Posts

Showing posts from September, 2017

Art Nouveau

Image
These images are snap shots taken from home of some drink coasters I have. They have a cork backing and have seen there better days. Once I read the Art Nouveau chapter in Meggs I remembered I owned these drink coasters. These are all from French designer Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and have been significantly used. I have always enjoyed this style and the quality of work. Now I know in what period they were created in. This man only produced 31 posters and drew them directly on lithographic stone from memory.  My long time favorite piece is the poster on the bottom. It is a portion of the whole piece found in the text book. Toulouse's love of cats was often used in his poster designs.
Image
While is was at The Art Coop buying photography supplies I noticed this festival lineup in the front window. This is a local festival that is held here every year that has quite the unknown lineup of artists. This is a promotion poster describing all the bands that are to appear later this month. I feel the quality of work is good, the type is easy to read and the band of colors at the bottom brings your eye to the piece. The type in the header resembles Rockwell but it is not an exact match. The rest of the poster seems again to resemble Arial. This is interesting because when I was thinking about who might have designed this poster, I came to the realization that it could be the same designer that did the other post of mine. Like my previous post this image is again masculine, with a classic vibe. I feel the color adds a slight amount of warmth and that is what really drew me to the image the most.

Absinthe Blind Band Poster

Image
This is a photograph of a band poster I took in a coffee shop. Even though some of the patrons were looking at me funny, I went ahead and snapped the shot. This was a local band from here in Champaign-Urbana in the 1990's. I believe it's function was to advertise the band and the record label they were with at the time. They would call this a flat. I saw this poster at Hammerhead coffee while I was studying for Graphic Design History. The whole coffee shop was full of older band posters or what I call flats. Everything there is very music oriented. This piece caught my eye because of the design of the layout. It has a very 1990's look to it. I enjoy very simple font that is easy to read, even if the type is vertical. The font looks a lot like Arial, it is very narrow. The design is very masculine and on the colder side. Even though it has quite a classic look to it I find it to be trendy as well. Being in a band in the 1990's I really connect to this design.