Influential Designer: Alexsey Brodovitch

“Design history is an education in what’s considered the best design has offered through the years”. Design is history, and can be considered as a linked chain from one designer to the next. Many of the most well-known and influential designers have not only limited themselves to designing, but have also shared thoughts and philosophies about design as well as specific choices they made on projects, and the mistakes they have learned to avoid.

Designing explores a person’s ability and artistic skills and enables the designer to express his vision and ideas to communicate effectively and efficiently through their work. A good design should be innovative, simple and attractive which enables for there to be some response from the audience, whether it is an emotion or a conviction.Throughout the years, and across many countries, arose many artists and designers who have pioneered in the field and have both been influenced by those before them and have influenced those after them.

One such designer is the Russian born Alexsey Bordovitch, who has played a crucial role in introducing the world to a modern graphic design style in the 1920s, especially then used in Harper’s Bazaar fashion magazine, which he is most famous for to this day. However, this has not only been his work throughout his lifetime, in which he has influenced many more areas of design than just that.

His first major success and recognition came after winning a poster competition for a local theater which searched for the most innovative design to announce an upcoming ball. He knew this would be his turning point in life, and felt that this really was his passion and calling after winning first place and outranking Picasso, who had won the second prize for his poster.

Alexsey Brodovitch’s design symbolically represented the idea of mostly using black and white, and switching between what typically would be a lighter color to a darker one, and vice versa. Also, being influenced by the avant-garde movement, his designs were a new portrayal of ideas.Brodovitch was one of the pioneers who brought modernist ideas and combated conservatism. He encouraged experimentation and taught design by using European examples of work, always questioning his students on their ideas and the motives behind them. He also treated his students as equals and thought alongside them even on his own work. He once said "we learn by making mistakes. We must be critical of ourselves and have the courage to start all over again after each failure. Only then do we really absorb, really start to know."

Alexsey created a generation of designers adhering to his belief in visual freshness, simplicity and fluidity. By the 1950s, white space was the hallmark of the Brodovitch style, who more than ever focused on simplicity. He was also the first art director to combine and integrate image and text without dividing them by wide margins. Fascinated with photography, he made it the backbone of modern magazine design, and adapted the development of an expressionistic style of picture-taking that became the dominant trend for photographic practices around the same time in the 1950s.

In the 21st century, Alexsey Brodovitch's direction and legacy remain remarkably rich. His layouts and spreads in magazines are to this day models of graphic inspiration. His use of white space, and combining image and text are also ideas being carried out presently, which have not been done before. The artists, photographers and designers whom he influenced continue to shape graphic design in the image of his ideals. These artists include famous names such as: Irving Penn, Diane Arbus, Harvey Lloyd, who continue in Brodovitch’s direction. Alexsey Brodovitch has truly been an important pioneer in design history who has left a lasting impression in his field.

After seeing his work, it is easily to understand why so many artists that came after him have been greatly inspired to follow his ideas while also taking their own paths and improving on them in their own way.

Written by: A.E.S.

May, 2019.