How Did Alexy Brodovitch Influence Harper's Bazahar

Alexey Brodovitch spent over 20 years using original combinations of images and typography for Harper's Bazaar, a popular and innovative fashion magazine. He modernized the look of the magazine in regards to the graphics and brought photography to the forefront. While Brodovitch was most famous for what he did for Harper's Bazaar, I will examine why he should be regarded as one of the most influential figures in the world of graphic design and photography beyond this magazine. In order to understand how Alexey Brodovitch's talent and passion came to be, one must go back to the beginning of his story. He was born into a wealthy family living in Ogolitchi, Russia in 1898. His father, Vyacheslav, was a respected physician, psychiatrist and huntsman, and his mother was an amateur painter. Brodovitch's high class upbringing had a lifelong impact on him. He developed an authoritarian way of dealing with people and a sophisticated taste that would end up influencing different areas of his professional life in both a positive and negative way. Brodovitch was sent to study at a prestigious school in St. Petersburg with …show more content…
The original purpose of this project may have been to recapture the world of ballet that had originally been very important to him. The photographs he took during the ballets were unconventional. Some were blurred, distorted, too dark or too light and faded looking. He watched for the moments the audience did not applaud, but which set the tone of the evening. The images captured the atmosphere on stage and action backstage. By bleeding the blurred pictures off the pages, he communicated the impact of the dance without words. Brodovitch released a book of these photographs in 1945, simply titled Ballet. There were only a few hundred copies of ballet printed, making the book a collector's item