Art Deco Contemporary Recreation

Replicate classic art using modern items: History of Graphic Design class

For this piece, I was tasked with replicating a previous design style in a contemporary format. I had decided to iterate on the concept of a mobile phone advertisement in the style of art deco. The company in this case is ‘Apple,’ which was founded in 1976, approximately 30 years after the end of this movement. In this reimagining, I sought to primarily recreate the machine aesthetic that this style is so well known for. For every other aspect, though, I created it based on what I believed would not only be simplistic, but also showcase what the object in question would primarily be used for. Therefore, the person depicted is holding the phone outward in front of himself, with the implication being that the person is taking a call (facetime). However, while this may be a surface level interpretation to the average viewer, looking closer reveals some extra details in a metaphorical sense. For instance, the general composition, while not exact, depicts the text, person, and phone split evenly in grids adhering to the rule of thirds. When reading the image from left to right, is displays as the eye of the person and the phone of the object, with the camera of the phone acting as another eye. The person, as we discussed, may be on a call, but also might be taking a picture of himself or the viewer, a common practice in modern phone use, preserving the revolutionary moment for ages. The colors are layered on the principle of a darker background and a lighter foreground, in order to highlight the product itself further. The colors themselves are shades of gray, gold and blue, common colors that when used in conjunction with one another, depict a feeling of sophistication and technological advancement, both things that the company of ‘Apple’ like to exemplify in their business practices today. I hope when looking at my piece, the viewer can feel the simple intrigue that was so prevalent in art deco advertising, and are taken back to a historic time in the process of graphic design, to see what might happen had this design from continued to live on in its purest sense through this tantalizing hypothetical.

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