Foooooooreword
The mighty current of globalization is rapidly sweeping across the world, bringing profound and formidable changes. Conspiring with an ever-globalized world economy, its reckless forces have penetrated every corner of the cultural domain. Under such circumstance, the world of design has witnessed the vanishing of local characteristics and the blurring of national distinctions. With more and more designers converted to an emerging "world style", the eyes of the audience are inevitably drawn to artists with distinctive aesthetic expressions, symbols and styles. Accomplished designers incorporate into the art work their passions and inner voices, their observations of life and world, and their reflections upon social realities. The world of colors and forms they create is thus a visual declaration of design and life philosophy and an aesthetic perception of the changing times.<
In The Arts of Mankind, Van Loon says that life is the greatest art of all. I believe it is also in real life that most graphic designers find their inspirations and creative power. This series is part of my attempt to approach some of the contemporary graphic artists from a "design plus life" perspective.<
This series, "International masters of graphic design" is a book tribute to some of the greatest contemporary graphic designers, including: Rosmarie Tissi from Zurich, a representative of Swiss layout designing and leading female designer in the international graphic arena; Georg Staehelin, also from Switzerland, the hermit designer and visual poet of wits and simplicity; Shin Matsunaga from Tokyo, the master of 40 years of creative activities, whose works are familiar to the Chinese audience, yet an evergreen fashion leader that creates and interprets latest styles; Philippe Apeloig from Paris, the humanistic artist who skillfully sketches with letters; Leonardo Sonnoli from Italy, another master of typography, as well as an intrepid experimentalist; Pekka Loiri from Finland, the passionate colorist who paints the world in a riot of color instead of black and white, ink and wash; Christof Gassner, professor of arts at the Kassel Kunsthochschule, Germany, whose sensational interpretations combine poetry and sounds with color and imagery; and finally Lex Drewinski from Germany, David Tartakover from Israel, and Anabella and Gabriel of Fantasmas, a group of visual communicators and social actors who live their creative works, illuminating all adversities of modern society with the fires of their art - war and violence, starvation and poverty, deadly disease and environment deterioration...... The reason why I've chosen to include this group of designers in this book is that no society is free of injustice and disadvantage, and only through political practice and personal engagement will the graphic designers build their Eden of art in a paradise on earth. <
May art and design be immortal!< Jianping He, Nov 2004,