Olivia White

Peter Barr

ARH246

16 November 2018

Postmodern

Postmodern, a term in graphic design, refers to a period in the early 1960s when

designers began to retaliate against minimalism and orderliness of Swiss typography. It is also

commonly known as “New Wave”. In this assignment students where assigned to choose two

illustrations that were different designs within two different chapters in Cramsie’s book. In

chapter 15, page 235, I chose the illustration 15.23 Anti–war poster designed by Herb Lubalin,

1972. The second illustration I chose was in chapter 17, page 270, 17.10 ‘The Association’

poster designed by Wes Wilson, 1966. Students were aloud to use any medium to combine these

two designs, to create a postmodern pastiche.

First off, my first illustration is 15.23 Anti–war poster designed by Herb Lubalin, 1972.

In this illustration we see a black background with big block text in white and some of the letters

overlap making it look as if the letters are connected. The text on this poster reads “The next war

will determine not what is right but what is left.” On the word left and the period there are bugs

crawling around. Herb Lubalin was born in 1918 and died in 1981. He specialized in creating

designs out of a commanding and active typography. This image was created to carry out the

burden of his cautionary message. He did this by illustrating bugs and insects on the while block

text.
 Secondly, my second illustration was 17.10 ‘The Association’ poster designed by Wes

Wilson, 1966. This poster included a lime green background with a vibrant orange flame text.

The reads, “The association along comes Mary quick silver messenger service grass roots fri.

only fri. sop with camel sat. only sat. July 22-23 Fillmore auditorium.” Wes Wilson was born in

1937 and date of death is unknown. He was one of the pioneers of the psychedelic style. He used

vibrant color combinations and letter forms in the form of flames which allowed easy association

to be made between the flames as well as helped show the level of energy which was created on

the Fillmore dance floor every night. By warping his hand drawn letters into irregular shapes

this helped created a signature feature of psychedelic style. The warping of the letters made them

illegible and difficult to read.

Finally, in the poster I created I used features from both original posters. From Herb

Lubalin poster, Anti-war, I took the black background and the white block text that overlaps.

From Wes Wilson poster, The Association, I took the vibrant orange flame text. For my poster I

decided to use one of Jenny Holzer’s anti-war truisms that was posted on a theater board. The

truism I chose is, “Slipping into madness is good for the sake of comparison.” I chose this truism

because it related to both illustrations that I chose out of Cramsie’s book. First it was an anti-war

saying which is related to Herb Lubalin and second it was posted on a theaters board which

relates to Wes Wilsons poster about the Fillmore. How I combined these two posters was I used

the block text with all the words but madness because I really wanted to emphasize that word.

So, I used the flame text and made it big and bold, so it would stand out among the rest of the

text. I have named my poster ‘Madness.’