Accidental Avant-Garde
LEF cover issue
Under the artistic director of LEF journal, Vladimir Mayakovsky, this cover of the LEF journal was designed by Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova. Rodchenko designed the typography style of the title "ЛЕФ", and Stepanova designed the accompanying imagery.
The cover has a strong resemblance to a poster in its layout, which would have been the final decision of the art director Vladimir Mayakovsky.
Rodchenko fills a third of the cover with just the three lettered title. He has capitalized the letters and rendered them with two colors: red and black, which take up equal sections of the title. The typography is flat, simple and yet bold in design. It is not italicized; nor does it evoke a sense of calligraphy. The design would be deemed modest if not for the grand scale Rodchenko has used to communicate the title. By this, Rodchenko's title demands the attention of the viewer. The scale along with the bilateral segmentation promoted through the saturated red and black hues turn the cover into declamatory propaganda, with a poster like quality, as if shouting to the world, "WE ARE HERE TO BRING YOU INTO THE FUTURE!". The title takes on a machine made identity in its hard robust, mechanical appearence, which creates a harmonious juxtaposition to Stepanova's photomontage. Varvara Stepanova's photomontage also acts to ignite this propaganda of change. Her contribution looks as if it is hovering above the title or slowly orbiting towards the letters in the realm of the composition. Stepanova's photomontage consists of two parts: an industrial amalgamation of machines, and a person falling down overlapping the title. Stepanova has added a combination of cyrillic letters onto the machinery, that translates as a non sense word. This non sense word takes its place on this non sense contraption possibly to say that The Soviet Union needs to focus on industrial design, and with the falling man she says that The Soviet Union is falling far behind the West.
Rodchenko's bold in your face title sums up Stepanova's message with its declaiming industrial design aesthetic. Together their LEF cover acts as a speech to the Soviet masses, urging them to start focusing on industrial design for the betterment of The Soviet Union.
Novy LEF cover issue #11
When Alexandar Rodchenko became the art director of Novy LEF, he focused the new layouts on photography and design. With Novy LEF there was less of an interest in bombastic typography. However, Rodchenko's Novy covers still have a strong resemblance to poster design with layouts containing Constructivist styles involving the use of few complimentary solid colors, geometric shapes, strong horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines. In cover #11, the art director incorporates two photographs of the smae size; both overlappng a mustard yellow square off to the left of the page in the middle of the composition. The title "ЛЕФ" appears as if cut out of the flat yellow square, and to the right of the square appears the issue number "11". With the Novy cover, Rodchenko has chosen to make the typography softer than in the LEF covers. They still have a strong sense of industrialism with their machine made, sleek look, but now have a bolder sense of design, especially with the curviture of the letters. The "11" and the "ЛЕФ" reflect eachother in the color scheme. The "ЛЕФ" looks cuttout of the yellow square, and the "11" looks as if formulated from the yellow taken away from the square.
Rodchenko's photographs have a wonderful sense of dynamism through Rodchenko's experimentation with his compositions, and subjects of architecture, and industrialism. In the photo at the top of the cover page we see a close-up of the front body of an automobile. Rodchenko has cropped the photo uniquely showing us only the left front headlight, part of the grill, and the liscense plate. The bottom photo show Soviet apartment buildings, with a man that Rodchenko has super imposed into the image. Actually, this image is a combination of three seperate photos that Rodchenko has combined together. We can tell this by the different angles of the two buildings and the man.
The Constructivist design techniques Rodchenko has utilized in this cover can be noted in the thick vertical black lines to the left of the page, in the three squares (the two photographs and the mustard yellow square containing the title), in his choice of typogrpaphy over calligraphy, and in the simple complimentary color scheme of black, yellew and white.
image from Lef journal: clothing and logo designs of Varvara Stepanova
Varvara Stepanova's sportswear and avaition logo designs appeared in the LEF journal between 1923 and 1925. Her goal was to promote the spur of design for social change within the Soviet Union. The page on the left consists of her sportswear designs for women. There are four different styles represented. All four designs have stylistic features that unify them. All four designs are jumpsuits, consisting of short sleeved tops and cropped pants on the bottom. All four designs maintain a collective color scheme of red, black, and white, and all four designs contain bold striped patterns. With these sportswear designs Stepanova hopes to influence readers of the LEF journal to spread artistic innovativeness into the mass Soviet culture. Stepanova wanted to used textile design and design in general as an agent for social change and diversity within the Soviet Union.
Varvara's logo designs on the adjacent page mimic her clothing designs in color and style. She consistently recycles the color scheme of red, white and black, and the patterns oriented through bold verticle and diagonal lines and stripes. These logos appear to be for companies or manufacturers involved in avaition. Her focus on aviation logos here mean to work as an agent of creativity within the realm of Soviet manufacturing.
Varvara Stepanova
sportswear and logo designs
pencil and ink on paper
featured in LEF journal : 1923-1925
Alexander Rodchenko
Novy LEF cover, issue #11
mix media
1928
Alexander Rodchenko & Varvara Stepanova
LEF journal cover
mixed media
1923-1925