Chapter 14

Chapter 14 was about poster designs influenced by modern art and both world wars. The Beggarstaffs were the ones who took the first steps toward a simplified poster design with strong colored shapes and silhouettes. Their work wasn't very successful financially, but very artistically attractive. Lucian Bernhard also worked with simple poster designs and became famous with is Priester poster that was just the brand name and two matches on a flat colored background. The works he produced after, went with this same formula. Bernhard also had a typeface designed after the broad sans-serif letters he was using in his posters. World War 1 was the biggest influence in the design of posters at the time. Recruitment and public support were popular messages. The posters designed by the Central Powers were Vienna Secession inspired designs while remaining simple. Their messages were conveyed through shapes and patterns or simple pictographic symbols, which was Julius Klinger's style. They also included the destruction of enemy symbols or flags. The Allies' used literal and illustrative images to get messages across. Public patriotism and the protection of traditional values, the home, and family were important and popular themes. Posters encouraging troop support and help, like blood donations and the Red Cross, were also popular in Allied countries. After the war, technologies and the industrial form was what was important. Poster designs were influenced by the cubist movement and art deco was a new term used to identify the geometric works that evolved. Edward McKnight Kauffer and A.M. Cassandre were the designers who worked to define this new style. Jean Carlu of France was also influential with his simplified cubism designs. I think he is one of the designers that should be remebered from this reading since he had started out as an architect, but lost his right arm in an accident and had to relearn everything with his left hand. That he could design his posters with such a precise communication of the emotions and messages he was trying to get across is phenomonal. Why were the posters on each side of the world war designed so differently?