The document discusses the life and work of Dutch designer Piet Zwart. It describes how he was influenced by De Stijl and constructivism and focused on functional typography. It provides examples of his work designing advertisements for the Dutch Cable Factory in the 1920s-1930s. It also mentions his later career transitioning to industrial, interior and furniture design.

1. Gerritt Reitveld

2. Gerritt Reitveld Red and Black Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, born in Utrecht, Holland, in 1888. One of the members of the De Stijl movement, along with Mondrian and others, Rietveld felt a chair should not be used to retire from the world or get away from thought. "We must remember," he said, "that sit is a verb too."

3. One of the functions of Rietveld's chairs, with their hard seats and backs, is to focus our senses, to make us alert and aware. Rietveld was not interested in conventional ideas of comfort (the 19th century armchair that relaxes you so much that you spill your coffee or fall asleep over your book). He wished to keep the sitter physically and mentally "toned up."

5. Schroder House Netherlands 1924 - 1925 "...We didn't avoid older styles because they were ugly, or because we couldn't reproduce them, but because our own times demanded their own form, I mean, their own manifestation. It was of course extremely difficult to achieve all this in spite of the building regulations and that's why the interior of the downstairs part of the house is somewhat traditional, I mean with fixed walls. But upstairs we simply called it an 'attic' and that's where we actually made the house we wanted."

7. Piet Mondian

8. In the late 1920s architecture in the Netherlands focused on the idea of "dematerialization". This idea influenced a series of terrace houses with which Rietveld was involved.

9. Born May 28 1885, Zaandijk, Netherlands. Died 1977, Wassenaar Piet Zwart ( Zaandijk , 28 May 1885 – Wassenaar , 24 September 1977 ) was a Dutch photographer , typographer , and industrial designer . He started his career as an architect and worked for Jan Wils and Berlage . As a designer, Zwart was well known because of his work for both the Nederlandse Kabelfabriek Delft (the Dutch Cable Factory in Delft ) and the Dutch Postal Telegraph and Telephone , and as a pioneer of modern typography. He did not adhere to traditional typography rules, but used the basic principles of constructivism and " De Stijl " in his commercial work. His work can be recognized by its primary colors , geometrical shapes, repeated word patterns and an early use of photomontage . He created a total of 275 designs in 10 years for the NKF Company, almost all typographical works. He resigned in 1933 to become an interior, industrial and furniture designer. Piet Zwart died at the age of 92 in 1977. Typography Piet Zwart

12. The New Consciousness Following WWI, artists realized that their work must be inspired by the new conditions of life, and that they had to reshape the world around them to reflect the consciousness of their day and age. He and many of his contemporaries held a constructivist view that a new world order would arise from the devastation of the Russian Revolution and World War I. There, art would be based on technology, universality, abstraction, and functionalism. Zwart wrote in 1919: "Our time has become characterized by an enthusiastic desire for change, born out of a growing discontent over social conditions, determined and guided by new means of production new spiritual insights and new ideals." Zwart's reading of Marx and Hegel further crystallized his socialist philosophy on the responsibilities of the artist toward society.

14. Zwart referred to his method as "Functional" typography, whose purpose was to "establish the typographic look of our time, free, in so far as it is possible, from tradition; to activate typographic forms; to define the shape of new typographic problems, methods, and techniques."

15. The reality of the machine age meant that reading was a time consuming activity in a world where people had less and less time to spare. Always concerned with both attracting the attention of the viewer, and respecting their experience, Zwart designed his work so that function always came first, the essential elements were separate from the accessory elements , and the viewer could easily and quickly grasp the central message , and then decide to read further.

17. (Dutch Cable Factory). In the subsequent 10 years, Zwart would produce 275 advertisements and the publication Sterkstroom (Strong Current). Essentially typographic, these advertisements constitute Zwart's major contribution to Dutch typography.

19. 1937

22. Posters

23. Posters 1930

26. At the end of his work with NKF in 1933 there was an abrupt change in Zwart's work, and his attention turned more toward industrial, interior, and furniture design, where it remained for the remainder of his life. Piet Zwart died in 1977

28. Constructivism

30. ALEXANDER RODCHENKO, Moscow, 1891-1956 In 1921-22 he did illustrative work in theater, films, typography and advertising, and continued throughout the 1920s to provide cover designs for a remarkably wide range of publications - from the poet Mayakovsky's books (1925-29) to scientific and technical literature for Moscow publishers. He also designed the cover of Kino-Fot, a periodical of the Russian Constructivists which began in 1922 and in which Rodchenko was regularly published.

33. Also involved in the film world, Rodchenko shot a newsreel series directed by Dziga Vertov, originally called Kino-Pravda and later called One-sixth of the World, which was begun in 1922. Between 1927 and 1930 he was "constructor-artist" of the films The Woman Journalist, Moscow in October, Albidum, The Puppet Millionaire and What Shall I be?. He also directed the documentary The Chemicalization of the Forest. Seemingly unlimited in his versatility, Rodchenko was also involved in theater, designing the costumes and props for Glebov's Pendulum and The Bed Bug in 1929, and was one of Russia's foremost painters, collagists and poster artists.

35. Book Covers

36. Posters

37. Posters

38. Photos

43. During his first and only trip abroad Rodchenko was awarded four silver medals at the Paris Exhibition of March 1925. In 1932 began working in photomontage .