11 posts tagged “modernism”
Following on from an earlier post about opening titles, here’s a quick examination of how things change when shows are remade.
First up, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), with the original titles by Chambers & Partners and music by Edwin Astley:
Fast forward to 2000, the show was remade with Reeves and Mortimer. Titles now by Tomato, the hot firm at the time, with music by David Arnold (Stargate, The Stepford Wives, and the recent Bond films). Head to 2.40 to skip the opening titles; one YouTube commenter recommends going to 4.11 to see Bob Mortimer as Adolf Hitler. (And Doctor Who fans, that is David Tennant guest-starring, with his normal Scottish accent.)
Let’s cross Stateside, for Fantasy Island in 1978:
Twenty years later, it was remade, and this is one of those times when I thought the later show, being much darker, was superior. Viewers disagreed. Malcolm McDowell starred as Mr Roarke this time out. Head to 1.41 to skip the pre-title sequence (with Lauren Holly as guest star). The principle of the plane heading there remains the same, but there is no sequence with Tattoo ringing a bell (it was, however, spoofed in the pilot with a scene featuring Louis Lombardi, and again in this episode with Edward Hibbert).
Not much of a lesson here—the above simply illustrate that remakes can either take the original and go on a nostalgia fest, adapt the original for modern audiences, or take a complete departure altogether. It seems to depend on how iconic the original was and how important the title was to the programme.
It will be interesting to see which tack The Prisoner takes.
I love these geometric shapes at Civic Square, Wellington. Taken last Tuesday, before the computers started going nuts.
[Cross-posted] Just found out through Jeff Fisher: Lou Dorfsman, who can legitimately be called one of the heroes of American graphic design, passed away aged 90 on Wednesday.
Dorfsman grew up in the Bronx and wanted to attend NYU to study bacteriology, but the $300 tuition was too high. Instead, he took the examination for the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and won a four-year scholarship, graduating with top honours.
He met his wife, Ann Hysa, and long-time collaborator and friend Herb Lubalin—another design legend—while at the Cooper Union. His career began designing exhibits for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.
From 1943 to 1946, Dorfsman served in the US Army and won first and second prize in the National Army Arts’ Contest.
He joined the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1946 after leaving the army and worked with the network for 41 years. He began with CBS Radio, being promoted to art director in 1951, then became creative director of the TV network in 1960.
Dorfsman became director of design for CBS, Inc. in 1964, and vice-president and creative director of the CBS broadcast group in 1968. By 1978 his title was Senior Vice President and Creative Director for Marketing Communications and Design.
His love of design and type can be seen with what Dorfsman called the Gastrotypographicalassemblage, a 35 ft wide, 8 ft 6 in tall wall of wooden type that once graced the CBS cafeteria.
If you look through any book about American graphic design’s history, Dorfsman rightly earned his place.
At the Things to Look at blog, there are a few of Lou Dorfsman’s more famous works.
His effect on graphic design is profound and many of us of a certain age will have been inspired by Dorfsman’s work. I remember as a teenager looking through samples of his 1960s’ CBS work, including a fold-out brochure promoting advertising sales, and various programme ads.
To this day I probably unconsciously put some of these greats’ ideas into practice, and who better to learn from than guys like Lou Dorfsman, Herb Lubalin, Milton Glaser, Saul Bass, Paul Rand, Ed Benguiat and others of that world?
For those who saw my earlier post on the ABC retro-style promo—and the discussion that it wasn’t that genuine—here’s what a 1972 promo for the network really looked like.
Gotta dig that slitscan technique—no computers doing these effects then!
Some from 1973 announcing programmes:
[Cross-posted] A very established New Zealand designer, Margarita Robertson of Nom D, and a newer label, Fly Guys, are profiled on the Lucire site this week. Sam Mitchell’s Q&A with Margi is probably the most in-depth that has ever been published. And we’re running another ex-print piece: my interview with Design Museum senior curator Donna Loveday, who curated When Philip Met Isabella, the exhibition about milliner Philip Treacy and his designs for the late Tatler editor Isabella Blow. That was one of those interviews that went very smoothly, since Donna and I share tastes in modernism and music. Beyond Treacy and Blow, she has rubbed shoulders with designers such as Pablo Ferro and the daughter of Robert Brownjohn, Eliza—and, on a more trivial note, she banks at the same place as Ashes to Ashes’ Philip Glenister—TV’s Gene Hunt. I hope you enjoy this trio of articles.
The titles to Blake Edwards’ The Tamarind Seed are a great example of the late Maurice Binder’s 1970s’ work. This spy film, with music by John Barry and starring Julie Andrews (the real-life Mrs Blake Edwards) and Omar Sharif, is little known and one of the very few times Edwards did not collaborate with composer Henry Mancini. The visuals and the theme work beautifully and Binder shows his preference by this time for Swiss typography (the use of Helvetica for one). In the past I had shown some 1960s’ Binder work, but I think there’s still a lot of modernist beauty to this 1974 film’s opening.
A YouTube member has been posting some beautiful Maurice Binder title sequences, including those from my favourite movies, Arabesque (mysteriously not released on DVD) and Charade. I love the modernist nature of Binder’s work, and while he is best known for the James Bond gun-barrel sequence, there was a lot more to the man’s designs.
The following two are mated to Henry Mancini scores for Stanley Donen films.
In all cases, there is a sense of timelessness, which shows just how suited the principles of modernism were to title design. These ideas are still often observed by some of the most famous designers out there, such as Wayne Fitzgerald.
Regardless of politics, I still feel this is one of those classic typographic works on a par with some of the best US designs of the 1960s. I immediately think of the greats like Milton Glaser.
I remember this and, in some ways, prefer the original Freebairn-Smith theme to the later Post one. What I did forget, and which this clip from the Magnum, PI pilot (‘Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawai’i’) reminded me of, was that Tom Selleck regularly broke the fourth wall. The graphics are modernist and stylish, rather than the typical clip montage that was used after this entry. There’s something very appealing to me about that simpler look in graphics right now—anyone else feel that vibe?
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