Psychedelic Poster Design

During the 1960’s, the United States was going through a period where posters were hung on apartment walls more frequently than posted on the streets. The first wave of hippie poster culture came from Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. These posters were called psychedelic posters because “the media and general public related these posters to antiestablishment values, rock music, and psychedelic drugs” (Meggs 449).  It is clear that this poster movement was aimed towards the younger generation in the United States in the 1960s. The posters also made statements about social views, rather than spreading commercial messages and advertising.

Wes Wilson, also known as Robert Wesley Wilson, claims that he was the first artist to create a psychedelic poster. “Wilson was the innovator of the psychedelic poster style and created many of its stronger images” (Meggs 449).  Wilson was born in Sacramento, California in 1937. He attended San Francisco State University and worked at Contact Printing, when his career as a poster artist began. Wilson was asked to design the posters for the Avalon Ballroom and Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium weekly dance concerts. “Wilson’s early work was unique, but by mid-1967, so many artists had copied his style that he was easily replaced” (Smithsonian American Art Museum 1).

Below, is Wes Wilson’s concert poster form The Association, 1966. “Lettering becomes an image, signifying a cultural and generational shift in values” (Meggs 449).  According to newspapers, these posters read well to younger generations that would attend concerts. Intelligent businessmen were unable to comprehend the lettering, but the younger generations deciphered, rather than read, the message.

Wes Wilson, poster for The Association, 1966

 In the same year, 1966, Wilson created a concert poster for the Grateful Dead, Junior Wells Chicago Blues Band, and the Doors.

Wes Wilson, poster for the Grateful Dead, Junior Wells Chicago Blues Band, and the Doors, 1966

Wilson's approach to poster making was quite improvisatory. “According to the artist, he selected colors through visual experiences with LSD, as well as from his professional experience as a printer”(Smithsonian American Art Museum 1). Although his work was very unique, other artists began to follow the trend in psychedelic posters. Other members of this movement included Kelly/Mouse Studios and Victor Moscoso. Below, is Moscoso’s poster for the Chambers Brothers, 1967. “The vibrant contrasting colors and Vienna Secession lettering inside of the sunglasses implies the drug culture of the period” (Meggs 449).

Victor Moscoso, poster for the Chambers Brothers, 1967

Moscoso was the only major artist of the movement with formal art training. He is also known for his concert poster for the Miller Blues Band, 1967. “The shimmering nude female figure in the center of the poster reflects the uninhibited atmosphere of the 1960s” (Meggs 449).

Victor Moscoso, poster for the Miller Blues Band, 1967

In conclusion, the psychedelic poster movement in the United States in the 1960s clearly was quite different than previous poster design. Wes Wilson can be seen as the innovator of this poster movement, and his unique style seemed to live on through other artists after him. After the poster movement reached its peak in the early 1970s, the poster art seemed to make its way to university campuses throughout America. These posters continued to communicate to younger generations and were ideal since universities sponsor a large number of events.

Works Cited

Meggs, Philip B., and Alston W. Purvis. Meggs' History of Graphic Design. Hoboken: J. Wiley & Sons, 2005. Print.

"Wes Wilson / American Art." Smithsonian American Art Museum. Smithsonian, n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2014. <http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=27389>.

"Wes Wilson - Posters." Wes Wilson. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2014. <http://www.wes-wilson.com/>.

Wassily Kandinsky

The Bauhaus School of Design was a modern design institution that opened on April 12, 1919 in Weimar, Germany. The school was formed when Walter Gropius replaced the former director of the Weimar Arts and Crafts School, Henri van de Velde. Gropius was confirmed as the new director of an institution formed by merging the applied arts – oriented Weimar Arts and Crafts School with a fine arts school, the Weimar Art Academy. Gropius was permitted to name the new school Das Staatliche Bauhaus which translated to the State Home for Building. “Recognizing the common roots of both the fine and applied visual arts, Gropius sought a new unity of art and technology as he enlisted a generation of artists in a struggle to solve problems of visual design created by industrialism” (Meggs 326-327).

The Bauhaus years at Weimar were inspired from expressionism, producing very visionary pieces of art. As I researched, I found a Bauhaus educator who seemed to reflect this style of design. Wassily Kandinsky was born in 1866 in Moscow. As a child, he was inspired by the colors of nature. He studied music, law, economics and ethnography, but eventually he decided to become a painter. At the age of 30, Kandinsky enrolled in the art school in Munich. He wasn’t granted admission immediately, so he began to learn art on his own. He saw an exhibit of paintings by Claude Monet, and he was taken with the impressionistic style of Monet’s “Haystacks.” As I searched to find a Kandinsky painting that was reflective of Monet's painting, I found "Beach Baskets in Holland." I thought that this had a similar look to Haystacks, with the objects being the main focus, with the impressionist style. 

 Claud Monet "Haystacks: Snow Effect" 1891

Wassily Kandinsky "Beach Baskets in Holland" 1904

“During these prentice years his experiments in Impressionism and post-Impressionism only served to intensify his abiding memories of the romantic, mythical Russia of his youth, and his art took on the character of a mystical quest, a longed-for return to a lost ideal” (Wassily Kandinsky and his paintings 1). His paintings began to serve the spiritual values that inspired them.

Kandinsky returned to Germany, he joined the teaching staff of the Bauhaus in 1923. He made a fresh start and began working on a more scientific basis. “Composing in an essentially dynamic key expressive of movement, growth and flux, he worked out a precise, minutely calculated idiom of his own, a formulation of points and lines, combining and contending with each other to create curves, circles and significant geometric figures” (Wassily Kandinsky and his paintings 2).  “Kandinsky’s work began transforming. Individual geometrical elements increasingly entered the foreground, and his palette was sated with cold color harmonies” (Oleg Ku 1).  “Composition VIII” by Kandinsky is a good example of his style of design during the Weimar period. Another painting that he created a few years later was “Small Dream in Red.”

Wassily Kandinsky "Composition VIII" 1923

Wassily Kandinsky "Small Dream in Red" 1925

 After the Bauhaus closed, Kandinsky traveled to Paris around 1934 to 1944. During this time, the last transformation of Kandinsky’s painting design occurred. He moved from using a combination of primary colors to using soft, refined, and subtle colors within his paintings.

At this time the last transformation of his painting system happened. Now Kandinsky did not use a combination of primary colours but worked with soft, refined, subtle nuances of colour. “Simultaneously, it supplemented and complicated the repertoir of forms: on the foreground there appear biomorphic elements, which feel at ease in the space of a picture as if floating all over the surface of a canvas” (Oleg Ku 2). We can see this difference clearly in his painting from 1939, “Complex-Simple.”

Wassily Kandinsky "Complex-Simple" 1939

“There is only one road to follow, that of analysis of the basic elements in order to arrive ultimately at an adequate graphic expression." 

- Wassily Kandinsky

Works Cited

Kandinsky, Wassily. Composition VIII. Digital image. Guggenheim.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2014. <http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/1924>.

Ku, Oleg. "The Biography." Wassilykandinsky.net. N.p., Apr. 2008. Web. 2 Mar. 2014. <http://www.wassilykandinsky.net/>.

Meggs, Philip B., and Alston W. Purvis. Meggs' History of Graphic Design. Hoboken: J. Wiley & Sons, 2005. Print.

"Wassily Kandinsky and His Paintings." Wassily-kandinsky.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. <http://www.wassily-kandinsky.org/index.jsp>.

Pictorial Modernism: The Foundation of Simplicity in Design

Poster designers of the early twentieth century were very aware of the need to maintain a pictorial reference. Their main objective was to communicate with the general public, and “they walked a tightrope between the desire for expressive and symbolic images n the one had and concern for the total visual organization of the picture plane on the other” (Meggs 276). This combination, in my opinion, proved to produce interesting poster designs with a modern look.

A new style of design emerged. Plakatstil poster style emerged in Germany in the early 20^th century. It consisted of reductive, flat colors. Also, they used bold lettering, a simple central image, and distinctive, eye-catching colors.  Plakatstil was “a universal style without direct links to any specific school or artistic movement” (Plakatstil 1). I believe that the Beggarstaffs and Lucian Bernhard can be given much credit as to being part of the foundation of this new style of poster design.

The Beggarstaffs, British painters James Pryde (1866-1941) and William Nicholson (1872-1949) had a brief yet recognizable career during this period of pictorial modernism. They decided to open an advertising design studio in 1984. They created a new technique of moving around cut pieces of paper and pasting them into a position on a board. This technique was later called collage. However, their advertising studio proved unsuccessful, as they only attracted a few clients. Below, is the Beggarstaff’s poster for Kassama corn flour, 1894. This was one of their earliest posters, which firmly established thieir straightforward style. Below this poster is their poster for Harper’s Magazine, 1895. This poster is meant to bring closure to the viewer by combining the pieces and shapes into a symbolic image. 

The Beggarstaffs, poster for Kassama corn flour, 1894

The Beggarstaffs, poster for Harper's Magazine, 1895

Lucian Bernhard (1883-1972) was another artist who added to the simplicity of poster designs during this period. Bernhard entered a poster contest for Priest matches, after his career in poetry was unsuccessful.  He first painted two matches on a round table, and thought that it looked too bare. So he added ladies and a cigar, but thought that it was too much. In a rush, he painted over the excess designs, kept the matches on the poster and painted “Priester” across the top. Berhard’s first attempt at poster design had won the contest. Below, is Bernhard’s poster for Priest matches, c. 1905.  “Color became the means of projecting a powerful message with minimal information” (Meggs 279). Bernhard stuck with the trend when he created his poster for Manoli Cigarets, 1910. He uses a similar layout and design as he did with the Priester poster.

Lucian Bernhard, poster for Priester matches, c. 1905

Lucian Bernhard, poster for Manoli Cigarets, 1910

Little did he know, Bernhard “had moved graphic communications one step further in the simplification and reduction of naturalism into a visual language of shape and design” (Meggs 279).  He emphasized reduction, minimalist form, and simplicity. “Bernhard was a pivotal designer… His work might be considered the logical conclusion of the turn-of-the-century poster movement” (Meggs 280).

Works Cited

Bernhard, Lucian. Poster for Priester Matches. Digital image. Csun.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. <http://www.csun.edu/~pjd77408/DrD/Art461/LecturesAll/Lectures/Lecture06/Plakastil.html>.

Meggs, Philip B., and Alston W. Purvis. Meggs' History of Graphic Design. Hoboken: J. Wiley & Sons, 2005. Print.

"Plakatstil." Csun.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2014

<http://www.csun.edu/~pjd77408/DrD/Art461/LecturesAll/Lectures/Lecture06/Plakastil.html>.

The Beggarstaffs. Poster for Kassama Corn Flour. Digital image. Csun.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. <http://www.csun.edu/~pjd77408/DrD/Art461/LecturesAll/Lectures/Lecture06/Plakastil.html>.

The Beggarstaffs. Poster for Harper’s Magazine. Digital image. Csun.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. <http://www.csun.edu/~pjd77408/DrD/Art461/LecturesAll/Lectures/Lecture06/Plakastil.html>.