Francisco Inchauste from smashing magazine wrote a very interesting post called “If Famous Graphic Artists Were Web Designers…”. The subject is polemic as you can see by the comments. Some people love it, others hate it. I, myself, liked it very much. For me it’s not a big deal if the article it’s not very precise historically. I found very interesting to see the similarities between a hundred years old paints and brand new designs. Check the comparison made by Francisco:

Lyubov Popova

Lyubov Popova, Painterly Architectonic, 1917

popova_web

A website Popova might have designed: Douglas Menezes

menezes_web

The great deal for me is that most of the designs (i think) were not directly inspired by the paints. In my specific case, I always loved Russian Art and Design but had never heard of Lyubov Popova (shame on me :[ ). I may have seen her work long time ago, in my school / college times, but I wasn’t even thinking about russian art when I designed this. And after my very small research now I think her other paints are much more expressive than this particularly one. The fact is references flow between the works of different people, in different fields and different times. What my tired mind allows me to remember is that first reference for this design was the Norwegian duo Röyksopp’s Junior album cover.

royksopp-junior

I mean, imagine if some popcorn package designer feels inspired by my site and I was inspired by this album’s artwork, and the this cover’s designer (couldn’t find it, if you know let me know) was inspired by something else. Will this timeline get back to Popova? Popcorn to Popova (very bad joke but a good title)? I can’t tell. But it seems a very good way to study and learn the design history and how it interacts with the professionals and society. If you are a good student feel free to do this homework.

I’d like to thank Francisco Inchauste and smashing magazine for the reference, I’m very glad. Cheers!