Training the eye to see minute detail, being sensitive to colour, shape, form and line. Understanding images as an abstraction, to understand what is happening purely in visual terms. This is the visual literacy that has been harnessed by designers throughout different times in graphic design history. With the first movements beginning in the 1860’s, artist have developed their own compositions using a range of different techniques to present their ideas or message in context to that point in time.
In this blog post, I will be looking at the Psychedelic and Swiss-Modern movements throughout the 20th century. For more information on other movements in graphic design history, check out: http://gdh.2rsolutions.cz/
Psychedelic Movement:
The psychedelic movement, beginning in the 1960’s, embraces a wider spectrum of surrealism, using vibrant colours, vivid contrast and kinetic illusions. The psychedelic movement was influenced by Art Nouveau of the early 1900’s and Pop Art, which took off in the 1950’s, through the use of curvaceous shapes and highly vibrant colours. For more information on how pop art influenced psychedelic, check https://lobopopart.com.br/en/psychedelic-art/
Psychedelic artists attempted to imitate the visuals experienced when taking psychedelic drugs, such as LSD or mushrooms. One artist, Victor Moscoso, has created some of the most recognisable psychedelic designs, including many posters for bands during the 1960’s. One poster which stood out to me, was the one he designed for “The Doors” first show at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, 3rd March 1967, with the supporting bands, “Country Joe & the fish” and “The Sparrow”. The top of the poster states the date and location, followed by the bands that were playing. “Break on through to the other side”, is the name of a song on “The Doors” debut album, which was released in 1967.
Victor Moscoso uses visual literacy through the form of this composition. He uses vibrant colours on opposite ends of the colour wheel, seen through the use if the orange typeface on the blue backing, to create a psychedelic hallucigenic visual.
This text is clustered and overlaps as the size of the text increases from top to bottom, creating a sense of connection. It is also positioned in the centre of the poster with the image alligned underneath it.
The image of the man’s face uses bleeding, as it is cropped out just above his nose, implying he might be hiding something that he has to say or draw attention to his forehead. The orange symbol on his forehead appears to be a nuclear symbol with radation spreading out of it. This perception is created through kinetic sequencing, where the elements are repeated and rotated, creating motion.
The use of contrast and tone of the nuclear symbol and the man’s forehead describe the opposing nature forms. The bright orange on a darker green and blue creates a visual hierachy, causing the viewer to look at the orange elements of this design first.
Swiss-Modernism:
Back track 20 years, designs took a much more simple and legible approach. Swiss-modernism, which was greatly influenced by the constructivism and modernism movements. Unlike the psychedelic movement, this style favours simplicity, legibility and objectivity, emphasising neatness and being easy on the eye. Throughout the 1950’s, this style was led by designers, Josef Muller-Brockmann in Zurich, and Armin Hofmann in Basel.
Josef Muller-Brockmann’s designs were best known for their clean use of typography and simplicity. An example of Mullers most well-known pieces of work, is this Beethoven poster from 1955.
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer during the transition between the classical to romantic eras. He has been widely regarded as the greatest composer of all time due to his ability to translate feelings into music.
Muller uses the form techniques, clustering and alignment, with the text of this poster. Having the word “Beethoven” as the largest text, and with its position above the other bits of text, implies it is the title of this design. The text being quite small and clustered, but still maintaining alignment with the title, creates neatness and is easiness to read.
Furthermore, to create simplicity, Muller only uses black and white (no other colours). The black arcs follow geometric rhythms that directly relate to mathematical systems and structures used in Beethoven’s music (K.E 2013).
“… the proportions of the formal elements and their intermediate spaces are almost always related to certain numerical progressions logically followed out.” – Josef Muller-Brockmann
This quote shows Mullers attention to detail and reasoning behind his accuracy of the arcs in this design. These black arcs appear to be a part of a circle, but it has been cropped to mask the unwanted parts of the image, focusing on the text which is on the inside of these arcs. The use of white space in this design highlights the importance these arcs have, as well as helping create a visual hierarchy towards the title, “beethoven” and text.
Reflection:
Task 1 involved trying to find letter forms in things around. As a walked around the campus, I realised how hard it was to find letters and to change the way you view the environment around you.
So far, I have really enjoyed this task, as it has encourage me to change the way I think and develop my creative thinking. I have only collected aroudn 10 letters but I plan to search for more on the weekend around home and in the city.
Editing the photos have also been a challenge as I am changing the levels, brightness, contrast, hue and saturation.
References:
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. ( n.d )
“Break on Through to the Other Side,” Doors, Sparrow, Country Joe & the Fish, March 3 & 4, Avalon Ballroom – Victor Moscoso, Family Dog.
https://art.famsf.org/victor-moscoso/break-through-other-side-doors-sparrow-country-joe-fish-march-3-4-avalon-ballroom (accessed 19/03/19)
Kłos, A. (2019). Psychedelic style in graphic design – Retroavangarda. [online] Retroavangarda. Available at: https://retroavangarda.com/psychedelic-style-in-graphic-design/ [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].
Lobo. (2018).
Psychedelic Art 60’s | Lobo Pop Art. Lobo Pop Art. https://lobopopart.com.br/en/psychedelic-art/ (accessed 21/03/19)
The Museum of Modern Art. (2019). Victor Moscoso | MoMA. [online] Available at: https://www.moma.org/artists/4117 [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].
Flask, D. (2019). Swiss Design : Design Is History. [online] Designishistory.com. Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/home/swiss/ [Accessed 22 Mar. 2019].
1stWebDesigner. (2019). What is Swiss Style Typography?. [online] Available at: https://1stwebdesigner.com/swiss-style-typography/ [Accessed 22 Mar. 2019].
Smashing Magazine. (2019). Lessons From Swiss Style Graphic Design — Smashing Magazine. [online] Available at: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/lessons-from-swiss-style-graphic-design/ [Accessed 22 Mar. 2019].
Flask, D. (2019). Joseph Müller-Brockmann : Design Is History. [online] Designishistory.com. Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/1940/joseph-mueller-brockmann/ [Accessed 22 Mar. 2019].
Gdh.2rsolutions.cz. (2019). Graphic Design History Timeline. [online] Available at: http://gdh.2rsolutions.cz/ [Accessed 22 Mar. 2019].
Sam Byrne 
I found this quite enjoyable to read. Art history is something I find interesting, and the origin of more modern artworks like the psychedelic is much more relevant to me since I’ve grown up in a world where it is more common. I also thing the cultures associated with psychedelic art, surf culture for example, is interesting, like how different groups adopt different art movements.
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