Steven Heller, the most prolific design writer says that underground designs have a great impact into the mainstream because it takes egotistical ideals and advertise them. As the article states, many futurists and constructivist masterworks were self advertised for their new ideas. Back in time many art related concepts were later adopted into mainstream. They come into the idea that what was old and forgotten should be remodel in a way that consumers would want to use or buy them and benefit from those ideals. Underground is just a broad term that can include many things like bands, art pieces and more. The main idea is to alter or disrupt the main message of the things like culture jamming. While mainstream are the ideas, attitudes, or activities that are normal or conventional of what is called “trendy.” The mainstream leeches’ alternative cultures but the underground takes ideas from the mainstream in a tactic to disrupt media culture and consumerist leading them into false reality. As the article says, magazines were examples of the underground where they caricatured and disrupted, the main message of things which was made it into a non-real message. Underground idealists can modify ideals altering or joining the mainstream and a significant amount will follow because people mainly go towards the things that are trendy or cool.
Paula Scher, the designer as well as the designs made for The Public Theater were all influenced by the constructivism which in this article is touch as Heller said that they self-advertised for their new ideas, their main point was to remodel and create the new. In “Carnival Modern,” Heller says that the underground that can be anything which was known before produced effective advertising into the mainstream, he stated that Scher’s campaign for the public theater was influenced by some artists,“ Like a work of Russian Constructivism, they embodied the design attributes of balance, harmony, and proportion, demonstrating that flat colors and sans-serif typefaces resulted in eye-catching designs.” This quote demonstrates that the underground alter or disrupt the main message from the old constructivism to the new constructivism that Scher implement in her work for the public. She got influenced by constructivists to advertise her work, but in her work she tries to implement something new by including a variation of flat colors such as red or yellow or even green or other colors, also a variation of sans serif type in which Scher plays with its boldness and thickness, location and position, which eventually contributes to the eye catching to the public theater audience.
Scher wanted to create a new message for the theater, so the best way for her to do that was with type usage. In the article named, “Street Theater,” Heller said “Scher believes that the best way to communicate to New Yorkers is to SHOUT. “What better way to get a message across than for someone to yell something like ‘I’m pregnant!’ down a corridor; it’s better than the Internet,” she says. And this is exactly how she designs for The Public: She SHOUTS with type.” In this quote, she illustrates the main message and point of her designs as well as the identity that the theater will have which is to Shout out the normal. But, as she said it was made for New York, which is a city that contains millions of people, but what if people from other countries or cities wanted to go there, maybe one has to be a New Yorker to truly appreciate the impact of The Public’s language on the public. It is not a hidden idea to the society that Scher made for the Public Theater, Montgomery talked about the latest release from the design publishing powerhouse Unit Editions that looks at the niche but rewarding subject of combining typography and images. In “Type and Image”, Montgomery said “Type Plus looks at how designers use graphics and type together to Cyturbo-charge meaning and impact’. This is demonstrated through examples such as Paula Scher’s striking 1990s posters for the Public Theater.” This quote tells that another idea from this designer was to have a combination of image and type in her posters to get into the mainstream of what public would not avoid seeing, she wanted to be more innovative, to put the theater to trendy standards. Scher mainly contain the message to shout out from the normal, but at the having the mainstream from what was normal seeing and implementing some type of ornament into her designs that were influenced by constructivism.
Heller, Steven. “Carnival Modern.” Print, vol. 51, no. 6, Nov. 1997, p. 112. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=498617&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Heller, Steve. “Street Theater.” Print, vol. 50, no. 3, May 1996, p. 29. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=9609220725&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Montgomery, Angus. “Type and image.” Design Week Online, 18 July 2014. Gale General OneFile, https://link-gale-com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A375443429/ITOF?u=cuny_nytc&sid=ITOF&xid=147ad268. Accessed 26 Apr. 2020.
