chris 1960s poster art

Bob Masse and John Van Hamersveld are two graphic artists who helped shape graphic design poster and record art throughout the 1960's. the works both of these men produced in the 1960s reflect the time and the experimentation in all forms that was a part of the 60's. both men worked extensivley on americas west coast, Los Angeles and SanFrancisco.

John Van Hamersveld started working graphically in and pioneered the visual experience of the surfing culture in the early 1960s, most famously producing the poster for the surf cult movie Endless Summer which is regarded as a watermark for the surfing industry. Van Hamersveld quickly became involved in the music scene where he produced record covers and posters that are iconic graphic images of the 1960s including work for Hendrix and The Beatles.

Bob Masse mainly produced record covers and concert posters throughout the 60's and worked with some of the biggest bands of the era, The Grateful Dead, The Doors,Cream and Jefferson Airplane and produced some of the most distinctive posters of the time. All masse's work is highly sought after by collectors.

Both artists helped define the graphic style of the 60's in different ways and with different styles. Bob Masse's work was heavily influenced by art nouveau which can be seen throughout his work but he adapted the style to the times with distinctive typography and imagery and the use of bright colours. Van Hamersveld took the use of bright colours to a new level as well along with print styles, illustration and type and showing great diversity in his work. both styles strongly represent the era and both artists would have been working in competition with one another but also influencing one another as well.

Bob Masse and John Van Hamersveld are both still working and their reputations have grown enormously since the 1960's. both are still using the styles that have made them famous and sought after artists.

Jaymi: Milton Glaser 1960's

Milton Glaser is an American graphic designer, illustrator and cofounder of Push Pin Studio, a leading edge design firm in New York. The Pushpin Studios were at the forefront of graphic design in the 60’s. Glaser studied in New York and Italy and was the Director of Design at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

The 60’s were a time when technology like television and photography was altering the graphic design industry and illustration was declining as a technique in mass media. Glaser and the Pushpin designers instead focused on illustration and drew inspiration from their childhood love of comic books, modern art, and the art of non-Western cultures creating an innovative, avant-garde approach to graphic design. These designers expressed ideas about the subject through simplified images that functioned as signs and symbols.

Glaser focused on design for pop culture especially graphics for the music industry. He captured the imagination of a generation with his poster (1967) for folk-rock musician Bob Dylan. Glaser took inspiration from a range of places at the time he was interested in Islamic miniatures and the psychedelic images emerging from the West Coast. He worked from a photograph he’d taken of a sign in Mexico to design the “Babyteeth” typeface used on the poster. The poster features Dylan's silhouette in black with flowing Technicolor locks has become one of the icons of the Sixties.

Kim- Josef Müller-Brockmann

Josef Müller-Brockmann, was a Swiss graphic designer and teacher. He studied architecture, design and history of art at both the University and Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich. In 1934 he worked as a freelance designer and illustrator in Zurich. In 1936 he opened his studio specializing in graphic design, exhibition design and photography.

From 1951 he produced concert posters for the Tonhalle in Zurich. In 1958 he became a founding editor of New Graphic Design along with R.P. Lohse, C. Vivarelli, and H. Neuburg. In 1966 he was appointed European design consultant to IBM. Author of the 1961 publications The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems and Grid Systems in Graphic Design, and the 1971 publications History of the Poster and A History of Visual Communication.

Jacqui: JOHN BAUER

John Bauer was born on June 4, 1882 in Jonkoping, Sweden. At only 16 years of age, he went to Stockholm to begin studying art. Two years later, he was accepted as a student of the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. He was already being given illustration commissions while he was at the Academy John was influenced by such artists as Anders Zorn, Carl Larsson, Albert Engstrom and the surreal/fantasy work of Arnold Bocklin.
Between 1907 and 1915, John Bauer illustrated fairytales in Bland tomtar och troll (Among elves and trolls), a book published annually at Christmas. It was with these illustrations that John became the Swedish people’s favourite fairytale artist.
“The forest constantly feeds the imagination”, wrote John. And it was during his solitary wanderings in the country side, that John approached his fairytale world. In his sketch book he drew detailed studies of branches, sections of tree trunks, stumps, foliage, rocks and plants. Through his art he wanted to show us nature’s temple and to reveal to us another world, that of beauty. John Bauer has created an idealised image of the forest.
John’s trolls can be tiny creeping things, or gigantic mountain trolls, but usually they are the size of people. It is the eyes that differentiate John Bauer’s trolls from other people’s. Their different and limited ability to think means the trolls do not understand the human world, but their eyes hint at a good-natured and curious spirit.
John Bauer was the inspiration for the film The Dark Crystal.
Reference: www.JohnBauermuseum.nu

Jess - 1960's

Sir Peter Thomas Blake was born on June 25, 1932 he is an English pop artist, best known for his design of the sleeve for The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Black used images from comics, magazines, consumer goods and other bits and pieces to produce colourful works that capture the flavour of the 'swinging sixties'.

Throughout the late 1950’s he became one of the most know British pop artist. From his time his art contained imagery from advetisment, musical entertainment, and wrestlers, these all most often included collaged elements.

Peter Thomas Blake was incorporated in group exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. He had his first one person exhibition in 1960. From 1963 Blake was represented by Robert Fraser which placed him at the centre of swinging London and brought him into contact with leading figures of popular culture.
On the Balcony (1955-57) is a significant early work that stands as one of the iconic pieces of British Pop Art, showing Blake's interest in combining images from pop culture with fine art. The work, which appears to be a collage but is in fact wholly painted, depicts a boy holding Edouard Manet's painting The Balcony surrounded by numerous badges and magazines.



Urls:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Blake_(artist)
http://www.artbank.com/DisplayArtist.aspx?id=19

Brandon 1960's

Born in Spain, Victor Moscoso was the first of the rock poster artists with academic training and experience. After studying art at Cooper Union in New York City and at Yale University, he moved to San Francisco in 1959, where he attended the San Francisco Art Institute, eventually becoming an instructor there.

Victor Moscoso was among the most gifted and influential artists to emerge from the Sixties culture, leading not only the psychedelic concert poster designs made famous during San Francisco's Summer of Love but also making his mark in underground comics.

Moscoso became one of the most famous of the psychedelic artists to surface during the mid-1960s, his provocative work for the Family Dog's dances at the Avalon Ballroom as well as his Neon Rose posters for the Matrix, a local night spot, earning international attention. By 1968, he had turned his focus to underground comix storytelling, becoming one of the contributors to Robert Crumb's infamous Zap series.

Moscoso's style is most notable for its visual intensity, which is obtained by manipulating form and color to create optical effects. Moscoso's use of intense color contrasts and vibrating edges and borders was influenced by painter Josef Albers, his teacher at Yale.

http://www.victormoscoso.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Moscoso

Paula - Saul Bass 60s Graphic Designer.

SAUL BASS (1920-1996) was not only one of the great graphic designers of the mid-20th century but the undisputed master of film title design thanks to his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger and Martin Scorsese.

Bass certainly bought a new dimension to movies as he realised that the opening credits and titles to this point had not been exploited in a graphic way. When the reels of film for Otto Preminger’s controversial new drugs movie, The Man with the Golden Arm, arrived at US movie theatres in 1955, a note was stuck on the cans - "Projectionists – pull curtain before titles".
Until then, the lists of cast and crew members which passed for movie titles were so dull that projectionists only pulled back the curtains to reveal the screen once they’d finished. But Preminger wanted his audience to see The Man with the Golden Arm’s titles as an integral part of the film.

The movie’s theme was the struggle of its hero - a jazz musician played by Frank Sinatra - to overcome his heroin addiction. Designed by Saul Bass the titles featured an animated black paper-cut-out of a heroin addict’s arm. Knowing that the arm was a powerful image of addiction, Bass had chosen it – rather than Frank Sinatra’s famous face - as the symbol of both the movie’s titles and its promotional poster. That cut-out arm caused a sensation and Saul Bass reinvented the movie title as an art form.

Born in the Bronx district of New York in 1920, he was a creative child who drew constantly. Bass studied at the Art Students League in New York and Brooklyn College. He then completed apprenticeships with Design Firms in New York.

Bass worked as a freelance graphic designer or "commercial artist" as they were called. Chafing at the creative constraints imposed on him in New York, he moved to Los Angeles in 1946. After freelancing, he opened his own studio in 1950 working mostly in advertising until Preminger invited him to design the poster for his 1954 movie, Carmen Jones. Impressed by the result, Preminger asked Bass to create the film’s title sequence too.

Over the next decade he honed his skill by creating an animated mini-movie for Mike Todd’s 1956 Around The World In 80 Days and a tearful eye for Preminger’s 1958 Bonjour Tristesse. Blessed with the gift of identifying the one image which symbolised the movie, Bass then recreated it in a strikingly modern style. Martin Scorsese once described his approach as creating: "an emblematic image, instantly recognisable and immediately tied to the film".

Eventually Bass returned to commercial graphic design. His corporate work included corporate identities for United Airlines, AT&T, Minolta, Bell Telephone System and Warner Communications. He also designed the poster for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Overall I would say the changes Saul Bass made to the movie industry where long standing and definately made a trip to the movies more interesting for everyone even to this day.

Michelle1940s and 1950s graphic design

M. C. Escher

Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898 – 1972), was a Dutch graphic artist known for his mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs and mezzotints which featured impossible constructions, explorations of infinty, architecture and tessellations.

His artistic expression was created from images in his mind, rather than directly from observations and travels to other countries. Well known examples of his work also include Drawing Hands (1948) a work in which two hands are shown, each drawing the other.
















He worked primarily in the media of lithographs and woodcuts, though the few mezzotints he made are considered to be masterpieces of the technique. In his graphic art, he portrayed mathematical relationships among shapes, figures and space. Additionally, he explored interlocking figures using black and white to enhance different dimensions. Integrated into his prints were mirror images of cones, spheres, cubes, rings, and spirals.

Although Escher did not have a mathematical training—his understanding of mathematics was largely visual and intuitive—Escher's work has a strong mathematical component, and more than a few of the worlds which he drew are built around impossible objects such as the Necker cube and the Penrose Triangle. Many of Escher's works employed repeated tilings called tessellations. Escher's artwork is especially well-liked by mathematicians and scientists, who enjoy his use of polyhedra and geometric distortions.










During his lifetime, made 448 lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings and over 2000 drawings and sketches. Apart from being a graphic artist, M.C. Escher illustrated books, designed tapestries, postage stamps and murals.






















His art continues to amaze and wonder millions of people all over the world. In his work we recognize his keen observation of the world around us and the expressions of his own fantasies. M.C. Escher shows us that reality is wondrous, comprehensible and fascinating.

Sources:
http://www.mcescher.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/

emILY:JAN LENICA

Jan Lenica is the author of over 150 theatrical posters and film (e.g. Roman Polanski’s Knife in the water, Shakespeare’s Macbeth). They can be found in many collections and are often shown at individual exhibitions, in Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1980), Kunstverain in Kassel (1981), Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (1982), Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg (1991).
Jan Lenica has been making animated films, in different techniques since the 1950’s. In the beginning he co-operated with Walerian Borowczyk in making Once upon... and House, which are now considered to be the classics of Polish animation. In 1959 in France he made his first individual film Mr. Head. His next films The New Janko Musician, The Labyrinth, Rhinoceroses and Still Life (the latter two made in West Germany) established him as one of the most talented artists of the genre. The distinctive work of noted Polish animator Jan Lenica is easily recognized by his simple but bold and sometimes surreal style. The son of a well-known artist, Lenica started out designing movie posters for Polish films. Prior to that he had studied architecture and music and art. He began animating with Walerian Borowczyk and with him made several award-winning cartoons. Much of Lenica's work is characterized by his use of cutouts, collage and carved backdrops.

POST 4:1960's

the 1960s were busy and diverse times in the development of graphic design- apollo 11 first manned lunar landing, the mini skirt, the beatles,hippie culture, herb lubalin, milton glaser, saul bass, otto preminger, ken garland, john mcconnell -pentgram, rick griffen, ken kesey, pscychodelia, contraceptive pill, sexual revolution, roger excoffon, the bikini, elvis, portable tv, kodak brownie 127, david bailey, ibm typewriter 72, ibm computer system 360, barbarella, pierre cardin - moon girl, 'oz' magazine,martin sharp, 'women and beauty', 'time', 'paris match' 'look', peter blake , sgt peppers lonely hearts club band, tadnori yokoo, kobe workers music council poster, dick elffers, the paper dress show hirokatsu hijikata, 'wozzeck', jan lenica, wes wilson, john riebens, 'neue grafik', josef muller-brockmann, 'foultitude' pop art, robert rauschenberg, litchenstein, folon, tibor reich textiles, astrid sampe textiles, grillo phone, valentine portable typewriter, ibm golfball typewrite, tschichold , sabon 1964, fluxus, functionalism, stanley mouse, victor moscoso, chet helms, fonts ortem, cruz swinger, windsor, windsor elongated, peace open, peace solid, peace outline, love stoned, love open etc. write a post about 200wds with image/s and link.

jo: graphic designer 1940/50s

Paul Rand was a graphic designer born in 1914 in America. His birth name was Peretz Rosenbaum. He was said to be the pioneer of modern graphic design. Paul first began his career as a graphic designer and media promoter for ‘Esquire’ magazine in 1937. He was also involved in designing covers for their quarterly magazine called ‘Apparel Arts’. During these years he also designed covers for other magazines like ‘Direction’. His works regularly featured at the Art Director’s Club from 1938. Paul left ‘Esquire’ in 1941.

Paul wrote the graphic designers book “Thoughts on Design”, which show almost a hundred of his designs and reportedly some of the best information of graphic design.

From 1941 to 1954, Paul took on a new career of advertising design with the Weintraub Agency on Madison Avenue. Here working as an art director, Paul really married the forces of artist and copywriter to become an effective team. In 1954 Paul became known as one of the best art directors, by the Museum of Modern Art and he also received a gold medal for his Morse Code advertisement from the Art Directors’ Club.

Paul Rand was also a teacher. In 1942-44, as well as his design commitments, Paul taught at Cooper Union. Then in 1946 he was offered a teaching position at Pratt Institute. In 1956 Paul completed his teaching career at Yale University as Professor of Graphic Design.

Paul became known for his trademark identities. He designed trademarks for ‘Esquire” magazine , “Robeson Cutlery” and “Coronet Brandy.” In 1955 his corporate identity career was launched with the Internationl Business Machines Corporation (IBM). Westinghouse, ABC television network, UPS and Cummins Engine.

Paul worked into the 1990s continually designing. He died in 1996.












Bibliography: www.wikepedia.net

www.commarts.com

jo: Graphic Designer 1920/30s

Piet Zwart

Piet Zwart, a Dutch designer was born in 1885. He took on many artistic career lines. Between 1919-1921 he worked for an architect firm in Hague, the Netherlands. He was also a photographer and experimented with photograms. Piet was also a member of the Avant Garde during the early part of the 1900s. In 1926, he was introduced to photomontage by artist/photographer and friend El Lissitzky.

Photomontage is when multiple photographs are cut out, pasted together sanded edges, then retouched before being re-photographed to create one image.


Piet worked as a typographical designer for the Nederlandse Kabelfabriek (Dutch Cable Company) and the PTT (Dutch Postal and Telephone Service) in Delft, Netherlands between 1923-1933. Piet’s recognizable trait was his use of primary colours, geometric shapes and repetitious word patterns. Influenced by constructivism, Dada and ‘De Stjil’, Piet continually pushed the boundaries of type. Many experimental works were done with Sans serifs types and different size and shaped lines, but it was his use of photomontage that gave his advertisements and postal stamps a whole new dimension. From 1928 he also worked as a frelance photographer/graphic designer.

In the ten years with the NKT, Piet created 275 designs for them.
In 1933 Piet resigned and concentrated on furniture, industrial and interior design. He was also a teacher and husband. Piet died in 1977.



Bibliography:

www.wikepedia.net

Luminous-lint.com
follow links Piet Zwart photographer
internet biographies and
then to ULAN (Union List of Artists names)

cathy: for the love of design

“Only once in awhile, a great talent appears on the scene, someone who creates original, beautiful, classic, joyful and wonderful things. Marget Larsen was one of those people.” Dick Coyne, CA article, 1988.

Marget Larsen (1922–1984) grew up in and around the Bay area near San Francisco and her love of design and fascination with lettering and typography was the focus of her creative life and has had a remarkable and inspirational effect in the world of design and advertising. It was her heart’s desire to be an artist and her first and lasting influence was that of artist Paul Klee whose work she studied devotedly.


She began her career working at I. Magnin, a San Fran department store, by day and studying at the California School of Fine Arts by night. She did not study long however,which proved a good thing, as she was not constrained by traditional “do’s and don’ts”. Rather, she developed her style by looking at the work of contemporary artists, on the job and studying her revered Klee and she was very soon promoted to art director by Joseph Magnin. Her design and use of colour (with illustrations by Betty Brader Ashley) built an image for the store from brochures to packaging and beyond. A true love affair for design was borne. Larsen’s use of colour in newspaper advertising was considered the most successful and groundbreaking campaign at the time.


Larsen’s first promotional design idea for the store was a series of Christmas boxes that could be used as clocks, building blocks, or musical instruments. They were so unique in concept and beautiful to look at that though expensive to produce became so popular that customers purchased items just to get the gift boxes. 
Marget then went on to design many of the ads for the San Francisco agency Weiner & Gossage. Larsen’s knack for typefaces added finesse to Gossage’s unconventional copy and put the San Francisco ad agency on the national map. The ads it placed in publications like The New Yorker were so effective and its output so prolific that the company was thought to be much larger than it was. In actuality they ran the business from a quaint old fire station in a bohemian part of town. One example of her superb typography and layout was the Parisian Bakery wrapping. It was a landmark innovation to market paper bags so beautifully.


From this early work Marget went on to work over the next couple of decades in a number of design areas and her work is characterized by bold signage, sharp wit, a love of simplicity and a perfectionism in typography layout and typeface choice. She set herself apart by her creatively executed work and her devotion to design in all its aspects and the impact of her work has been felt across the expanse of popular culture.

http://www.artandculture.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ACLive.woa/wa/artist?id=806
http://www.commarts.com/CA/feapion/larsen/
http://www.stepinsidedesign.com/STEPMagazine/Article/28651

EMILY: MAX ERNST

Max Ernst was born in Brühl, Germany, near Cologne. In 1909, he enrolled in the University at Bonn to study philosophy but soon abandoned the courses. He began painting that year. In 1919 Ernst visited Paul Klee and created paintings, block prints and collages, and experimented with mixed media. During World War I he served in the German army and after the war, filled with new ideas, Ernst, Jean Arp and social activist Alfred Grünwald, formed the Cologne, Germany Dada group, but two years later, in 1922, he returned to the artistic community at Montparnasse in Paris.

Constantly experimenting, in 1925 he invented a graphic art technique called frottage, which uses pencil rubbings of objects as a source of images. The next year he collaborated with Joan Miró on designs for Sergei Diaghilev. With Miró's help, Ernst pioneered grattage in which he troweled pigment from his canvases.

In Montparnasse he was a central figure in the birth of Breton's desire to ostracize Ernst's friend Éluard from the surrealist group.Ernst began to sculpt in 1934, and spent time with Alberto Giacometti.Ernst developed a fascination with birds that was prevalent in his work. His alter ego in paintings, which he called Loplop, was a bird. He suggested this alter-ego was an extension of himself stemming from an early confusion of birds and humans. He said his sister was born soon after his bird died. Loplop often appeared in collages of other artists' work, such as Loplop presents André Breton.


Following the onset of World War II, Ernst was detained as an enemy alien in France but with the assistance of the American journalist Varian Fry in Marseille, he managed to escape the country.Ernst arrived in the United States in . Along with other artists and friends (Marcel Duchamp and Marc Chagall) who had fled from the war and lived in New York City, Ernst helped inspire the development of Abstract expressionism.

genevieve: American Anti-Communist Cold War Propaganda: Animation of the 1940s & 50s

The Cold War is a term applied in 1947, just after World War II (Revisionism states that it began before the end of World War II) to the tension between the worlds leading superpowers- Capitalist United States (west) and Communist Soviet Union (east)who were previous wartime allies. During the Second World War and in the following years America saw communism as competition, and used propaganda through communication mediums of literature, posters and radio to extend their message. Television had recently been invented (1935) and wasn’t until post World War II that it was seriously considered as a new medium for visual creativity. As television and film were finding their place in developing worlds, propaganda in the form of attractive colourful animations found a place in this medium as there was an increase in demand for more interesting and exciting content during post world war II, and capitalist America used this fact to their advantage with their predominating ‘us’ and ‘them’ attitude towards communism.
The U.S used Anti-communist animation propaganda in an increasingly globalised world as a tactic to dominate post war politics, encouraging regions to support capitalism. During post wartime their views conflicted on how to rebuild the post war world in terms of politics, ideologies, and military, industrial, scientific and technological advancement, creating many proxy wars, which continued until the early 1990s with the downfall of the Soviet Union. Hand drawn atomic age coloured animated cartoons in the form of advertisements were used to portray this propaganda, which gave them a deceivingly appealing nature to not only adults but children alike. Atomic age colours were brighter than the previously used colours in graphic design of greys, browns and quite subdued colours yet not as bright as what was to come in the sixties, yet still consisted of bright pinks, soft greens, blues tended towards cyan and atomic age era reds tended to oranges or pinks.

URLs: www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=122857
www.motiondesign.wordpress.com/tag/1950/

Reference material: History of Advertising - Animation (1940-1950) - DVD
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War

ILY: em1940'S 1950'S

Paul Rand (1914-) is one of the most influential figures in American graphic design. He explored the formal vocabulary of the European avant garde art movements and developed an unique and distinctly American graphic style which was characterized by simplicity, wit and a rational approach to problem solving.

Educated in New York at Pratt Institute from 1929-1932, Parson's School of Design from 1932-1933 and the Art Student's League from 1933-1934, Rand was a major force in editorial design.. Rand has been influential as a design consultant, as well, developing identity systems for major corporations such as IBM and Westinghouse.
From 1956-1969 and beginning agin in 1974, rand taught design at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Rand was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972.

Although Rand was most famous for the corporate logos he created in the 1950s and 1960s, his early work in page design was the initial source of his reputation. In 1936, Rand was given the job of setting the page layout for an Apparel Arts magazine anniversary issue.[2] “His remarkable talent for transforming mundane photographs into dynamic compositions, which [. . .] gave editorial weight to the page” earned Rand a full-time job, as well as an offer to take over as art director for the Esquire-Coronet magazines. Initially, Rand refused this offer, claiming that he was not yet at the level the job required, but a year later he decided to go ahead with it, taking over responsibility for Esquire’s fashion pages at the young age of twenty-three.

Jaymi: SAUL BASS

The emergence of television and movies began to alter the role of the graphic designer in the 1950’s. One who was most prominent within this field at the time was American designer Saul Bass who designed sequences for movie titles. His designs were innovative using a variety of motion graphic animation.

Controversial at first, Bass' stark, symbolic images were used in both print and animated titles for films. His graphic style is disturbingly off-kilter and is distinct from the conventional, realistic images of the period. The designs relied on visuals, jagged typefaces and basic colors to create mood.

The film The Man with the Golden Arm (1959) was about the struggle of a jazz musician to overcome his heroin addiction. Bass’ title did not feature the famous Frank Sinatra as the symbol but rather he employed an animated black paper cutout of a heroin addict’s arm. As the arm itself was a thought provoking and startling symbol of addiction.

Saul Bass also collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock in 1958 with the title sequence for the film Vertigo. Bass shot an extreme close-up of a woman’s face and then her eye before spinning it into a sinister spiral as a bloody red soaks the screen.

http://www.cinemacom.com/saul-bass.html

CHRIS: movie posters of the 1950's

Movie posters have had a long history as advertisments for motion pictures and for many years were the only way for studios to promote a film. The 1950’s saw a change in what people wanted from the movie experience and a change in the styles and production and distribution of movie posters as well.


After World War II the public craved a different style of movie and the 1950’s presented the chance to explore new movie themes and also saw the the drive in reach the peak of its popularity. Many movies were directed for release at drive in’s - most notably in the B Grade science Fiction, Comedy and Horror genres, the new style of movies the public were looking for.

Movie posters changed as well, new techniques and new styles emerging in poster and graphic production gave the posters a distinctive look and they are in many ways iconic of the 1950’s. Characteristics of the posters include tinted photographs and bold colour images, large distinctive typefaces often created specifically for the movie, illustrations and adapted movie stills.
Science Fiction and Horror Movie posters of the 1950’s have given us memorable images of aliens, ufos and monsters while posters from other movie genres have given us classic images of the movie stars of the time.

www.learnaboutmovieposters.com
www.arch-photo.com

paula :Paul Rand - Graphic Designer 1940-50s

During the 1940s an Amazing man entered the world of Graphic Design. His name was Paul Rand. He came along at a time when the world was looking for something different, after the end of The 2nd world war. He jumped on the opportunity to take Graphic Design in a new direction.


He originally came to prominance for using Colourful symbolism in his designs and moving away from the conventional use of text. He realised that symbols could communicate the message in a creative way. An ordinary message is rendered in an extraordinary way through the power of visual forms & symbols.

He eventually worked with many different graphic medias including Advertising, Book sleeves, childrens book, posters and typefaces, as well as writing his own book called THOUGHTS ON DESIGN with 100 of his own designs and some of the best words yet written on graphic design.


Paul rand is also famous for some of his corporate logos for huge companies such as IBM, WESTINGHOUSE and the ABC.

During these 2 decades Magazines TV and corporate branding became really popular medias giving birth to exciting platforms for colour and design.

references:

http://www.dlsdesign.com/paul_rand/
"http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-242774/graphic-design

Fe: Otto Baumberger 20's

a. Wool and Silk Jacket,1923
b. Lithograph backed on linen

Born May 21 1889, Altstetten, Zurich, Switzerland.
Died Dec 26 1961, Weiningen, Switzerland.

For over 80 year, the Zurich clothing store PKZ commissioned the Swiss and German artists to design their advertisments. In the early years PKZ turned to sophisticated German artists or yound Swiss artists who had studied the art of poster-making in Germany. One of these young Swiss pioneers was Otto Baumberger, who studied in Munich before WW1 and created five masterpieces for PKZ.
In 1923 Otto had completed an object poster masterpiece for PKZ. The poster was a drawing of a life-size coat with wool fibers, silk lining and PKZ label so realistic that most viewers assumed it was a photograph. Aside from the label, the poster had no text.
Photo-Concours was Baumberger’s third classic for PKZ. It announced a photo contest for PKZ, which soliceted photographs of people wearing PKZ clothes and captions of no more than 40 words.
Baumberger’s poster captured the fun of this program, in a sophisticated and playful design that weaves the company’s logo, a camera and a mannequin. The printing for this poster was masterfully executed by J.E. wolfsenberger, considered by many as the finest printer in the world.

http://www.posterconnection.com/history.htm

Jess: DADA

Dada was a collective movement among avant-garde artists who rejected the existing culture of post-World War I Europe on the grounds that it belonged to the same society that had produced the war. This paper discusses Dada typography in relation to typography's role and function in the history of printing, the changes resulting from the industrialization of the printing industry, and the accelerated volume of commercial activity in the nineteenth century. Dada typographic experimentation is contrasted with traditional typography conventions and is compared with the typographic works of the adjacent movements of Futurism and Constructivism. The paper describes and analyzes Dada typography and its application in various publications and art media in the context of the traditional conventions it sought to break and how it broke them. Dada's typographic innovations are discussed in terms of their initial rejection and eventual incorporation by other movements to create the new typography. Twenty-six notes and 11 figures are included, and 15 references are appended.

http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=RecordDetails&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED298580&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=eric_accno&objectId=0900000b8004469d

BranDON: 1940's-1950's graphic design

SAUL BASS
Graphic Designer (1920-1996


Saul Bass was not only one of the great graphic designers of the mid-20th century but the undisputed master of film title design thanks to his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger and Martin Scorsese.

Even before he made his cinematic debut, Bass was a celebrated graphic designer.

One great achievement of his was the creation of the movie title ‘the man with the golden arm’, which is a movie about a drug addict played by alfred hitchcock.
the titles featured an animated black paper-cut-out of a heroin addict’s arm. Knowing that the arm was a powerful image of addiction, Bass had chosen it – rather than Frank Sinatra’s famous face - as the symbol of both the movie’s titles and its promotional poster.



After apprenticeships with Manhattan design firms, Bass worked as a freelance graphic designer

after freelancing, he opened his own studio in 1950 working mostly in advertising until Preminger invited him to design the poster for his 1954 movie, Carmen Jones.

Impressed by the result, Preminger asked Bass to create the film’s title sequence too.

doing work for the movie carmen jones gave Saul oportunities for another two titles, Robert Aldrich’s The Big Knife, and Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch. But it was his project, The Man with the Golden Arm, which established Bass as the doyen of film title design.

URL's:http://www.designmuseum.org/design/saul-bass
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/6/60/Saul_bass_goldenarm.jpg

Kimmy: Anton Stankowski

Anton Stankowski
Born on June 18, 1906, in Gelsenkirchen, Anton Stankowski, after apprenticeship and journeyman years as a decoration and church painter, started to study at the Folkwang School in Essen with Max Burchartz (1927). Besides graphic arts and typography, they had photography classes already. With Burchartz and the Canis Agency, the first visual identities and early ‘functional graphic designs’ were created in these college years
1929 Stankowski moved to Zurich, where he worked at the renowned advertising studio of Max Dalang. This is where he developed ‘constructive graphic art’ with his new photo- and typographic view. His friends in Zurich Richard P.Lohse, Heiri Steiner, Hans Neuburg, as well as Coray, Fischli, Matter, Heiniger, Loewensberg, Bill, and others formed a cultural circle.
During these years Stankowski completed his famous ‘Theory of Design’ in which he worked out fundamental forms of expression1934 he had to leave Switzerland due to the withdrawal of his official work permit and, after staying in Lörrach in 1938, he came to Stuttgart where he worked as a freelance graphic designer. 1940 he joined the forces and became prisoner of war until 1948. After returning, he worked for the ‘Stuttgarter Illustrierte’ as editor, graphic designer and photographer.1951 he established his own graphic design studio on the Killesberg in Stuttgart. With Baumeister, Bense, Cantz, Eiermann, Mia Seeger and others, a new cultural circle developed. He taught in Ulm at the College of Design. His work on the graphic design field for IBM, SEL etc., especially his ‘functional graphic designs’ are exemplary.

http://www.stankowski-stiftung.de/biography.html