The Postmodern Design –The Innovative Style of Poster Design after 1960s (Part 1) - Ai

Posters are the mirrors of our society. They reflect various aspects of our everyday lives. Posters spread the information to our notice. It conveys the information about new products, entertainments or different types of social events. A poster in the street should attract attention, interest or- at the very least- curiosity. This where the main point of the poster lies. It should catch the eye ‘like something unexpected and surprising, as a kind of optical incident’.[1] As an earliest forms of communication, posters have a rich history. Poster-like notices for passing on messages to the pubic were already known in ancient society. After chromolithography (color printing) invented in 1827, poster became the primary method of mass communication in the Europe and America. The effective ways of combing word and image into a sheet of paper eventually made poster became a powerful medium for advertising.

The evolution of poster design style was associated with the major art movements and prevalent graphic design style in Western Country of 20^th century. Contemporary graphic design can be loosely categorized in several major styles and directions: the International Typographic style which was represented by Swiss designer Josef Müller-Brockmann in the Post–World War II Era; The Conceptual Image age of 1970s, the Postmodern Design which began with the a graphic designer in Basel named Wolfgang Weingart ( b. 1941); the Digital Revolution in the 21st century.The significant change of poster design style in 20^th century was between the International Typographic style which extended the order and clarity of the modernist tradition and the Postmodern Design which was represented by Wolfgang Weingart.With the coming of information age and the demands of the international identification, a design movement which has been called the international typographic style emerged by the 1950s. The international typographic style fulfilled the principles of Bauhaus- The aesthetic of the formalism and the functionalism.These trailblazers defined design as a socially useful and important activity. Personal expression and eccentric solutions were rejected, while a more universal and scientific approach to design problem solving was embraced. In this paradigm, the designers define their roles not as artists but as objective conduits for spreading important information between components of society. Achieving clarity and order is the ideal.[2]

The International Typographic Style began to lose its energy in the '70s and early '80s.There was a new cultural waves of Postmodernism emerged in the Western society. The cultural norms filtered through design, politics, and literature. The authority and the standard of modernism traditions was questioned.

The climate of cultural change touched upon every aspect of life. Many believed the emotionless, formal modern aesthetic was no longer prevalent in this pluralistic society. As opposed to modernist tradition the new wave of Postmodern Style appeared first in Switzerland in 1970s. A Swiss graphic designer named Wolfgang Weingart, who taught at the Basel School of Design in 1970s began to question the order, rules of the previous International Typographic Style. He believed the international style had reached its artistic possibilities. A new principle of typographic order and visual properties of images must be established in order to fit for the new climate of cultural change.

Weingart explored the word in a headline and letterspacing, He rejected the rigid and faceless typesetting of the international style. Both photographic and typographic approach of poster design was explored during 1960s. During the mid-1970s Weingart began doing experiments in offset printing and film system. The reproduction camera allowed him to alter images and explored the halftone properties of the film photos. By adding the surrealistic photo collage into purely typographic design Weingart experimented a new visual effect. After the phase of repeating metal type elements, I made a breakthrough at the beginning of the seventies. Inexperienced in the field of photomechanics, I devised my own methods of superimposing and producing transparent films that lithographers would have deemed the result of professional ignorance. [3]

By photographed the overlapping or layering of images and type to film positives Weingart created a combination of massive visual information. Attaching type and textures to images, assembling individual pictorial and typographic elements into a random composition he tried out every possibilities in his creation practice. The halftone photo are preferred for his production. With reproduction camera he could be able to enlarge or shrink the halftone dots. When he overlapped and moved those pictorial images around the composition it gave him the perfect graphic qualities of the moiré pattern. In his approach, He assembles multiple film positives in to a composition. Then he might mask down some area with a accurate registration which he wants to expose to produce on negative. With help of printer and camera Weingart can handily reproduce the negative films. In the example of Kunstkredit exhibition poster. By using overprinting techniques he explored the multiple color combination. By the time of 1972 Weingart did presentations at major design schools in America. His philosophy of graphic design was widespread throughout the country. A brand-new viewpoint of graphic design approaches became a wide utilization in American design industry.

The early pioneers of the international typographic style believed sans-serif typographic approach and clear use of graphic elements represented the progress of the age. The mathematical grids system of design are the most legible and harmonious ways to convey information. Since 1970s The previous design principles of International Typographic Style were rejected by Weingart and other designers who played important role in the new wave of the postmodern style. They expended the visual vocabulary of poster design. The major thrust of postmodern graphic design is a spirit of liberation, a freedom to be intuitive and personal, and to go against the modern design so dominant through much of the twentieth century. [4] Design were not just for important activity or socially meaningful events. Graphic designer finally found a way to express attitude and personal values.

________________________

1.      Müller-Brockmann, Josef, History of the Poster (London ; New York : Phaidon Press, 2004.),18

2.      Meggs, Philip B, Meggs' History of Graphic Design (Hoboken, N.J. : J. Wiley & Sons, c2006), 356

3.      Weingart, Wolfgang, Typography / Wolfgang Weingart (Baden, Switzerland : Lars Müller ; New York, NY : Distribution USA and Canada, Princeton Architectural Press, c2000), 351

4.      Meggs, Philip B, Meggs' History of Graphic Design (Hoboken, N.J. : J. Wiley & Sons, c2006), 486