The Cranbrook Academy of Art´s Graphic Design Department (1971-1995): new paths for design.

• Grant number: 09/12721-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: August 01, 2010
• End date: November 30, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Industrial Design - Visual Programming
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Roberto Zibel Costa
• Grantee: Iara Pierro de Camargo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Cranbrook Academy of Art, a North American school of architecture, arts and design, was founded in the 1930's around Detroit-Michigan and, as many others, the school worked with modernist principles. However, after the 1970´s the Department of Graphic Design, under the direction of Katherine McCoy, stood out from other schools of the period, when it broke down some paradigms proposed by modern design, as well as post-modern design manifestations.Throughout the critics of Modernism that insinuate that Design is not a neutral profession, where it works form only in favor of the content, and including the critics of New Wave, in which the Graphic Design doesn't need to care only about the form, Cranbrook realized that the Design is a powerful communication tool and it also acknowledged the need to produce graphic work that will encourage, through the correlation between content and graphic form, the audience's participation.In this project we will analyze some of the thoughts and concepts developed in Cranbrook, mainly between 1971 and 1995, looking to establish it's context, comparing this period to the first period - 1932 to 1970, and then to the next period - 1996 to today, the modern program, the experiments, the post-modern break, and the post-structuralist theory. We realize the importance of this research first because there is no available material about this subject in Brazil, and mainly because Cranbrook is more than a model that acknowledges the potential of a graphic style, but also it establishes new ways of teaching, debating and thinking about graphic design.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

CAMARGO, Iara Pierro de. The Cranbrook Academy of Art´s Graphic Design Department (1971-1995): new paths for design.. 2011. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU/SBI) São Paulo.