection of artists, whom they treated with a surprising amount of respect, rather than imposing upon them their own ideals about how their work should sound. They would go as far as to pay the artists for their rehearsal time, as well as their recording time, something which other independent music labels wouldn’t do. The benefits of this was improved sounds, relaxed artists and a comfort from all those involved that translated well onto vinyl.

And while the majority of the music they released was aimed at a wide audience, they would also work with lesser known and slightly eccentric jazz musicians. It’s almost an abstract thought, but the company wasn’t overly concerned with making money with these records as they want to simply write about new developments into the history pages of jazz.

This creative freedom is one worth noting, as it is perhaps this experimental, let the artist be an artist, kind of mentality that extended to their covers and to the ideas Miles had for them.

The Personification Printification of Jazz

When you look at the work of Miles, you can’t help but feel as if you’re looking at Jazz realised.

When he first joined Blue Note, he worked as an assistant to John Hermansader, the then creative director of the company. John’s work was quite lovely in its own right, but lacked a certain punch that Miles would go on to deliver. Initially Miles just wanted to keep up and continue the stylistic tradition that Hermansader had started, but in the end he elevated it to staggering heights.

His covers “sound like [they know] what lay in store for the listener“,Felix Cromey, Blue Note: The Album Cover Art which cannot be argued. Even to those who have no idea about—or hardly heard—jazz, the covers just look the way jazz covers should.

Perhaps its the typography? Or the photography? Or maybe it’s the colour? I think of jazz as an explosion of soulful sounds, which are peppered with extreme emotion. The covers that Miles designed have much in common with this idea.

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Jan Tschichold – Typographic Genius

Jan Tschichold left an impression upon the world of graphic design and typography that few could compete against. From strongly advocating the beauty of sans serif fonts and clean, organised design 20 years before it took off, to strengthening the design of Penguin books to turn them into the something special that they are. Jan Tschichold spent a life learning and exploring and left us with much to do the same.

Early Life & Education

Jan Tschichold took his first gulp of air on the second of April, 1902 in Leipzig, Germany, when his parents Maria and Franz welcomed him into the world.

Sign-writer by trade, Franz gave his son an introduction to the world of lettering – although not seeing it as his future, Tschichold learned the ins-and-outs of sign writing while assisting his father.

His aspirations of becoming an artist were deflated when his parents thought otherwise. Not wanting their son to be an unfruitful artist, the family concluded that becoming an illustration teacher was a worthwhile option—it provided a creative outlet and a steady income. Tschichold as teacher began when he was 14 years of age and lasted a mere three years.

The wheels of calligraphy and script began to turn in the mind of Tschichold two years prior to the start of his teaching post. It was the 1914 World’s Fair for Books & Graphics that left an impression.

An interest in calligraphy formed, fueled by his personal studies of the books Tschichold poured himself into – especially those which covered calligraphy, ornamental script and writing.

At the age of 17, Tschichold threw his back against his life as a teacher and began his typographic studies. While he studied a range of creative endeavors, such as engraving, wood cutting and bookbinding, it seems as if his time of study didn’t involve a great deal of education. Simply, he knew it all.

Because of his personal studies and passion, there wasn’t much he didn’t have a strong understanding of.

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Reza Abedini

Practicing in his homeland of Iran, Reza Abedini is an accomplished graphic designer who continually blurs the lines between art and design. He combines simple illustrations with poetic typography and elegant layouts, exploring the beauty of the Persian language. As well as being a member of the AGI, Abedini has won many awards as well as judged and been apart of many panel discussions.

“For me, graphic design is totally art”

“For me, graphic design is totally art.” Looking at the work of Iranian graphic designer Reza Abedini this is easily an understandable comment. With a strong sense of pride in his Islamic heritage and Iranian background, Abedini wields his skills with the Persian Language in beautiful and graceful ways. With a strong passion for the history of his culture, Abedini believes that traditional art forms are dead and that “graphic design is a new art of the 20th [and] 21st century … Graphic design is a kind of phoenix”. Looking at his posters, free of the influences of the International Style, you can’t help but feel that you are looking at a piece of art as much as you are looking at a piece of graphic design — the lines of both being deliberately blurred in an effort to speak with his own voice as a director speaks with theirs when reciting a screenwriters script.

“Graphic design is a kind of phoenix”

A helping hand

As a teenager Abedini was guided into the arts by the hand of a teacher who saw a creative spark in his pupil. He requested a short story from Abedini. Finding favour with his teacher, this short story caused him to see fit to ask Abedini to assist him with various creative projects. With a way to travel into the world of creative thinking, Abedini’s knowledge of the crafts began to expand.

Abedini enjoyed this time of creative flourishing and exploration, eventually hitting a chord with brush and paint. An interest ignited when he was tasked with illustrating the set for the play his school was performing. His teacher, once again seeing something in Abedini, introduced him to graphic designers and other creatives in the area, who served as a gateway to deeper knowledge of the world of creativity, as well as Iranian and Persian cultural history.

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Beautiful Bjork

There are some artists, regardless of medium, who are special. For many of us, Icelandic mega-talent Bjork is someone special. Her soulful voice sings to our hearts and souls in ways few-to-none can match.

Originally I wanted to have a wide look at the works of Bjork, going from album to album and looking at the art and design of the album art as well as the film clips the accompany her beautiful music. Having listened to her music over and over and enviously gazed at her film clips in the same way one might look at the works of an old master, I realised something. Something obvious, something I already knew but hadn’t quite realised. She’s extremely accomplished. Like I said, obvious.

So instead of presenting you with a 25,000 word article on the artistry of this queen of the creative, I thought it might serve better to produce for you a small article, focusing on a few key creative works. Of course, I could, and would, happily express my love for her work for 25,000 words, so this may very well turn into a series of articles, each focusing on a few film clips and an album or two per article. Without further ado, I give you creativity in one of its most beautiful personifications: Bjork.

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Having evolved from her days as a punk-rock firecracker as part of the Icelandic group The Sugarcubes, through her first (and very successful) solo endeavour of Debut, her explosive exploration is contained and expressed through the part-jazz, part-pop and part-dance sounds of Post.

Each song is increasingly different. Opening with the heavy sounds of Army of Me, we are given an impression best left as the first. This strong, somewhat powerful piece of music doesn’t set the tone for the rest of the album. In fact, no single song does. Each song is distinctly Bjork—expressive, hyper, emotional and unique. Each feeling right and fitting nicely on this album, but no one song defining the qualities or sounds of it as a whole.

There is the almost dance, almost ambient Hyperballed, the delicate Isobel, the extroverted big-band extravaganza It’s Oh So Quiet and the sombre Possibly Maybe. All different in style and sound and all tracks that would serve as keystone moments on albums of their own.

Hyperballad

A song set in the moment of a relationship when aspects of your character need to be executed in secret. We are given a tale of someone who needs to release themselves in a away so that they can feel comfortable with the ones their with. To put it simply, it’s about acting out or in a certain way when your partner isn’t in the audience, so that you can be more comfortable when they are around. Not so much about keeping secrets, more about keeping apart of yourself for yourself.

Much like the music Bjork creates, the French director Michel Gondry created a multi-layered film clip full of contrasting styles mashed together with beautiful colours and shapes while being elegant in its execution.

With layered video, it’d be easy to assume it was all simply done during post-production. Surprisingly it was all done straight to film, on one role 400 feet in length.

Maybe it was done this way for no other reason than to experiment with double (does it count as triple when you do it a third time?) exposing the film in the name of artistic experimentation. An excuse to have bit of a play. Perhaps I’m wanting to find the romance in the production and methodology of this one, but I’d rather think that more than an excuse to play, it was done this way to give the clip an organic feel. By layering the clip via double exposure, rather than doing it in post, Gondry relinquishes a great deal of control, giving the video room to grow along its own path through misalignment and mistiming in filming.

Perhaps it might be better to consider this film clip crafted by Gondry, rather than directed.

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