Final Thoughts

On some levels I found this assignment out of my comfort zone compared with the last. The only thing I have drawn in illustrator would have been a box!. I feel that while a have a vastly better understanding of illustrator I can see that there is so much more to learn. The use of layers and stacking of parts of the image was the biggest revelation to me and once I felt I understood that aspect it made things easier. I enjoy every aspect of the assignment. The research, the exposure to many designers I had never heard of, the thought process for the design and lastly the generation of the poster.

Crit

I enjoyed the crit. I found it very interesting to see the final work of every one in the group. I felt that their citric was very helpful in refining my posters to gain a better finished results. Some of the thing they felt needed to be changed were the toning down some of the colours used on the fonts. Changing the font to a narrower type more in keeping with other works of this designer.  On one other of the poster they felt that it needed a few embellishment to make the image stronger. This included cracks in screen and a kink in the shadow. On reviewing my work I felt that all the changes were for the better. It was good to get input from others in the group this helped to reaffirm and enhance my design decision.

After the style of Tom Eckersley c1947

After the style of Tom Eckersley c1947

After the style of Abram Games c1946

Inspiration from Abram Games

After viewing the work of many graphic designer post 2^nd world war it was this poster by Abram Games that seem to resonate with me. I love the strong angular image of the man face. The way he has used many different gradients to describe its contours. The poster appeals to a different world. The war has ended but the army still need men. You are not being asked to fight for King and Country, but to do a worthwhile job in the services of his majesty. You could be proud and strong like the image of this man in the poster. Though the man is not looking skyward blue sky’s and better days are ahead. We are reminded of the danger of the job in the army as the man is wearing a helmet.

Working through the idea in illustrator.

 

I did not believe I had the skill set to be able to reproduce this image and morph it into a poster to highlight an aspect of social media set out in the brief. But I was determined to try and could not stop until I had made a passable facsimile. I hope you feel that I have achieved something in that direction.

More Designers

Lewitt & Him

In 1933 Jan Lewitt and George Him set up a design partnership in Warsaw. In 1937 the undertook a commission in England. With the outbreak of the war they stayed. They undertook commission for the Ministry of information , Post office and the Ministry of food. After 1954 the went their separate ways Jan Lewitt into fine art and George Him continued to work on his own as a graphic designer. 

References George Him. Jan Lewitt.

Han Schleger

Along with Lewitt and Him England became Han Schleger adopted country becoming naturalised in 1938. Born in Germany to a jewish family in 1898. He began his career designing publicity material and film sets for the film company Hagenbeck. After working in New york return to Berlin to work for the English advertising agency Crawfords as art director. When Hitler came to power he emigrated to England. Well know for his post WW2 corporate identity designing for ICI, the British sugar corporation, Fisons pest control and John Lewis. During the war he designed poster for London Transport, General post office and government propaganda. In 1954 he set up his own consultancy.

References Hans Schleger

                   Hans Schleger 2

Abram Games

Born Abraham Gamse in Whitechaple London in 1914. His father was a latvian photographer and his mother Sarah a seamstress was born on the boarder of Russia and Poland.When Abram was 12 his father anglicised the family name changing it from Gamse to Games. He left school at the age of 16 and went to St.Martins School of art. Disillusioned by the teaching he left after 2 terms. In 1935 won a poster competition for London City Council. He work between 1936 -40 as a freelance poster artist. From 1942 work as official war artist designing 100 or so posters. His clients included ,Shell,Financial Times Guinness, British airways, ElAl United Nations. He work for over six decades, dyeing in 1996, his work is essentially a record of era social history.

I have also included a more links to two videos.
The first is a short extract talking about Abram work.

The second is  video using Abram images.

 Reference Abram Games

Tom Eckersley

 I look at many different designer from that period The first Is Tom Eckersley. He was born in Manchester in 1914 and had a long and distinguished career in graphic design. He design his first poster in 1935 and continued until 1995. He made an important contribution to design education, teaching at the London College of Printing from 1954.

Tom Eckersley

Running left to right, World Wildlife Fund concert at the Barbican London 1986. Keep Britain tidy campaign 1963. The kings troop, The royal artillery Museum 1977. Lost property for Transport for London 1945.

 

The poster above is from a campaign for the Royal Society for the prevention of accidents c1947. This highlights some of the design elements that I like in Tom Eckersley design. There are only a few elements to the poster, The simple representation hammer and nails. The shelf they are sitting on. The Man and his shadow, the shadow could also be a representation of a man fallen over, hit by the hammer. The stylised shadow of the shelf pointing at the man. The perspective giving you a feeling of height.  Lastly the text “ Stow tools safely” and “Watch out for the man below”. With the Man below in brown to accent the massage. The simple and effective text can be read as individual messages and you would still get the clear understanding of the poster.

Mood Board

After doing some research I settled on the period just as the war ended to the mid 1950's. I made a mood board which contained some aspect of life at that time. Money, train tickets, examples of chocolate rappers.  A selection of art works and posters. Petrol coupons and ration books, rationing did not end until 1954.

First ideas

I started to think about the word "Facebook" and drew the first things that came into my head. A face cut out of a book.

 I thought about a face made up of book in the back of my mind the room made by Salvador Dali of Mae West.

My next thought was of many faces coming out of the pages of a book and lastly mug shot as a foldout leaflet.

I returned to my first idea and turn the idea round having the pages at the back of the head.

Poster analysis.

 

Use spades not ships by Abram Games (1914-1996). The poster, designed in 1945, to promote home grown food rather than imported food, brought to England by ships. The shape of the spade has a dual use. The right-hand side is a ship with waves following the line of the horizon. The left-hand side is a spade with the land in contrast to the sea and plough farrows running vertical in the poster. The shaft of the spade is wooden and on the ship side the funnel of the ship is in shadow, giving a hint that smoke is coming out of it. In the centre of the ship/spade is written use spades not ships. Spades written on the spade side and Ships on the ship side to reinforce the image of ship and spade. Written at the base of the poster is written “Grow your own food” and in smaller text “and supply your own cookhouse”. “Your Own” is highlighted in yellow to emphasise the words and smaller underneath to reinforce the massage of the poster.

This poster was created by Tadeusz Trepkowski (1914-1954) in 1952 two years before his death at the age of 40. During the 1950's the threat of international conflict inspired many to promote peace. The poster evokes memoires of the destruction brought on poland, Tadeusz, native country during the second world war. The bombing was so great in Warsaw that only one in four buildings remained standing. The background of the poster is blue, giving you a feeling of sky. The Bomb has been place in the top of the picture. This gives the impression that it is falling into the bottom of the picture, and at the same time the sense of movement compels you to move your eye to read the text. The Bomb has a dual role in the poster not only is it a Bomb, it also acts like a window showing us the destruction it is about to cause. The buildings and the sky inside the Bomb are predominantly red, reinforcing the sense of death and destruction. As your eye follow the trajectory of the bomb, we see the word NIE!, and it's a word that seems to shout out from the poster: NO!

Sources:- The Museum of Modern Art New york.

Wikipedia.

History

The Times 1805 51cm x 38 cm

As I have indicated in a previously with the development of printing technology hand in hand came the development of posters. What is a poster? The Oxford English mini dictionary defines a poster as “a large sheet of paper announcing or advertising something, for display in a public place” and if we see examples of posters from the early 1800's they are simple text, small in size and still printed using moveable metal type. 

 International Exhibition of Antwerp 1885 typo-Lithograph 225cm x 120cm

Later we start to see the influence of lithographic printing.  Images now combined with text and an increase in size. The poster above is over 2 meters by 1. Posters by their very nature are designed to be seen at a distance.

Renine de joie par victor (1892) by Henri de Toulouse -Lautrec, poster to publicise a novel.

In the beginning poster were usually thrown away after they had achieved there intended objective. Some early posters have survived to give us some insight into the societies they represent. Towards the late 1800's in England and France poster began to be valued as collectable works of art.

L'Aureole du midi (1893) by Jules Cheret  advertisement for lamp oil.

Looking at an advertisement from the late 1800's we can see that design and content have become important. The poster has been created to a specific brief and is now developing it's own language to get its message across.

1                                        2                                       3

 At the start of the 1900’s the language of design was utilised in the propaganda created in many nations during the First World War. Each country employed imagery and text that would appeal and generate a reaction in their own countries.  1. Keep the bloody boots off the USA and buy war bonds to help the war effort. 2. The Red army needs your money with Freedom loan. 3. British propaganda to encourage men to leave their families and go to war.

Printing

The Altamira Cave painting in northern Spain. Paintings from the Lost Tomb of Nebamun

 

The visual image has always been important in the communication history of man. From the cave paintings of the early man to the wall decoration of the tombs of the Pharaohs. With the advent of moveable metal type (Johannes Gutenberg 1440), for the first time mass production of books was possible. The draw back of the movable metal type was that it required a heavy weight to press the paper into the inked type. Although it was good for type it was not so good for images,  because of the size of the press it limited the size of the paper to be printed on.

Gutenberg press and metal type.

It was not until the discovery of the lithographic printing process (Aloys Senefelder 1794), and his drive was to come up with a process that was cheaper than early types of printing. Larger than book sized prints and images were able to be printed.

  Lithography press for printing maps and Lithography stone and mirror-image print of a map of Munich

The litho process exploits the fact water and oil repels each other. Originally an image is drawn into a coating of wax or an oily substance applied to a lithographic stone usually limestone and this is the medium that transfers the ink to blank sheet of paper, producing a printed page. This process allowed for multi pass printing and the advent of colour printing.