Electronic Band Justice incorporates many different recognizable fonts in their music video for their hit song, “DVNO” … I love the concept, and the collaboration of the music with the aesthetic visuals of the various fonts…
One of the movements that I found really inspiring was the Push Pin era where various illustrators of New York came together to form new ideas and work. They used a set of visual conventions, or a unity of visual techniques or images, than it is an attitude about visual communications. It was an openess about trying new forms and techniques, and reinterpreting work from ealier periods and intergrating words and images into a conceptual decorative whole. One of the influential illustrators was Paul Davis. He created an illustration for the theatre play ” For Colored Girls…” in the year 1976.
Paul Davis 1976 " For Colored Girls poster"
I found a more modern day equally successful illustration for the very same play. A work by another New York based illustrator, Marion Bolognesi. I thought the comparison between the two was quite interesting…
Marion Bolognesi, " For Colored Girls" Illustrative Poster, 2010
National Library Week 1969
Posters from the 60’s that were really popular of the New York designer Peter Max (b.1937) in which the art noveau aspects of pschedelic art were combined with more accessible images and softer colors.
Milton Glaser, Bob Dylan poster 1967
Another artist of the Push Pin Studios was Milton Glaser. For over the course of several decades he reinvented himself as a creative force by exploring new graphic techniques. One of them being the method he used to mimic the style of comic books, the flat color of Japanese prints and Matisse cut outs combined with the flowing curvillnear art nouveau arabesques. He stumbled unto a style that became widely imitated. His 1967 image for a concert poster of Bob Dylan is a prime example of his influential innovative style.
I love these “Think Small” Volkswagen advertisements by artist Bernbach. The 1940’s was an influential period of advertising. Doyle Dane Bernbach was one of the pioneers of the decade that opened its doors. In his work, he used white space effectively to focus the reader’s attention toward the headline and image on crowded newspaper pages. Doyle used the same technique for the Volkswagen campaign. Little cars that were marketed to a public used to luxury and high horsepower cars as status symbols.
Think Small, 1940-Bernbach Ad
One of the pioneers in Swiss Graphic design that I found interesting was the work of artist, Ernest Keller. He had a real interest in symoblic forms, and he used simplified geometric forms with vibrant contrasting colors in his work. He had a belief that the solution to the problems one runs into when designing, should come from its content. So a lot of his work encompassed different solutions. As both a teacher and a designer he established a standard of excellence for Swiss design for over four decades. The work above is a poster for the Rietberg Museum, 1952.
Joost Schmidt, Bauhaus Exhibition poster, 1923
The Bauhaus was an incredible school that encompassed all types of artists and designers. It demonstrated new ideas about the theory of application to architecture and design. As well as seeking a new unity of artists and craftsmen to build for the future. It had a lot of different workshops for all types of artists.
1916 Yellow and Black
Artist Kasimir Malevich founded a painting style of basic forms he called: suprematism. He sought to find the extreme expression of feeling, seeking no ideas, no practical values, nor any utilitarian ideals of a promise land. He believed the essence of art was a conceptual experience of color and form. In his work above, Yellow and Black, 1916, he created concrete elements involving form and shape.
Klinger, 1917, War Poster
Besides the famous Uncle Sam Wants You Poster, I stumbled upon another War poster I enjoyed. A work by Julius Klinger, he created it for Germany’s eighth bond drive in 1917. Eight arrows piercing a dragon reminded citizens that their contributions would help wound and ultimately defeat their enemy. His posters expressed complex ideas with simple pictographic symbols.
Lucian Bernhard, Manoli Cigarettes, 1911
Lucian Bernhard was a pivotal designer during the turn of the 19th century. He used flat minimalist forms in his poster designs. His simplification anticipated the soon to come constructivist movement. He designed a poster for Manoli cigarettes in 1911, I love his use of color and flat shapes, I think it combines overall really well to make a powerful effective image.
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