Typeography
in the 60’s
Movements in the 60s
POP ART
Art Pop was a new form a art that emerged in the mid 1950s and and made it’s way to American in the late 1950s going on to the early 1960s. Pop Art was created to challenge the traditions of fine art and using imagery from popular culture at the time. They would take the imagery from pop culture and put it with another image that would have nothing to do with the first image, this movement was not to replace traditional art itself, but to change the attitude towards it. Pop Art used objects from mass culture from comic books to advertisements and other popular objects at the time. The Pop Art movement was also a time where the ideas were a form of abstract expressionism.
Andy Warhol “Marilyn” 1962
Robert Rauchenberg “Radioactive” 1964 Roy Lichtenstein “Drowning Girl” 1963
Movements in the 60s Psychadelic Art The Psychadelic era started in the 1960s and went on until about mid 1970s. This was a counterculture to protest against the war in Vietnam at the time. The use of pshycadelic drugs were heavily used during this time for it was a symbol of unity. The main focus of this time was to break down boundaries, spreading political awareness, empathy with other social groups, and questioning authority. This movement was influenced by Pop Art and the artwork created in this counterculture were very heavily drug based and included very vibrant colors and innovative typeography. The typeography used was hand written and was always in this warping motion and was difficult to read.
Wes Wilson “Paul Butterfield Poster” 1966
Victor Moscoso “Quicksilver Messenger Service” 1964
Herb Lubalin was a famous typeographer during the 1960’s. In 1964, Lubalin had created his own firm and this gave him the design freedom that he had been striving for. He worked on many wide ranging projects during the 1960s from posters to magazine design to packaging and solving identity problems for companies. It was during this time that Lubalin was becoming very well known, he was very popular when he worked on some magazines that were published by Ralph Ginzburg. These magazines that he had worked at this time were Eros, Fact, and Avant Garde. When he worked on the Eros magazine from 1962 to 1963, he mostly focused the design on the rising sense of sexuality and experimentation, in regard to the flourishing of the Psychadelic Era.
George Lois George Louis was born in 1931 in New York City. He was the son of Greek immigrants that settled in the city. He attended the High School of Music and Art. After high school, he attended the Pratt Institute, but only went to school for a year and left to work for Reba Sochis, but shortly after taking the job, he was drafted into the Korean War. When he returned from the war, he was recruited by Julian Keonig. Together they created an agency called “Papert Keonig Louis” which was the first advertising agency to take in public customers instead of just private companies. In 1967, he left the agency to create his own called “ Lois USA”. In 1968, he got the contract with Baniff International Airways, which he created the famous “WhenYou Got It, Flaunt It” campaign, which when went to the public, there was an 80% increase in buisness with the Lois USA Agency. Lois also created a series of commercials and in one of those has starred the famous Andy Warhol.
“The Opening Blast of my Phallic Wolfshmidt’s Bottle Campaign” 1960
“When You Got It, Flaunt It Campaign” 1968
Sources -“Graphic Design, A New History” Stephen J. Eskilson, 2007, Yale University Press -“Provacative Graphics” Laurel Harper, 2001, Rockport Publishers - “Trademarks of the 60’s & 70’s” Tyler Blik, 1998, Chronicle Books - “Design Literacy, Understanding Graphic Design” Steven Heller, 1999, Allworth Press