DEVELOPMENT OF THE POSTER
Article is from the website: http://www.designishistory.com/1850/posters/
The Poster was one of the earliest forms of advertisement and began to develop as a medium for visual communication in the early 19th century. They influenced the development of typography because they were meant to be read from a distance and required larger type to be produced, usually from wood rather than metal. The poster quickly spread around the world and became a staple of the graphic design trade. Many artists as well, such as Henry Toulouse-Latrec and Henry van de Velde, created posters.
They were used to promote various political parties, recruit soldiers, advertise products and spread ideas to the general public. The artists of the international typographic style of design believed that it was the most effective tool for communication and their contributions to the field of design arose from the effort to perfect the poster. Even with the popularity of the internet posters are still being created every single day for all sorts of reasons.
ART NOUVEAU POSTERS - THE INSPIRATION FOR SF CONCERT POSTER ARTISTS
Article from Wikipedia. Art Nouveau posters and graphic arts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau_posters_and_graphic_arts
Art Nouveau posters and graphic arts flourished and became an important vehicle of the style, thanks to the new technologies of color lithography and color printing, which allowed the creation of and distribution of the style to a vast audience in Europe, the United States and beyond. Art was no longer confined to art galleries, but could be seen on walls and illustrated magazines.
The Art Nouveau posters and illustrations almost always feature women, representing glamor, beauty and modernity. Images of men are extremely rare. Posters and illustrations are highly stylized. approaching two dimensions, and frequently are filled with flowers and other vegetal decoration. The major artists who created work in this domain included Aubrey Beardsley in Britain, The Czech Alphonse Mucha and Eugène Grasset, Jules Chéret, Georges de Feure and the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in France, Koloman Moser in Vienna, and Will H. Bradley in the United States.
Art Nouveau poster designers, especially in the earlier years, had to work with the early technology of lithography, which in early versions limited the number of colors they could use. They are also very much influenced by Japanese prints, especially those of Hiroshige, with their flat planes and two dimensions, which were being popularized expositions in Paris during this period.
THE ROCK POSTER - AN OVERVIEW
Article by Dennis King / Dennis King Gallery. https://www.dking-gallery.com/store/history.html
A brief history of rock posters from the 1950s through the present.
THE BIRTH OF THE ROCK POSTER
The earliest rock posters were no different than the big
band and country music posters that came before them.
They were "boxing" style posters, incorporating simple
block lettering with unadorned photographs of the
performers.Although a few early R&B posters added
brightly colored backgrounds and some occasional
background art, the rock poster would remain largely
unchanged from its inception until late 1965.
SAN FRANCISCO ROCK POSTERS
Between 1966 and 1971, over 450 posters
were printed to advertise rock concerts
promoted in San Francisco by Bill Graham
and by The Family Dog alone. (In The Family
Dog series there were 160 numbered posters
(including 16 concerts produced in Denver,
Colorado) and in the Bill Graham Series there
were 289 numbered posters.) These
dance-concerts initially were local events
showcasing local talent but as their popularity
increased, they featured performances by
many of the most famous
rock acts of the time.
These events were more than conventional
concerts. They were social gatherings which
took place in a total environment of music,
dance and light. They were the precursors of
the "happenings" of the 1960's art scene and
they were the epitome of hippie culture.
HOW A PSYCHEDELIC CONCERT POSTER ROCKED THE WORLD
C’mon baby light my flier
Article by: Aaron Skirboll. Smithsonian Magazine. May 2016. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/psychedelic-concert-poster-rocked-world-180958780/
July 16, 1966, the Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco. Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead have just finished their sets, and as patrons shuffle to the exits they’re handed fliers for another concert, The Association and Quicksilver Messenger Service. The lettering on the 14- by 20-inch poster is a bright orange flame, electrifying, disorienting. Later Bill Graham, the Fillmore’s promoter, will head out on his Lambretta motor scooter to plaster the posters around the city, as has been his practice for the last few months.
More and more, though, he notices them disappearing. His advertisements have become coveted works of art.
The psychedelic concert poster, with bubbled, flowing lettering and lava lamp colors, was invented by the man behind that now classic “Flames” [the red and green Fillmore poster that is posted above this section] flier, a local artist named Wes Wilson. Fifty years ago, as San Francisco transformed from a beatnik era of black and white to a hippie decade spiked with color, Wilson’s designs for concerts featuring bands such as Santana, Muddy Waters and even the Beatles became the signature style for America’s fomenting counterculture, as central to our comprehension of that era’s visual landscape as long hair, bell-bottoms and VW buses.
Wilson started working in a San Francisco print shop in 1965. The 28-year-old had little formal training but was inspired by the freedom of Art Nouveau’s sinuous shapes and the block-like lettering of Vienna Secessionist artists like Alfred Roller. “I started to see lettering as a form maker as well as a content of information,” recalls Wilson, who now lives in Missouri’s Western Ozarks. Early in 1966, Wilson made a few posters for Chet Helms, a force behind 1967’s “Summer of Love.” But it was when Wilson hooked up with Graham later that year that his style exploded. “Use all the space and put as much color in there as possible was kind of my feeling,” Wilson says.
It was a radical departure from the functional typography then in wide use, such as the clean, legible Swiss Style familiar on highway signs, which communicates information without passersby having to stop. Concert posters were typically utilitarian, with plain type and maybe a photo of the act. But Wilson’s hit you with the whole freak scene. His wild imagery offered a “slow leak of the information,” says Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. “You really have to stop and stare.” The museum will showcase nine of Wilson’s posters in an exhibition opening this month, “Typeface to Interface,” which covers graphic design from 1950 to the present.
Wilson created his posters at top speed. Graham needed to promote shows, and Wilson needed the paycheck. He created 40 for the Fillmore alone in 1966. Once other San Francisco poster artists—Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, Stanley “Mouse” Miller and Alton Kelley—began working in a similar vein, a 1967 Time magazine article dubbed the style “Nouveau Frisco,” and called Wilson its foremost practitioner. In 1968, Wilson won a National Endowment for the Arts grant for his contributions to American art.
But as the style he pioneered moved from the streets into museums and department stores, Wilson grew discontented by the commercial side of his work. He left the city for life on a farm, but he kept making art.
And his groovy style lives on. Nate Duval, who designs posters with a bold handcrafted aesthetic for bands like Wilco and the Black Keys, is inspired by the art of Wilson and his peers. “It was so loose and expressive yet had a commercial viability,” Duval says. “If you walked past it and it didn’t catch your eyes or make you want to stop and read it, then it wasn’t for you anyway.”
