Thesis

Clement Mok, being a well-rounded graphic designer, is one of the most influential designers of the modern era who has accomplished more throughout his career than any other contemporary designer.

Psychedelic Posters pp 438-440

The "poster mania", or what we like to refer to as the psychedelic period, took off in the 1960s as many factors such as the civil rights movement, women's liberation movement, and protest against the Vietnam war came into play. These posters changed overtime from a commercial message to social viewpoints and began being hung in homes rather than outdoors in the public. As you can see in many of these posters, some characteristics include swirls and curvy lines, intense vibrant color, and imagery that was altered in some way, shape or form. The colors used together were often complimentary colors and rainbows began showing up throughout this time period. Legibility of the type on these posters were often hard to read.

One designer that stood out was Peter Max. Max created a series of posters using soft colors and famous imagery. After looking up other poster designs he had created online, he often uses the "rainbow" colors in his posters. He plays around with reds, oranges, and yellows in much of his work and imagery is simple.

One question I have is what caused this "movement" to die? How did people react to the first psychedelic posters that were created?

Chapter 20-21

The mid 1900s were a time when logos were created that were used for companies as well as universal signage. One of the biggest logos that were created, CBS, was designed by William Golden. Golden really emphasized the fact that design is a verb in the sense that we create designs to communicate to someone else. I think he did a good job at summing up what a graphic designer does. One other important designer was Rand, who created the IBM logo. After learning the long process of what it takes to design a simple logo, you realize how much thought goes into it, even if the outcome is a very simplistic logo. You can see by looking at the ABC, neXT and IP logo, they are very simplistic in nature, but took a lot of thought to get to that step. When it comes to the universal signage created by AIGA, they did a good job at keeping everything simplistic and easy to understand. Logos for the Olympics succeeded in the fact that the audience is able to look at any of those pictures with a person in it and be able to figure out what sport they are doing.

One observation I had during this reading is the fact that the thought process of a logo takes a lot of time. If you look on page 415 at the first aid symbols that were created, you can see how complex some of them were. The creator of these symbols created 20 samples and some of them were too complex. It took a lot of thought, time and energy to be able to create such a simple logo.

I feel as though as things got simpler, the LA Olympics went against everything and made things more complex. They stayed with these basic shapes of triangles and squares that were used on their posters, but the design guide that was created looks very complex. The image that is in the Olympic poster on page 420 is also complex. I am just curious to see why the author of this book would include this in this chapter dealing with logos and simplicity, when in reality, it isn't.


Chapter 21
The Polish posters were brought back to life by a few designers such as Trepkowski and Tomaszewski close to the mid 1900s. Bright colors, shapes and different collage approaches were brought into their pieces. Some of these posters showed symbolism and abstractness of humans and other elements. During the same time period, one Push Pin Graphic began an important tool to developing major artists. These artists used a set of visual techniques and imagery, an open mind, and the ability to integrate words and images to create their designs. Another poster being created at the time was the third-world posters. These posters worked to push their audience to one side of a political party and/or create designs to give to people who feel strongly about international issues.

One observation is that Polish designers created a lot of different abstract forms of art. Looking through the posters and designs in the book, I realized how much they focus on facial features and using abstractness to change a lot of it. Their designs are unique in the fact that they were created to look scary and intense. There are multiply pieces that display human heads but using symbolism to change the appearance.

How many of these designs were computer generated? I know they began to enter the time period where computers were invented and motion graphics were available. When did people begin switching over to computer generated designs?

History of GD Chapter 18 and 19

Chapter 18
The international typographic style emerged out of Switzerland and Germany creating a whole new style of design. This style mainly focused on mathematical grids and organization. The designs began changing from organic flowing posters to more developed, thought out designs. Designs were split into planes and grids to align type and imagery and type began coming alive on the pages. It is interesting to see how people used type throughout this time. They really began experimenting with type and the different trademarks they can create using aspects of type. They really began using type to aid to the picture instead of relying only on an image. When this new typographic style hit America, you can see that more color and abstractness was incorporated.

One artist that really stood out in this reading was Anton Stankowski. He used geometric shapes to create simple advertisements and posters. He really emphasized the simplicity throughout his work and is visible on page 359. Berlin really enjoyed his work and the way he incorporated rectangles and shapes to create visual stimulating designs. It is a huge achievement to be asked to design consistent street signs, architectural signage and publications in Berlin.

I am interested to know what the poster on page 366 (figure 18-31) was used for. It is a photo of a lady with her hands over her ears with text that says "less noise". It was used in the Swiss movement and I feel like this poster says a lot. I would just like to know what it is advertising.




Chapter 19

As modern design began taking over America, you can see how different the American style of design was compared to other countries. One artist in specific that I enjoyed reading about was Paul Rand. He created these posters and designs with great contrast by colors, texture, organic and geometric lines. His artwork was catching to the eye and his use of word play was different. This style of artwork really did a nice job of incorporating text with the design. Text was warped, stretched and made into imagery to give off a strong message. Magazines began expanding throughout America and new designs were created that focused on scale and imagery. The advertisements that was created in the 1960s used type and imagery together to send a clear message. One poster that stands out was from page 390 (figure 19-49) with the small car with small text that says "think small". They began using catchy slogans to grab your attention instead of just saying something like "Economy Car". Slogans really played an important roll in sending a message across and throughout the posters that were created, they succeeded.

I really enjoyed the posters that were created by George Lois. He designed many posters that had amazing imagery on it. On page 398 you can see how clear the imagery is and how simple his message is with it. If he used a simple image, he used even less text. He created a poster with just white text on a black background and worked only with typeface and placement to advertise medications. He did a really nice job using humor in his advertisements.

I am very surprised that the book cover on page 392 (figure 19-55) was created and liked. This style of text and layout dates back to the 19th Century. People in America were moving forward at this time and creating new designs with imagery and playful type and I feel this poster was outdated. So how did this poster make it throughout this time period? It is very interesting to see if grouped with other posters created with interesting typeface and imagery.

Sketches

This is a design for the same California Raisins from the De Stijl movement. I wanted to incorporate geometric lines and boxes but keep it simple. If i were to create this digitally, it would be the basic red, yellow, and blue boxes with the text lining the boxes. The typeface is very simple and not a lot of decoration is incorporated.





This image is representing this logo from The Genesis of 20th Century Design. It mimics "The Four" by incorporating geometric lines and symbolism. It seemed that every design they created had a form of a women in the drawing and the text at the bottom of the design. I wanted to take that style and change it to fit the California Raisin logo. The raisin box today still has a woman on the box and so that is one element that I wanted to keep. The type treatment in this is very organic. The text was not the same throughout the design and seemed to flow throughout.