Viv Lopez - Post 1


I’ve always been interested in Japanese woodblock printing, so to see Pierre Bonnard’s poster and how he was influenced by it was really intriguing. It’s crazy how something as beautiful like the “Light-Show Pantomimes” poster could be broken into simpler shapes and ideas. I think lithography must have been really convenient! It must have really made reproduction a lot easier. This type of two-dimensional design then, of course, went on to be surpassed by photography and computer technology. Still, it’s amazing to see how designers and artists were able to reproduce their work with such consistency.
Another thing that interest me were the war and propaganda posters of 1914 to 1920. I knew of the Uncle Sam, “I want YOU for the U.S. army” but I didn’t know it was inspired off of a British poster of the same feeling. It was interesting to read about how almost all of war-time posters play on patriotism. It wasn’t something I thought about but it’s something that works. I wanted to see how many posters from that time frame didn’t focus on patriotism. While I found an excellent example playing on patriotism and creating a feeling of guilt for not participating, I didn’t find at least one poster focused on something else. It was an Australian war poster from 1915 that played more on fitness and personal ego than patriotism. However, all of the poster had the same style: hand-drawn, big letters, and they all addressed the reader. I thought that was an interesting element to war-time posters. It’s interesting that those types of posters needed to personally reach out to the reader to try and persuade them to their cause.
A British recruiting poster [poster]. (1916). https://www.historytoday.com/archive/taking-sides-great-war (Jan. 15, 2020).
There is still a place in line for you [poster]. (1915). https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ARTV00076/ (Jan. 15, 2020).

Comments

  1. Allan GuintuJanuary 15, 2020 at 4:02 PM

    I also did not know that the Uncle Sam recruitment poster was inspired by a British recruitment poster. It shows you how graphic design recycles previous works and designers put their own twist or make a design better and much cleaner. If I had to choose which poster side by side is better, I would go with the Uncle Sam poster. To me it is more my aesthetic, others my disagree, and that's why to each's own. The war and propaganda section of the reading was might favorite part of the reading. With further research, I learned that the Nazi party used poster to win the support of the German people with their ideals and dream of world domination. The use beautiful works to gain support, but it reality the posters were promoting hatred.

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  2. HarryKJanuary 20, 2020 at 6:20 PM

    I also thought that the breakdown of how lithography is done was very interesting, as shown in “Light-Show Pantomimes.” It shows the incredible amount of work, time, and effort that went into making mass produced posters and prints. For this reason, I wouldn't say that lithography was "convenient," as you do. There had to be a separate stone or plate for each layer and color of a design. It seems like an incredibly involved and pain-staking process to create the plates for the prints, although once the plates were done, may copies could be made. I now have a deep respect for this process.

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  3. RyceJanuary 21, 2020 at 11:51 AM

    It was definitely news to me as well with the inspiration for the Uncle Sam poster. But I love to marvel at Japanese art and its consistency. The congruency between the actual art, and the culture itself intrigues me. Then you bringing up the fact they were doing this without much technology to help them out, just makes it even more impressive.

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