the power of posters

8/10/2019 The Power of Posters

1/7


2/7

question the long-held conviction stemming

from the posters origins in advertising that

a poster design should present a simplified

message in an easily graspable graphic form

for immediate consumption. Many posters

now fracture and distort the content or

present the viewer with a playfully complex

field of elements to explore and decipher.

In France, there is a tradition of artful

poster-making and regional arts centres

often employ designers to create highly

Germany and Russia, with strong showings

from Iran, France, Switzerland and even the

US. Most of these posters come from the

cultural sector (theatres, art galleries,

concerts and festivals) or from social

campaigns and causes.

CONCEPTUAL LATITUDE

The poster is the graphic medium that is

closest to art and it is likely to struggle in

any setting where marketing considerations

take priority. To achieve the most striking

graphic imagery, the designer needs to be

free to interpret the material with a high

degree of aesthetic and conceptual latitude.

Prescribed systems of any kind, based on

set typefaces and formats or sponsors logos,

are in the end a lmost invariably restrictive.It would be worrying to be able to

say that we can see dominant trends in

poster design because this would suggest

that posters were becoming formulaic

and predictable. The posters exhibited

at international festivals tend to be

highly divergent in style, and this is the

best indication of vitality and invention.

Nevertheless, many contemporary designers

individualistic poster identities for

their temporary seasons of concerts,

performances and exhibitions. The

design team Helmo Thomas Couderc

and Clment Vauchez has a regular

relationship with Pronomade(s) en Haute-

Garonne, the national centre for the arts

of the street, in the southwest of France.

In , Helmo designed a series of

quirky posters with a circular v iewing

area onto which the studio collaged

different kinds of imagery photographs,

cartoons, pie charts and engravings.

The visual theme in was a

complete change of direction a series of

black-and-white photographs of faces seen

through frameworks formed of spindly

white line drawings of buildings, windingroads, or a stadium. In one of the strangest

images in this charmingly eccentric series,

a tiny, sketched figure is caught at the centre

of a labyrinth over a genial-looking middle-

aged mans winking eye. The handwritten

lettering floats down the poster in a series

of gently rounded black panels.

Beyond the sphere of subsidised civic

culture, there are two areas where the

R BLACK

Mass NonViolent Dire ct Actionwwwrblackorg

Like many effective protest posters R Blacksblocky constructivist design for Occupy hasthe stridency and urgency of a brick lobbedthrough a window November was aninternational day of action organised two monthsaer the first Occupy Wall Street demonstrationThe single protester coming forward from the

massed ranks recalls the Chinese man whoblocked the path of a tank in Tiananmen Squarein This memorable poster is all over theinternet and as with many images of this kind itis far more likely that it was viewed on a laptopor tablet than encountered as a print

PICTURE PERFECT

A U G U S T 2 0 1 3S P E C I A L R E P O R T

WWWCOMPUTERARTSCOUK

52

T H E P O S T E R I S T H E

G R A P H I C M E D I U M T H A T

I S C L O S E S T T O A R T , A N D

I T S L I K E L Y T O S T R U G G L E

I N A N Y S E T T I N G

W H E R E M A R K E T I N G

C O N S I D E R A T I O N S

T A K E P R I O R I T Y

A poster by Frenchdesign team Helmofor Pronomades enHauteGaronne thenational centre forthe arts of the streetin


3/7


4/7

art into their lives and on their walls at

home, states the gallery on its website. Its

an exciting space, dense with vibrant new

images, and well worth a visit.

British poster designers have

responded with initiatives of their own.

Poster Roast and the Brighton Rock Artists

Group are collectives of poster artists

formed to make their creative activities

more visible. The UK Poster Association

aims to support and promote the work of

UK poster artists such as Luke Drozd,

poster is making a comeback and neither

has much to do with the commercial

concerns or marketing agendas of

mainstream design. The first of these is

the rock music gig poster, which is usually

printed in silkscreen for maximum visual

impact. The website GigPosters.com, a

tremendous resource, has alphabetically

organised contributions by hundreds of

poster designers from the US and elsewhere,

and shows how digital platforms can help

to give a new lease of life to a seemingly

moribund form of analogue communication.

The phenomenon is most fully established

in the US where poster designers or artists

either term seems equally valid such as

Art Chantry and Frank Kozik have long

been cult figures.The energy of this movement has

spread to the UK. In July , the Flood

Gallery opened in Greenwich Market in

London, selling posters by American

designers such as Kii Arens, Rob Jones,

Vahalla Studios, and Burlesque of

North America. The posters are special,

collectable yet affordable, and are a gateway

drug for music fans wishing to bring more

Adam Pobiak and Jemma Treweek. Since

November , it has ma intained a

permanent gallery at the Black Heart pub

in Camden. This time around, the poster

is both advertisement and artifact, acting as

a unique artistic interpretation of a bands

music and limited edition merchandise,

says the UKPAs mission statement. Todays

gig poster art has its own superstars, and

artist collectives are springing up all over

the world. The appeal for this new wave of

designer-illustrators, inspired by an earlier

generation of s and s poster

artists, is the creation of tangible, ownable,

non-digital tokens of the musics power:

A gig poster serves as a memento of a fans

experience at a live gig in a way that cannot

be downloaded or shared digitally, it adds.

COLLECTABLE YET AFFORDABLE

The other area where the poster shows

renewed signs of life is in the sphere of

activism and protest, and in the expression

of public concern about a gamut of issues

that includes climate change, Palestine,

child labour, womens rights, exploitation of

migrant workers and nuclear power. The

J U R G E N M A E LFE Y T

KASK Cinema wwwjurgenmaelfeytbe

KASK the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in GhentBelgium runs an independent cinema showingeverything from film classics to experimentalvideo art Jurgen Maelfeyts poster one of a seriesin this style conveys the programmes plenitudeby showing a grabbag of handdrawn motifs fromthe films the weeping woman is Rene Jeanne

Falconei in her famous role in The Passion ofJoan of Arc With just two colours thedesign achieves an impact many fourcolour filmposters lack The jumble of elements managesthe subtle trick of seeming slightly artless andknowingly contemporary at the same time

PICTURE PERFECT


WWWCOMPUTERARTSCOUK

54

T H E A P P E A L F O R T H I S N E W

W A V E O F G I G P O S T E R

D E S I G N E R - I L L U S T R A T O R S

I S T H E C R E A T I O N O F

T A N G I B L E , O W N A B L E , N O N -

D I G I T A L T O K E N S O F T H EM U S I C S P O W E R

Another of HelmosPronomades posterseries featuring ared circle as a motif which is then adaptedinto different sceneson each design


5/7


6/7

execution, as the cause perhaps requires,

and the proceeds go into funding the

charity. Again, this shows how a symbiotic

relationship between networked

communication and local output on paper

can work to give new relevance to a medium

once thought to be pass.

DIGITAL POSTERS PROLIFERATE

It is highly unlikely that the paper poster

is destined for any kind of large-scale

Occupy movement provoked a flood of

posters by designers infuriated by gross

inequalities, the effects of the economic

downturn on ordinary people and the

urgent need for radical reform. R. Black,

already successful as an American rock

poster artist, was a willing convert to the

cause, as he explained: Revolution, like art

and artists, is full of passion; its impulsive

and crazy, it hates to obey the rules and

wants to piss off the status quo. Many of the

Occupy poster designs could be downloaded

from specially set up websites for anyone to

print out and use in demonstrations.

In a similar online development, the

UK-based charity Green Thing, which claims

to have reached more than million people

in countries or territories, has beenrunning a weekly series of posters, Do the

Green Thing, intended to encourage an

environmentally sound lifestyle.

Contributing designers include

the illustration duo Huntley Muir and

Pentagrams Marina Willer, Angus Hyland,

Domenic Lippa and Harry Pearce. Its

possible to buy the inexpensive posters,

which tend to be highly direct in idea and

public revival in Britain. In the London

Underground, for so long one of the posters

last strongholds, digital esca lator panels

now colonise the spaces where framed

posters used to hang. These screens are

often programmed in unison to display

multiple copies of the same moving image

so that an advertiser can monopolise the

entire viewing area. T his is a heavy-handed,

advertising-led approach to communication

and, so far, the DEPs have not offered

opportunities for graphic invention: the

visual aesthetic, like the content, is closer

to TV commercials. In the near future,

poster-like advertising screens of this kind

will no doubt proliferate in public places.

Meanwhile, local authorities take an

increasingly hard line on fly-posting, whichthey see as an unsightly public nuisance

rather than a healthy, alternative form of

visual culture. With communal display space

no longer accessible to many without

breaking the law, the highly designed poster

is becoming a private statement that people

choose to make by displaying them on their

walls like art works. Some critics mourn

the loss of the poster as an urgent message

M A N Y D E S I G N E R S S T I L L

R E C O G N I S E T H E T E S T O F

V I S I O N A N D S K I L L P O S E D

B Y T H E P O S T E R . I T

W O U L D B E A B O D Y B L O W

T O G R A P H I C D E S I G N I F

T H E M E D I U M W E R E

T O D I S A P P E A R

PICTURE PERFECT

PALEFROI

Seal of Quality/Joey Fourr/Papayewwwpalefroinet

Music venues dont get much more indie orexperimental than Knochenbox in Berlin itoccupies a crypt under a chapel Fiingly thenPalefrois design is a gig poster with a differenceMany posters in this burgeoning Americanledgenre borrow from timetested graphic stylesevoking memories of rock musics earlier gloriesPalefroi designers Damien Tran and MarionJdanoff produced a screenprint from an edition

of just with the meandering line splotchycomposition and eccentric digressions of an artprint This is a playfully indirect communicationfrom the subcultural fringes for musicians whocommand a small but intensely loyal following

S P E C I A L R E P O R T

WWWCOMPUTERARTSCOUK

56

Helmos posterseries for a fashion

promotion entitled

Btes de Mode was

based on the idea of

animal instinct versusfashion instinct


7/7

aimed at a mass audience and encountered

by chance in the street.

When did posters become such

wallflowers? asks design writer Alice

Twemlow on the Design Observer website.

The true essence of the poster, she argues,

is the invisible but palpable contract

between a designer, the commissioning

institution, organization or company

that funds a posters distribution, and

the viewing public who engages with it.

Without this contract and reason to exist,

the poster is drained of its full meaning

and social power and becomes only a husk.

That may be so, but many designers

still recognise the test of vision and skill

posed by the poster and many viewers

still love them. It would be a body blowto graphic design if the medium were to

disappear entirely and a sign that the

discipline was severely reduced. One way

or another, the poster must live on.

The new minimalism. In recent years a clean, pared-back approach to graphic design has been cuing through the noise and bringingthe message rather than the medium to the fore. Emily King, design writer, curator and design editor of Frieze magazine, gives a sidewaysglance at what this really means for designers, profiling a selection of leading studios that favour an ultra-minimal style in their work.

Do you encounter the same demand for posters that you experiencedin the past andhowhave things changed?IamusuallyhiredtodesignidentityprogrammesSometimeswithculturalclientsthereisanoutdoorpromotionalcampaignthatemanatesfromtheidentityTherearemanymanypostersonthestreetsofNewYorkTheyareinbusshelterssubwaysonbusesonphonekiosksonflagpolebannersTherearemanymorepostersoutsideinacitythandigitalforms

ofcommunicationTheproblemistheyaremostlyuglysoyouignorethemTheyarebigadsdonebyadagenciesnotgraphicdesignfirmsThingshavechangedverylilehere

How much of a brief is there for each season of Public Theater postersand what is thethinking behind the season?AtthebeginningofeachseasonImeetwithOskarEustacedirectorofThePublicTheatertodeterminethespiritofthecampaignHeusuallyhasaviewabouttheseasonandItrytofindtheappropriatewaytoexpressitItisverycollaborativeIamcurrentlyworkingonmythseasonTheytrustmetopushthemintherightdirectionIamveryluckyinthisrelationshipItrytoreinventeachseasonofpostersabiteveryyearThispastyearwasmoreextremeTheposterswereanextensionofthelobbywhereIhadincisedthetypeintothebuilding

Are you still commied to the printed poster and what is its placein a culture increasingly dominated by digital media?EnvironmentalgraphicshavebecomeamajorpartofmyworkImakelargescaleinterventionssometimesdimensionalsometimeswithdigitalcomponentsSometimestheyarepurelypaintedonbuildingsButtheyareallphysicalthingsthatliveinpublicspacesWhenIcouldntmakepostersonpaperanymoreIstartedmakingthemon

buildingsTheygoaroundcornerslightupandtalktoyouTheyarefairlypermanentandIfindthatmoresatisfyingthansomethingdigitalthatisgoneinaninstantOccasionallysomeoneasksmeforanindividualposterforaneventorcauseTheseareusuallyfreebiesandIstillenjoydesigningthemButIdstarveifItriedtodesignpostersforaliving

Pentagrams Paula Scherdiscusseshow the field has evolved, and why itsabout the love rather than the money

Schers posters in thebox office of The Public

Theater in New York City


WWWCOMPUTERARTSCOUK

58

POSTER EVOLUTION

the power of posters

Documents