Manuel Osterholt (a.k.a. Superblast)

            Manuel Osterholt (a.k.a. Superblast) is a graffiti artist turned graphic designer who brings his personal street style into everything he does. No matter the medium or project his style always shows, it’s Osterholt’s personal mark on everything he does. For Osterholt the need to express a style wholly different from anyone else drives him. It comes largely in part from his experience as a graffiti artist where one had to compete with other street artists to get their name known.   To date Osterholt has worked for clients such as Echo Unltd., Sony Playstation Portable and Converse and continues to tag (make up graffiti art) whenever he can. 

            What’s interesting with Osterholt is that he came into graphic design from a unique background. Brought up by a German father and a Greek mother Osterholt was introduced to two different cultures at an early age. As he grew older Osterholt found himself interested in the graffiti art scene and made friends with many well-known artists. He spent his adolescent years becoming acquainted with this underground art scene and met fellow artists from around the world. It wasn’t until his college years that Osterholt began studying graphic design and typography (of which he discovered a love for the latter).

            All of Osterholt’s designs draw heavily on his background in graffiti art as well as from other influences such as punk and skater subcultures. In this way we can argue that Osterholt is an amateur turned professional, one who creates because he loves doing so. For Osterholt graffiti has always come first and design is a byproduct of his style, which he uses to make his mark. Whether its on tee shirts or snowboards he uses that medium to express himself (much like an artist). It can be said that Osterholt lacks (or rejects) the formal training of the Bauhaus and modernism for a more personal style. What he didn’t learn from Bauhaus he picked up from graffiti art, which included a respect for letterforms. 

            Osterholt believes that in order to create great tags one must first have solid letterforms, first comes the letters and then the style. He also advocates having knowledge of artists past and their history not with the intention to imitate but to turn it into something new. Osterholt’s style is founded by these rules, which is why it is so solid and unmistakable. It is all at once a personal expression of who he is and what he thinks of the world around him.

            While this style is very compelling it is not universal, Osterholt himself acknowledges this. It would not have the same effect if it were applied to a bank or research center in fact it would seem out of place. Osterholt succeeds within a niche that allows for such expression. However this does not diminish the boldness of his style and even though Osterholt knows it is not universal he would still accept a bank as a client if the situation arises. He’d do it for the challenge and the opportunity to see how far his style can go. That’s very much Osterholt’s character, always pushing himself to do something fresh and new that is his own.

Citations:

Osterholt, Manuel Neo Utopia: The Art and Work of Superblast Publikat; First Edition, April 1, 2008. Paperback (160pg)

Osterholt, Manuel Superblast 2009. Web. 30 November 2010

            http://www.superblast.de/

Modernist Design and Films

            Out of every movement comes another movement that rejects it. It’s an endless cycle of one generation carving out a concept of reality different from the one before it that will ultimately be replaced by another concept in the future. The film documentary Monterey Pop and Jacques Tati’s satire Playtime both reject the concepts behind modernist design. At the core of both of these films is a focus on individuality and democracy. Where modernist design upholds neutrality, simplicity and hierarchy Playtime and Monterey Pop (especially) encourage personality, expressiveness and spontaneity.

            Although these two films are similar in their motives they are presented differently and react towards the principles of modernist design in different ways. Playtime directly pokes fun at modernist design by emphasizing the fallacies behind it. Tati shows the viewer a highly modernized city that appears orderly and structured but at the same time confusing, unemotional and inhuman. It’s this lack of humanity that Tati emphasizes as the film switches between scenes of modern Paris and old Paris (which still retains its charm and liveliness). Where modern Paris is a wash of dark and light greys with cold geometric shapes old Paris is a cacophony of vibrant sounds and colors.

            The film documentary Monterey Pop (named after the festival it details) does not directly object to modernist design like Playtime however the way it was filmed and the culture emphasized in the film separate it from modernism. Monterey Pop is a documentary about the legendary Monterey International Pop Music Festival held in Monterey, California in the summer of 1967. Boasting a number of well-known folk, blues and rock artists as well as up and coming acts like The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Janis Joplan this festival was a focal point for the hippie counter culture that was emerging alongside modernism.

            The film was shot in a raw unedited fashion that focused on the crowds watching the bands as much as the bands themselves. D. A. Pennebaker (the director of Monterey Pop) captures the chaos and energy of each band as they perform coupled with candid shots of the crowd and fairgoers. It is all at once spontaneous and frenzied, which differentiates itself from the controlled and clean rules of modernist design. Monterey Pop comments on modernism not by bringing it into question but by existing as an alternative.

            There is one other theme that unifies the two films and that is the democratic way in which characters are portrayed. There is no one thing to focus on in both Playtime and Monterey Pop because the action is always moving from person to person and scene to scene. There is no formula or guideline (like in modernist design) it’s just a stream of events. It is this disregard of convention that sets these films apart and that is why they are a breath of fresh air. There are many advantages to establishing rules and after the turmoil of WWII order and stability were highly appealing. But too much order kills individuality and in response to this loss of humanity films like Monterey Pop and Playtime rose up in defiance.

Week 7

            If there is one thing the article on April Greiman that has stuck with me it’s this: technology is advancing faster than we actually realize. This article was written around the late 80s and it has been 20 years since then, that’s almost a quarter of a century. In almost one quarter of a century ago digital art was just emerging (pioneered by artists such as April Greiman who continues to experiment in the digital field). By today’s standards the digital tools used to make this art are primitive to say the least.  The program Greiman uses is not familiar to me (it’s called Graphic Paintbox) but they do mention the application of Photoshop in her work. One of the most surprising things to me was the cost of this program: $400,000!  That is at least 40 times the price of similar software today, something that I integrate so much in my work used to cost the price of a small mansion.

            The reason I find this leap in technological advance so surprising is because (as I have just stated) digital art is my forte. Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and all the others; these are the tools I use most often in my work. Therefore I find this article amusing in it’s excitement over a digital design that could be made (all processes of layout and printing included) in minuets with today’s technologies. It’s worth mentioning that the article actually does emphasize the fact that the emerging digital tools sped up the design process. However, this only pertains to the process of layering the design and later on Todd Hays (the author of the article) mentions that the printing aspect is still complicated and time consuming.

            At the same time this was still faster than any other design method and was actually revolutionary. Although Greiman sounds like she doesn’t know exactly how Graphic Paintbox works she nevertheless used the relatively new tools she had and experimented. I myself work in that way, playing around with the program before actually learning how it works, and for Greiman it was a step into new territory. Although I don’t quite agree with the poster she designed, which feels so much like early 90s graphics (something I have come to dislike over the years), it’s worth some merit that this was a style not seen before.

            Even as I discuss this article and marvel at the gap between technological advancements I realize that in another 20 years I’ll look back on today and find the CS5 set amusing. “Photoshop and Illustrator?” I’ll say with a nostalgic grin, “wow that was back in the day when we actually worked on a computer. It’s so much better working from a brain chip computer implant.” There will always be something new to replace the old with new technologies that outstrip the previous models. The best I can do as a designer is keep an open mind and experiment with the tools I’ve got.

Museum Piece:

·      Computers have made design faster and more fluid.

·      Greiman was one of the first designers to experiment with this new digital field.

·      Such technologies at the time were rather expensive but limited in the commands they included.

·      Greiman pioneered the use of hybrid imagery (whatever that means).

·      The emerging digital process (although faster in the layout process) still required time and effort when it came time to print.