LADC Video Collection: Design

"Typeface explores the twilight of an analog craft that is freshly inspiring artists in a digital age, and the museum [Hamilton Wood Type Museum] in Two Rivers personifies cultural preservation, rural re-birth, and the lineage of of American graphic design. But the museum's future is unclear. What is the responsibility of artists and historians to preserve a dying craft?"

Documentary about the history of Polish posters, from World War II through the fall of communism. It details the evolution of this art form by revealing the revolutionary role posters played in the social, political and cultural life of Poland. Includes interviews with leading Polish poster artists including the undisputed father of the Polish poster, Henryk Tomaszewski. Commentaries from American and Polish collectors and scholars highlight the significance of the Polish poster as a cultural icon.

This is the surprisingly emotional tale of one bewildering machine that revolutionized printing and society, and of the people who fight to keep it alive today.

"Origami may seem an unlikely medium for understanding and explaining the world. But around the globe, several fine artists and theoretical scientists are abandoning more conventional career paths to forge lives as modern-day paper folders. Through origami, these offbeat and provocative minds are reshaping ideas of creativity and revealing the relationship between art and science. This film chronicles 10 of their stories: three of the world's foremost origami artists, less conventional artists, abstract artists, advanced mathematicians and a remarkable scientist who received a MacArthur Genius Award for his computational origami research."

Explores the development, concept and historical context of featured products: the Bookworm, Concorde, Conica coffeemaker, Leica camera, Eames lounge chair, and Vespa scooter. Combines archival images and film excerpts with music and other pieces of popular culture, to outline the social, political, and cultural climate in which each item was invented.

"Born Helmut Herzfeld in 1891, John Heartfield adopted his English name to protest the rise of German nationalism during the first world war--one of many symbolic gestures that defined the artist's uncompromising career. This biographical program begins in Heartfield's native Berlin and progresses through his painful childhood, his involvement in the Dadaist movement, his friendships with Bertolt Brecht and George Grosz, and his active stance against Hitler's Nazi regime through his provocative photomontages. His exile and internment in Britain and his return to East Germany in 1951 are also covered. Archival materials, interviews, and speeches featuring a vehement Heartfield are combined with numerous examples of his work"--Container

A feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. In his second film, director Gary Hustwit (Helvetica) documents the creative processes of some of the world's most influential product designers, and looks at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets.

A documentary about typography, graphic design and global visual culture, which looks at the proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.

"How will the technological revolution change the way we read? Will electronic texts like cellphone fiction replace the traditional book? What ethical issues are at play when it comes to who owns the digital archives of the world's printed heritage? We get perspectives from Canadian interactive novelist Kate Pullinger (Inanimate Alice) and Google engineering director Dan Landry, among others."--TVO website

Herbert Matter was a man who seemingly fit many lives into one by excelling in the creative disciplines of design, photography and film. The documentary The Visual Language of Herbert Matter by director Reto Caduff profiles his extraordinary life and seminal work. With the help of historical footage, photographs, never-before-seen film excerpts (some shot by Matter himself) and a broad overview of his extensive body of work, the documentary brings the picture of an overlooked creative genius back into focus. Including interviews with Robert Frank, Massimo Vignelli, Steven Heller and many others, the film tells the story of a remarkable career and its influential impact on the evolving language of design during the short 20th century both in the USA and Europe. --Container

Rams includes in-depth conversations with Dieter, and deep dives into his philosophy, his process, and his inspirations ... Dieter has long been an advocate for the ideas of environmental consciousness and long-lasting products. He's dismayed by today's unsustainable world of over-consumption, where "design" has been reduced to a meaningless marketing buzzword. Rams is a design documentary, but it's also a rumination on consumerism, materialism, and sustainability. Dieter's philosophy is about more than just design, it's about a way to live. It's about getting rid of distractions and visual clutter, and just living with what you need.

A documentary on design thinking and its impact on society and businesses.

"Maker" is a feature-length documentary that looks into the current Maker Movement in America, a new Do-It-Yourself and Do-It-Together culture powered by the advent of new technologies and its impact on society, culture and economy in the United States.

Up until just over 30 years ago, when the desktop computer debuted, the whole design production process would have been done primarily by hand, and with the aide of analog machines. The design and print industries used a variety of ways to get type and image onto film, plates, and finally tothe printed page. Graphic Means is a journey through this transformative Mad Men-era of pre-digital design production to the advent of the desktop computer. It explores the methods, tools, and evolving social roles that gave rise to the graphic design industry as we know it today.

This fascinating design documentary captures the personality and work process of the late Canadian graphic artist Jim Rimmer (1931-2010). In 2008, the P22 Type Foundry commissioned Rimmer to create a new type design (Stern) that became the first-ever simultaneous release of a digital font and hand-set metal font. Rimmer was one of the few who possessed the skills needed to create a metal font and fully execute all steps of its design. This film is a unique opportunity to share Jim's knowledge and processes with the world.

The Radiant Sun explores the life and work of mid-century American designer Ruth Adler Schnee, who has been called a "Detroit treasure" and an "American legacy." Along with her family, Schnee fled Nazi Germany soon after Kristalnacht, and settled in Detroit. An internship with industrial designer Raymond Loewy and degrees from RISD and Cranbrook under Eliel Saarinen prepared her for a design career. With her husband Edward Schnee, she formed Adler-Schnee Associates, a design studio and store that helped bring modernism to Michigan. As a space planner, Adler-Schnee collaborated with noted architects including Yamasaki, Fuller, and Wright. The pivotal exhibition Design 1935-1965 : What Modern Was (1991), featured Adler-Schnee's textile designs. At age 90, she continues to work as a space planner and textile designer. The film The Radiant Sun adds Adler-Schnee's story to the growing scholarship on the American Modernist-era and expands knowledge about women designers' influence on the built environment.