Since this is the first post for this topic, I figure I would start with the beginning…my beginning into design. The first designer that caught my eye and helped me figure out what I wanted to do with product photography came from Alexey Brodovitch.
My first professional job out of college was with a web/multimedia design firm in Indianapolis. I had interviewed with dozens of agencies around the circle city and found myself choosing between two businesses in the area. The one I wanted to work for was located in Broad Ripple and had the most versatility I craved: print, web, animation, photography, advertising– a real smorgasborg of marketing/design opportunities.
Once hired on as a production assistant, I spent long hours (sometimes into the wee hours of the morning) setting up photo shoots for the Paul Harris Store online dressing room and various reproduced African beaded garments, Viking carved furniture, and Chinese-jade engraved boxes for the J. Peterman Auction site.
My background was in film photography, and I had to apply all that I had learned to the art translating lighting and composition into digital photography with a Kodak Digital Camera (a relic by today’s standards). I began checking out books from the library to figure out how to use the two Paul Harris mannequins and stage faux scenes of mannequins in various seasonal activity. I came across Brodovitch in a design biography dedicated to his work. My work was no where as brilliant as Brodovitch’s, but the inspiration was a religious experience.
Brodovitch was a master of editorial art direction, layout, typography, photographs and navigating white space into a statement of luxury that made you want to dive in and bask in the same brilliant chiascuro that the models and clothing themselves were captured within. He put the glamour-ala Busby Berkeley meets Russian constructivism- in Harper’s Bazaar magazine covers. His influence is still apparent in the layout of current fashion magazines.
Inspiration Lab has an excellent collection of some of his best layouts. Abby Larsent has a mini booklet you can download and see more examples of his work. You can also purchase this little gem of a book and fall in love with black, white and technicolor fashions of the thirties, forties and fifties.
For an iphone app, it rocks. It looks very similar to theHolga camera I used to play with when I still shot film. Not the most exciting content I’ve chosen to capture, but fun to play with, if you like retro film affects.
