poster art - research

SAUL BASS 1920-1996

Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and filmmaker, best recognised for his designs of motion-picture title sequences and film posters. Bass adopted a very distinguishable minimal style. Bass was heavily influenced by the Bauhaus movement of the early 20th century, which was prominent throughout his education years. He loved the abstract, minimal aspect of it along with it's often very simple yet bold colour palettes and high contrast. It is evident that there's this influence in his work. Contrast plays a big part in Bass' designs, usually featuring a silhouetted form or text set against a warm tonal ground. He is more interested in producing imagery over type as he stated that text would often distract from it, hence the clever use of negative space in his works.

   

    

     

A.M.CASSANDRE 1901-1968

A.M.Cassandre, real name Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, was a french painter, commercial poster-artist and typeface designer who worked throughout the early and mid 20th century. He is one of the greatest poster-artists to ever live and he pioneered the art. There is a clear influence from the Art Deco period which he was working in. The elegant lines, blocky shapes and bold, capitalised, condensed text are what give that iconic period look to them. To create these stylistic posters, he used a combination of airbrushing and stencils. Cassandre liked to use diagonals in order to create dramatic perspectives in his work, often exaggerating the size of things to add more grandeur. 

   

    

    

Mouse & kelley 1960's-

Mouse and Kelley, more formally known as Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley were a duo of artists, most recognisable for their psychedelic posters of the 1960's and 1970's, particularly their concert posters for the band 'The Grateful Dead'. The pair took heavy influence from the Art Nouveau movement, most notably Alphonse Mucha and Edmund Joseph Sullivan. They often stole artworks from others and reworked them into their own designs. Their work usually features a multitude of vibrant colours and intricate designs which I think personally is too much, particularly when there's type involved too, it becomes hard to read and at times difficult to even distinguish the imagery.