A brand new e book celebrates Norman Ives' deconstructed designs
A new monograph from PowerHouse Books gives an insight into the life and work of graphic designer and visual artist Norman Ives.
Norman Ives: Constructions and Reconstructions is the work of graphic designer, author, and professor John T. Hill, who also studied under Ives at Yale University School of Art and eventually taught alongside Ives. Ives himself studied with Josef Albers at the same university in the first few years of Albers' expansion of the educational program.
Above: spring. Here: OM
Hex
Ionic
Ives died in 1978, before the "separation of the wall from the disciplines of pure art" "was cracked and broken in as many places as it is today," said Steven Heller, who writes the book's foreword. He believes that if Ives had lived longer in the 80s and 90s, his work might have been recognized more along the lines of well-known artists whose practices are closely related to writing such as Barbara Kruger.
Ives experimented with shapes, techniques and materials ranging from painting and screen printing to murals, sculptures and reliefs. His personal work also included fascinating collage work, and he was a “graphic pioneer” of layering, according to Heller.
Ives' commercial graphic design work featured in the book includes various creations that demonstrate his curious eye for inserting letterforms into complex geometric shapes, be it his labyrinthine logo for BT: bench or a densely layered one Cover design for the AIGA Journal in the early 1970s.
The graphic design section of the book begins with an excerpt from an essay Ives himself penned in a 1960 volume in the Industrial Design Journal, reflecting on the limitations imposed on graphic designers and saying that these are the way forward for Paving the way for ingenuity: “There are restrictions wherever products are mass-produced – and they are necessary and desirable. It takes a brilliant and dedicated designer to overcome them or to turn them to advantage. "
Early collage work
Mural at Southwest High School, Baltimore, Maryland
Faceted
Norman Ives: Constructions and Reconstructions is published by PowerHouse Books priced at $ 65. powerhousebooks.com