Tom Eckersley
I found an artist called Tom Eckersley. He was a poster artist in the 1960's, from England. Whilst his designs are not specifically American, their visual style and minimalistic feel has inspired me.
I love these designs as they are incredibly simple and easy to look at. They are all relatively easy to understand and portray a message easily. I really love the colour schemes, and the plain, creamy backgrounds. It's a similar idea to my previous project - using the background colour to pop the foreground colours.
Tom Eckersley was a modernist designer who's posters were used to portray messages very simply and directly - particularly vital information on the "countries war needs". link
There is a general sense of communicating "more with less" and this ties in with the overall project - "visual communication". The posters communicate the messages successfully, and there is nothing unnecessary.
Looking elsewhere
I also looked into 2 books to search for some 1960's graphic design.
"Retro Graphic Design - Pocket Essentials" & "American Modernism, Graphic Design 1920-1960"
1, 2, 3
(left to right) Columbia Records Poster, 1966. Book cover by Rudolph de Harak, early 1960's. Advert for Geigy by Steff Geissbuhler.These are all, again, examples of modernism. Here is an extract to the book I found these in.
"The decade of the select 1960s became the time of the full flowering of modernism. A second generation now adopted and extended Modernist ideas in their work. Many designers were concerned with everlasting values such as permanence, structure, timelessness and the quest for the purest form possible"
American Modernism, Graphic Design 1920-1960, page 162
Modernism allows a message to be portrayed in its simplest form, as well as allowing it to be continuous in its understanding no matter how far in the future it is looked at again. I can see how the above designs are successful examples of 1960's modernism,
Once again I am drawn towards the colours and how sparingly they are used. Particularly examples 2 & 3. They have used no more than 4 colours, and have not included much detail in the illustrations - they are large blocks of colour with lack of things like shading and additional detail with colour. Similar to Pop Art, which was also big in the 60's, the colours are bold enough to catch your eye, but they are used in a specific, clever way to portray a certain message. Example 1, on the right, contains a lot more colour, but it is used in contrast to a large black area. This does not make the colour overwhelming and difficult to look at though. The blocks of colour are used are part of the design, not just to enhance it.
The fonts that are used are Helvetica. This font is sans-serif and very, very easy to read. It seems to be a big part of modernism in the 1960's.
"The Helvetica typeface was designed by Max Miedinger and Edouard Hofmann and issued by the Swiss type foundry Haas in 1957. Based on the font Akzidenz Grotesque, Helvetica (because of it's increased 'x' height and legibility) became very popular in America, In its way it was the icon of modernist graphic design, seen on just about every piece of graphics in the 1960's. It was clearly the font of choice."
American Modernism, Graphic Design 1920-1960, page 161
Other 1960's graphic design examples
American Modernism, Graphic Design 1920-1960
Retro Graphic Design, Pocket Essentials
Looking at existing examples reminded me of and inspired me towards the "retro" theme. This is a specific style that combines use of "vintage typography, muted colours and dirty textures" to create a look reminiscent of old, vintage designs - i.e. some from the 1960's. link
No comments:
Post a Comment