There are countless graphic designers throughout the century who have introduced new vocabulary to design and influenced one another through their works and discovery. Robert Massin, a famous French graphic designer, specialized in typography back in the 20th century. He is also known to be the father of expressive typography. He was the first to break the rules of how typography should be displayed and treated. He created dynamic interactions between words and image without using a computer. Massin’s work is important to contemporary designers because he created dynamic design layouts with typography and images. He demonstrated that not everything has to be done on a computer where mistakes can simply be fixed by pressing few keys. Massin’s design can be classified as postmodern in today’s society. Expressive typography is an approach to type where one sees graphic elements on the page which may include letterforms and how they are arranged in a way that gives the impression of a natural look.

2

postmodern [is where] graphic designer reacted in different ways to a new conception of meaning [and the intuitive and playful aspect that reflect personal involvement.”

“...type experimentation was clearly a reaction to the overwhelming German-Swiss school, with predominant personalities...”

“...

What is the definition for the word postmodern?

What is the definition for the word postmodern? Author, Malcolm Barnard states, “... postmodern [is where] graphic designer reacted in different ways to a new conception of meaning [and the intuitive and playful aspect that reflect personal involvement].” (143). Postmodernism reflects reality where designers prefer an eclectic and populist approach to creativity and stay away from the conception of space, abstraction and fantasies. What Massin introduced to design with his expressive typography is a completely new conception of meaningful playful type and creativity. Even in Massin’s period, “…type experimentation was clearly a reaction to the overwhelming German-Swiss school, with predominant personalities…” (Wolff 43). The “Swiss” method tends to rely on representational images and minimal typography that gets the message across. The Swiss stressed about the structured grids and typographic relationships. They did not believe typography should have subjective expression, such as attitude, emotion or humor at all.

4

(Fig. 1) A spread from Délire à Deux (The Bald Soprano) displaying expressive typography that comes to life.

Massin’s works are set against Swiss’s theory in graphic design. He created type that came to life on a page and worked against the structural grid that the Swiss loved so much (Fig. 1). If one were to focus on one word from a sentence, he or she would see that each letter has their own space, perspective, shadow and time. Individual letters becomes an entity in itself. Typography has been used as a means of visual communication in traditional two-dimensional graphic design, however Massin opened a new concept where type can be used as emotion or visual element in a creative way without being minimal on type. According to Ballance and Heller, Massin’s works are considered postmodern because he ignores the grid and explores spatial compositions, introducing complexity and pattern, and frankly nonfunctional design elements (Ballance & Heller 9). He went against the norm of other designers and created a new vocabulary for the world to see.

6

“I owe it to Pierre Faucheux, the artistic advisor of the

Club de Meilleur at the time, who taught me everything…”

“Je le dois à Pierre Faucheux, le conseiller artistique de

la Meilleur Club de l’époque, qui m’a tout appris ...”

(Fig. 2) A final draft (left) and print (right) of Spread 23 from the Bald Soprano displaying two male actors have a fight with expressive type. Massin used transparency to lay out his typography and images then collaged them together for the final print.

If Robert Massin had not conducted experiments outside of his career, his famous works on typography would not exist today. As a designer, there are many influences and inspirations one can gain from other works, art movements and media. Massin was inspired to create his own expressive typography projects from a live performance play that he saw multiple times in France. Additionally, a French book designer, Pierre Faucheaux influenced him too as well. He states from an interview question by Laetitia Wolff, “I owe it to Pierre Faucheux,the artistic advisor of the Club de Meilleur at the time, who taught me everything…” (37). Massin learned as much as he could while apprenticing for Faucheux, one of the first typographers to emphasize the importance of dynamic typography and documentary iconography. Massin valued Faucheaux’s ideas where a book should be determined by type choice, proportion and déroulement and the idea that each typeface should have a relationship to the meaning of the content. These ideas spark Massin in creating unique book covers and spread designs called Délire à deux (The Bald Soprano). He came up with a project to do prints on “…all [of] the nuances, inflections and ticks that the actors experienced on stage. He assigned to each character a specific typeface that represented a personal voice, and the type was combined with photos of actors…[in] high-contrast film” (Fig. 2). (Heller 243-244).

8

“…convey[ing] the expressivity of sound into animated type”

He uses typography to express what the characters said in the play. In order for Massin to do that, he captured the right emotions, inflections and pauses emitted by recording the characters. By enlarging, deforming and overlapping typography, he shows a sense of hierarchy, visual interest and a sense of intensity of the word. This technique of “…convey[ing] the expressiveness of sound into animated type...” (Wolff 44) has not been explored thus far, even by his mentor Faucheux besides Massin in the 20th century. There were not many graphic designers who did this type of design, expressive typography or used it to create a visual element for a play. He was the one who started to experiment with type and go beyond his comfort zone. He could not use flat two-dimensional typography to fully express the emotions and personality a character portrayed from the play.

10

(Fig. 3) Robert Massin shows us his experiments of expressive typography printed on condoms stretched, distorted and skewed.

Typography became Massin’s focus in design and his execution was brilliant and unseen before in Europe and United States. In mid 1900’s, designers were limited by the technology, particularly on computer. The only solution back then was to utilize materials that they had and work with their bare hands, which Massin did with his expressive typography. A technique that he experimented with was “… printing typography onto sheets of rubber [a condom] than manipulate the printed letterform into how he wants to depict on paper” (Fig. 3) (Meggs & Purvis 443). In addition, while exploring his perimeter of deforming typography, “Massin once used condoms as a flexible surface on which to print letters so he can distort their shapes” (Berry 5). He figured that drawing the distorted typography by using twoand three-point perspective and scale would take a long time, so he found rubber to be stretchable and printed the letterforms onto it. Furthermore, drawing in two-or-three point perspective required focus and time consumption. A designer has to master the technique within their project or they fail in depicting volume and spatial relationship against a flat surface. Massin bypassed these crucial time restraints simply by using a simple condom to do his hard work. To shape typography in different form, Massin simply stretched the rubber a certain direction and this was his ingenious technique.

12

(Fig. 4) Spread 18 from the Bald Soprano displaying Massin’s treatment of type reflecting character’s emotion and conversation from a scene in a play.

Massin’s experiment of skewing and deforming typography to simulate voices broke the rule of functionality and readability. As an illustration in his design for Ionesco’s Délire à deux (Fig.4) (The Bald Soprano), the typography is stretched, skewed and distorted, one can still read the information and it is interesting to see how the type is treated. There are letterforms that are clustered together making it difficult to read and time consuming to decode, while others are not. A technique that Massin introduced presents a sense of depth and creativity into the design picture. Although, this style of design was rare to see, designers appreciated it in the 20th century. It was groundbreaking back then and still is today to see the playful collage of black-and-white photography of actors in silhouettes, wrap them with sprays, and cascade typography in varies size and style.

14

fashions in typography … Because they are so quickly

publicized through the media, things get very quickly

handling of type and images remain today outstanding

not to follow fashions. There are so many different

work out

“...

”

“...unique

”

Robert Massin led the way of expressive typography that later in the decade become and easy to manipulate with the help of computers and softwares. He creates a sense of three-dimensional depth field into the design with typography. As of one Massin’s advice for today’s young designer is “...not to follow fashions. There are so many different fashions in typography … Because they are so quickly publicized through the media, things get work out very quickly” (Gall & Brower 7). Massin was one of the designers who broke the traditions of typography and created visual element onto it. Massin’s typographic has a “...unique handling of type and images remain today outstanding” (Consuergra 1973). Sometimes it is hard to work outside of one’s comfort zone, but this is where one can test their limits and creativity. Repeated designs seen by the public will be uninteresting at some point. New designs for any printed material will get attention and hype. One may succeed or fail at a task, but it is worth it to be unique when it comes to design.

16

(Fig. 5) A spread 20 from the Bald Soprano book displaying actors having conversations with one another.

“…words become the expressionistic image ”

“…add[s] to the sounds of letters, connotative values of the actors, turning

words into images, sounds…and [makes] dialogues take body size, tilt,

anamorphosis, rhythm, fats, contrast, white of course ... for silence. ”

The graphic spreads in the Bald Soprano have a dynamic layout and each spread depicts a room situation and text from the play. Each time a person would look at the next spread, is totally different from the previous and the next. Massin’s use of typography and layout is interesting because how he “…add[s] to the sounds of letters, connotative values of the actors, turning words into images, sounds…and [makes] dialogues take body size, tilt, anamorphosis, rhythm, fats, contrast, white of course ... for silence.” (Fig 5.) (Gabor 1). The design gave the text a completely new meaning.It is quite interesting to see the actual interaction between text and actors. There is a sense of personality and attitude between different typefaces he decided to use. With his hard work and experiments, he a concept towards today’s graphic designers where one can use specific typography that expresses human personality and emotion. Massin’s treatment of “…words become the expressionistic image” (Meggs 443). It seems like each letter can become an image, architecture or experience.

18

Massin’s work is important to contemporary designers because it shows that they do have the freedom to change typical flat typography and images into authentic works of graphic art by changing the font size, stretching, bending and overlapping. In contrast to the contemporary designs in early and mid 1900’s, Robert Massin created interesting visual elements and depth perspective with any type on prints. Massin has introduced his expressive typography in books to the world and it is in the hands of the young contemporary designers to explore and experiment typography into the next level. There is always more to be discovered and learn from a designer’s concept and designs.

20

Berry, John D. “dot-font: Massin, the Unclassifiable Free Thinker | CreativePro.com.” CreativePro. PrintingForLess&CreativePro, 30 June 2003. Web. 16 Oct. 2010. <http://www.creativepro. com/article/dot-font-massin-the-unclassifiable-free-thinker>.

Consuegra, David. American Type: Design & Designers. New York: Allworth, 2004. Print.

Gabor, Peter. “MassinTypographie La Cantatrice Chauve | Eugene Ionesco.” Design Et Typo - Blog LeMonde.fr. Web. 09 Apr. 2011. <http://paris.blog.lemonde.fr/2006/03/02/2006_03_ massin_la_canta/>.

Gall, John, and Steven Brower. “Massin ahead of time.” Print 50.4 (1996): 78. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 Oct. 2010.

Heller, Steven, and Georgette Ballance.Graphic Design History. New York: Allworth, 2001. Print.

Heller, Steven, and Karen Pomeroy.Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design. New York: Allworth, 1997. Print.

Meggs, Philip B., Alston W. Purvis, and Philip B. Meggs. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley & Sons, 2006. Print.

“Robert Massin Articles from SENIORFITNESS.COM Free Article Directory.” Senior Fitness.com - Anti-aging Strategies for Lifetime Health, Reverse Aging and Senior Fitness. Web. 03 Apr. 2011. <http://www.seniorfitness.com/Robert_Massin_link.html>.

“What Is Graphic Design? — AIGA | the Professional Association for Design.” AIGA. Web. 03 Apr. 2011. <http://www.aiga. org/content.cfm/guide-whatisgraphicdesign>.

Wolff, Laetitia, and Massin. Massin. London: Phaidon, 2007. Print.

Wolff, Laetitia, and Robert Massin. “Massin in Continuo: A Dictionary Interview with Robert Massin.” The MIT Press, 2002. Web. 04 Oct. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org. proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/stable/1511975>.

Works Cited

22