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Revival Art // What it is

Revival art is an alternative to classical Modernism and is created as vintage graphic approaches that prefigured Post-Modernism in the mid-1950s. As it was once being considered as obsolete, it was removed from a popular culture, primitive painting.

Until fresh sources of inspiration such as Victoriana, Art Nouveau and Art Deco graphic motifs were discovered, paints, images as well as typography were combined together as a total design.

Since Revival Arts are not really suitable for multinational business communications, they are usually used for editorial and book designs, record albums, cultural posters, and packaging.

Labels: Revival

Revival Art // Significant figures

Milton Glaser

Have you ever seen this logo before?

I bet you do!

Guess what?

This famous I love New York logo is designed by Milton Glaser.

He is the president of Push Pin studios, and here's his piece of Revival Art:

Holiday.

Otto Storch

Here's another example of Revival Art by Otto Storch in 1961:

Rings on her fingers.

Otto Storch is known as a magazine art director and advertising photographer who introduced an expressive typographic style to woman's magazine as part of a revolution in editorial design.

In addition, she is also one of the handful graphic designers who helped to transform and modernize the visual content of American magazine.

She also helped in reviving late 19th-century Victorian wood typefaces which had been passed for decades, by adding graphic impact and contrast to the printed page.

Paul Brooks Davis

Paul Davis is an American graphic artist who developed a distinct visual persona which, owing to an unique confluence of primitive and folk arts that brought a fresh new American look to illustration.

Look at one of his illustrations for a particular book jacket:

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall.

A little add-on to his profile,

Davis has worked at Push Pin Studios which focus on revivals of Art Nouveau and Art Deco which are the inspirations for Revival Art.

Labels: Revival

Revival Art // More examples (1973)

David Lance Goines, 1973

He designs his work by both letterpress and photo offset lithography.

Chez Panisse.

Seymour Chwast, 1973

The sensational Houdini poster.

Barry Zaid, 1973

He contributed covers to magazines like Vogue.

The following are drawings published in The Push Pin Graphic:

Mata Hari

Labels: Revival

Eclectism // What it is

In the 1960s, a design consciousness had become ingrained in every commerce-oriented, industrial society. With the proliferation of design schools, greater access to phototechonologies and a big store of graphic design approaches to choose form, no one style dominated. As such, this is the essence of electism - a mix with no particular calling or style.

In short : this means, due to the ever increasing amount of resources and exposure, no one style or trend dominated at that point of time. Thus, the term eclecticism was coined for this period of graphic design produced.

Eclecticism is a kind of mixed style in the fine arts: "the borrowing of a variety of styles from different sources and combining them" (Hume 1998, 5).

Significantly, eclecticism hardly ever constituted a specific style in art: it is characterized by the fact that it was not a particular style.

In general, the term describes the combination in a single work of a variety of influences — mainly of elements from different historical styles in architecture, painting, and the graphic and decorative arts.

For the more easily satisfied : it is basically a mash-up of whatever graphic styles were popular before.

An exmaple of eclectic art is by Herb Lubalin. Avant Garde. Magazine cover, January 1968.

Labels: Eclectic

Eclectism // Significant figures

Henry Wolf

the graphic designer and photographer who, as art director of Esquire, Harper's Bazaar and Show magazines in the 1950's and 60's, held sway over American periodical design

In 1961 he became art director of a progressive new arts magazine, Show, where his covers were noteworthy for their pictorial wit and elegance.

Cover from Show magazine by Henry Wolf, February 1963

Bazaar's cover.

You can see that it still holds some similarities with the current issues of Bazaar in circulation.

Labels: Eclectic

Polish // What it is

How did polish posters come about?

Contemporary Polish posters arose after WW2 as a spirited attempt to rebuild the war-torn nation.

These posters are used as a form of communication because no televisions and only a few radios and

newspapers were available. The Polish then instituted a state-supported agency to commission and

publish these posters, which mostly announced cultural events, with only a few of them being political

and educational. Film posters is the first fertile ground in which Polish style flowered.

How did they come up with film posters?

The artists capture the film's essence through visual metaphor as scenes from the films are rarely shown.

Cultural posters then became a significant outlet for individual artistic expression, as artists aim to

establish their own styles and identities.

What made polish posters unique?

Even when it's world view is developed fro western styles like Art Nouveau, Surrealism and Pop art,

Polish posters, which are considered as advertising art, it is something that was not seen in the Western

Commerce, which made the 1950s - 1970s the golden age of Polish Posters. Another unique point about

these posters is the fact that these artists used painting, photography and hand-lettering in combinations

that were never known and often disapproved of. Their expression for design contributed to a creative

malaise in the late 70s. In the early 80s however, the need for exciting visual communications was

reestablished.

Labels: Polish

Polish // Significant figures

Roman Cieslewicz

1981

Liberte Wolnosc, a political poster

Roman Cieslewicz was a graphic artist and photographer. He was also the art director for "Vogue" and "Elle".

Andrzej Pagowski & Krystyna Hofmann

1982

Wojna Swiatow (The war of the Worlds) film poster

Franciszek Starowieyski

1983

Oni (They), theatre poster

Breda, Poster

Franciszek Starwieyski was a leading stylist in Polish Art. His artworks were exquisitely ornamental and he uses unique metaphors in his works. Throughout his career, his style was deviated from the socialist realism that was prevalent during the start of this career and the popular, brightly coloured Cyrk posters.

Mieczysław Górowsk

Krzysztofa Dydo (Collection of Christopher Dydo) Poster

Mieczysław Górowsk started designing posters in 1966 and his oeuvre now numbers over 400 posters

Jan Lenica

1984

Lebensbilder Zeitbilder, poster for Postermuseum in Germany

Jan Lenica artworks combines the surreal with the real. He employs dramatic color contrasts and a flowing linear technique to produce powerful, haunting images.

Andrzej Czeczot

1985

Szewcy (shoemaker) poster for a play by Witkacy

Edward Dwurnik

Teatr Narodowy (National Theater), poster

Leszek Drzewinski

Punkty za Pochodzenie (Point of Origin), Antiwar poster

Labels: Polish

Psychedelic // What it is

History
Born in San Francisco, psychedelic art was mainly a reflection of the 1960s American Youth culture. Best described by Otto Wagner’s famous term gesamtkunstwerk (meaning the total work of art), psychedelic art connotes the return of the hippie movement.

Psychedelia got pretty mainstream after it was being used by trendsetters in the merchandising business. It was used in newspapers, posters, clothing, jewelry, furniture and auto mobiles. It got so famous, it spreaded throughout America and eventually Europe.

Early psychedelia were literary rather than visual. The latter being quite surrealist-inspired.

What is Psychedelic art?

The word psychedelic simply means mind manifesting.

It is a prolific and colurful art form that depicts images mainly influenced by the hallucinogenic effects of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, Mescaline and Psilocybin (Magic mushroom).

Features of Psychedelic art:

Fantastic, metaphysical and surrealistic subject matter
Kaleidoscopic, fractal or dizzy patterns
Bright and highly contrasting colours
Morphing of objects
Phosphenes, spirals, concentric circles
Repetition of motifs
Innovative typography and hand-lettering
Warping and transposition of positive and negative spaces

Labels: Psychedelic

Psychedelic // Significant figures

John Van Hamersveld

Known for his works with the music industry, Hamersveld has left his mark in the industry and is highly influential as a psychedelic artist. Here are some of his more famous works:

Jimi Hendrix concert poster

Cream concert poster

Kiss' Hotter Than Hell album cover

Other famous psychedelic artists:

Barney Bubbles

Gilbert Shelton

Warren Dayton

Labels: Psychedelic

Psychedelic // More examples

Labels: Psychedelic

Japonism // Introduction

Japonism refers to the influence of the art of Japan. It was influenced by the European avant-garde, a concurrent Modernist movement began in Tokyo around 1910.

After nearly 20 years, Japonism made a comeback and shifted the influence to America.

It became even more apparent at the Osaka World Exposition at 1970 where lots of foreign visitors got the Japanese designers to reexamine their cultural roots and to apply to their architecture, arts & crafts, and graphic design.

It is a style that took on Western images from Pop Art, comic strips and television, and emerged them with high-tech Japanese society.

Japanese graphic styles is recognisable not only by its typography or the occasional japanese visual reference. It also employs the full range of photographic and computer communication-arts tools to transform a two-dimensional surface of a poster. 3D surfaces may produce either elegant harmonies or discordant colours, random shapes and explosive images.

Labels: Japanese

Japonism // Significant figures

Shigeo Fukuda

Poster for an exhibition of the designer’s work , 1984

Poster for a private exhibition , 1986

One-man exhibition , 1986

Shigeo Fukuda was a sculptor, graphic artist and poster designer who created optical illusions. His art pieces usually portray deception. The first Japanese designer to be inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, his work is recognizable for its simplicity and use of visual illusions.

Noh. Performance poster

Asian Performing Arts Institute, UCLA, Theater poster

Ikko Tanaka was a well-known Japanese graphic designer. The characteristic of his designs is a mixture of Japanese traditions with western modernism to produce contemporary visual expression. He rose to prominence in the graphics industry in Japan with designs that synthesized Japanese pictorial traditions with popular Western styles of typography and layout. His work symbolised the energy of Japanese graphics communications. He designed posters, corporate logos, book and magazine layouts and exhibition displays, for example the Japanese Government’s History Pavilion displays at Expo ’70, Osaka, and the Oceanic Cultural Museum displays at Ocean Expo ’75, Okinawa. He was also known for his crisp, abstract imagery, meticulous sense of colour and elimination of all inconsequential detail.

Tadanori Yokoo

The Wonders of Life on Earth, poster, 1965

John Silver, Theater poster, 1967

Science Fiction Movies, Film festival poster, 1975

Born 27 June 1936, he is a Japanese graphic designer, illustrator, printmaker and painter who has retired in 1981. He is one of Japan's most successful and recognized designer who was influenced by film maker Akira Kurosawa and writer Yukio Mishima. His complex and multi-layered imagery is entirely original. By the late 60s he had already achieved international recognition for his work and was included in the 1968 "Word & Image" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He took up painting after he retired and his career continues to this day with numerous exhibitions of his paintings every year.

Labels: Japanese