This is a book all about inspiration, encouragement, enthusiasm, genius, initiative, insight and vision. It explores my taste, or perhaps lack of taste in graphic design as well as my interests in politics, film science, nature, engineering and space exploration.
2
Barnbrook. Early Interest. War Comics. Colors. Private Eye. Signs. Horror Posters. DPRK Posters. Propaganda. Graphic Dissent. Earth. Infographics. My Room. Microbiology. Alternative Posters. Science Fiction. Space Exploration. Record Sleeves.
4 10 24 28 34 36 52 66 84 96 118 128 148 154 158 166 186 208
Protest poster by Barnbrook. The phrase works in protest and as a philosophy. This is the poster which got me interested in Graphic Design.
BOMB AN IDEA
4
Friendly Fire Art by Barnbrook. Mixing politics and artwork.
KIM JONGIL AS MICKEY MOUSE
6
Infidel by Barnbrook. Part of the Barnbrook Bible which introduced me to typography.
INFIDEL
8
Criticising books about Hitler by Noma Bar. Cool use of negative space and some minor hypocrisy.
HITLER AS A COMMODITY
10
Illustration by Micah Lidberg. Type and illustration.
DON’T FORGET
12
Poster by Nous Vous. Use of photographed paper printed on other paper.
MAN ALIVE!
14
By Sagmeister. Purely for the idea. I have temptation to steal this idea everyday.
SELF INDULGENT DESIGN BOOK
16
Somewhere in Malaysia. Good vibes and clear message.
THIS ENERGISER AD.
18
Illustration by Stanley Lau. Detail in simplicity.
PEPPER ABSTRACT.
20
Work showcase of his. He approaches his work with humility, which is a quality I admire.
ART SPIEGELMAN
22
Japanese Plane Shooting up a British ship. I’m interested in both style and subject.
SOME OLD WAR COMICS
24
Officer aiming a pistol. Small range of colours and fantastic paintwork.
SOME OLD WAR COMICS PART 2
26
Colours Magazine for its cover and contents.
COLORS MAGAZINE
28
Going to Market for its cover and illustrations.
COLORS MAGAZINE PART 2
30
Apocalypse, for its topic and layout.
COLORS MAGAZINE PART 3
32
Approach to the modern world and fine journalism.
PRIVATE EYE
34
Its an unusual sign, right? Signs make sense of the things around us...
CAMEL SIGN
36
...They can tell a story about a time and a place as well as communicating their purpose.
CAMEL SIGN
38
The rules they follow cross boarders. Their subjects do not.
NO GUNS SIGN
40
They are a true universal language.
WORK MEN SIGN
42
Interchangeable subject. Same visual language.
NUDE BEACH SIGN
44
Our interaction with other alphabets is most frequent when we read signage.
ELDERLY SIGN
46
Found in Cologne airport. More approachable icons than most.
TOURISM PICTOGRAM
48
Illustrating complex actions that transcend language barriers.
AT THE CAR WASH
50
Cut back on colours. Use of representation.
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
52
Today its called the Multiply effect in ACS. This is an insanely detailed painting.
PEEPING TOM
54
An early use of negative space with some heavy colours that I would be afraid to combine myself.
PSYCHO
56
Early use of a branded film ‘logo’ used in advertising. Nicely cut with the line the characters arm makes.
THE EVIL DEAD
58
Poster with style that was decades ahead of its time. Looks like a modern alt-poster.
HEKSEN
60
Again looking like a modern alt-movie poster. Probably inspired Noma Bar.
AMERICAN WEREWOLF
62
Illustrating concepts of the film in one expression. A lesson in simplicity.
WHITE ZOMBIE
64
Low budget= effective design.
DPRK CONSTRUCTION
66
Looming titans of technology. These posters also have great typographic style that can’t be reproduced with a Latin alphabet.
DPRK WIN 95
68
DPRK posters combine pacificasian culture with soviet style...
DPRK STEEL
70
... This creates entirely unique designs...
DPRK WAR
72
... and a small peak into a culture we will never fully understand...
DPRK DEFENCE
74
... as well as the delusions of its leaders and their subjects.
DPRK A GLOBAL INDUSTRY
76
Saying this the style is undeniably cool. The use of solid black shading for example.
DPRK CHARGE
78
Great illustrations that are the result of low print budget and antique machinery.
DPRK MAN FIGHT
80
NK posters would be great if they weren’t all about destroying the west.
DPRK LAUNCH
82
Chinese posters have very subtle style differences. This would make a beautiful screen print.
CHINA AND MAO
84
The type used in the title is full of anger in every stroke. Great Illustration too.
CHINA BEATS WEST
86
Spanish FAI poster that probably went on to inspire the Germans. Heavy shading and pose makes this a classic.
SPANISH AL FRONT
88
An absolutely mental poster, the likes of which are totally unique. Yet its strong constructivist layout makes it work somehow.
LENIN OFF
90
Very interesting use of negative space to turn the face of Lenin into a big red flag.
MAN FLAG
92
Cuban poster celebrating the Vietnamese victory. A vector illustration before vector illustration.
CUBA AND ‘NAM
94
Istvan Orosz’s poster waving goodbye to communism. Use of line shading.
COMRADES ITS OVER
96
Peter Pocs. 301; name of an unmarked mass grave of the Hungarian revolution.
301
98
Bush has a passion for oil. Magdelena Young Creatives Festival. Based on the Got Milk? ad campaign.
GOT OIL?
100
Play on the Hiroshima bombing. French Anti-nuclear war poster. Designed by Yossi Lemel.
ANOTHER HIRO
102
These were posted alongside Apples iPod ads to draw attention to how people were ignoring the war. Designed by Copper Greene.
IRAQ BY APPLE
104
Commentary on the cultural invasion of large American companies. Multiforo Alicia.
COKE INVASION
106
Chaz MaviyaneDavies points out some irony in the American war machine.
BOMBER 108
Two separate posters. In one the US has grown to a huge size. In the other human death is the price of oil at the consumer end.
BLOOD FOR OIL
110
Thomas Porostocky’s opposition to the two party system in US politics. Wishing for some variation.
BLOOD FOR OIL
112
John Yates comments on the close relationship between Christian fundamentalism and violence.
BIBLE BELT
114
G.Dan Covert attacks the tobacco industry for profiting from illness and death.
PAY TO DIE
116
The Tokyo Skytree. Tallest TV tower in the world totally dominating it’s surroundings.
SKY TREE
118
Photo from Libya. An ocean of sand in every direction.
DUNES
120
Tokyo spreads as far as the eye can see. An ocean of Human achievement in engineering.
METROP- 122 OLIS
Ancient volcanic rock in the Libyan desert. A truly martian landscape.
ORIGINS
124
The first photographs of Earth from space lead to the first era where Humans began taking the planets health and survival seriously.
SPACE
126
Information graphic depicting the number of people per square mile in various cities... in the shape of the cities themselves.
CITIES AND SPACE
128
What every country leads the world in. The UK leads in Fascist movements, which seems unreasonable.
WORLD LEADER
130
Graph-map of the US, with data represented by a range of shapes and colours for each state.
THIS MAP OF THE US
132
What I hope is a joke about the use of common typefaces in logo design.
CHOOSE A TYPE
134
Design which combines interesting information and human achievement.
THE DEEP OCEAN
136
Interesting for the information. Also a good choice of colour marking which is very clear, using black instead of red as the lowest value.
PRESS FREEDOM
138
A very simple graph with a huge amount of information. Human culture distilled into percentages.
100 PEOPLE
140
The most contested edits on wikipedia by country. Again holds almost too much information for its size.
WIKI WAR
142
A graph of Armstrongs insane heart rate during the Apollo 11 Moon mission.
HEART RATES
144
Information Graphic about each mission to Mars, how far it got and what it set out to do.
MARS 146 MISSION
It tells a story of a guy getting ready to party, looks great and is a top quality print job.
NO BONES
148
A poster by McBess for Don’t Panic. Shows several interesting ways to deal with tonal values when working in a single colour.
DON’T PANIC
150
OWT screen print from their exhibition and print pack. Three layers randomly picked to create a series of unique colour prints.
OWT
152
Part of our bodies defence system attacking a virus on a micro biological scale.
MICRO
154
An attack on some blood cells. These photos show how we understand nature at a level unimaginable to our ancestors.
BAD BLOOD
156
Not only a great film, it has inspired a huge number of alternative posters. Use of negative space and illustration.
APOCALYPSE NOW
158
Great illustration as well as the use of a spaghetti intersection as a background.
DRIVE
160
Alternative poster by Olly Moss. The use of several layers of negative space to create each poster shows a real understanding of the films.
STAR WARS
162
Again Olly Moss uses several layers of negative space and iconography from the film to create a perfect image.
ROBO COP
164
The Soviet dream was to have whole space battalions rushing off as the families watch on. A piece of naive futurism.
SOVIET SPACE
166
This is the style of soviet poster often replicated by North Korean designers. A glorious image with solid text running below.
SOVIET SPACE PART 2
168
The white runway stylised here is often associated with soviet space posters. Here soviet ideology is following it up into space.
SOVIET SPACE PART 3
170
One US gov team was charged with finding a use for the Moon. The plan was to turn it into an orbital Nuke base. The Death Star way before its time.
USA MOON NUKES
172
The most interesting scifi universe ever created. Concept art for the UNinspired Citadel space station.
MASS EFFECT
174
Concept art for the ship SR2 Normandy. Similar to the War Comics from page 22.
MASS EFFECT PART 2
176
Alien as envisioned by H.R.Giger. Used in the Alien films, Giger was a master at creating disturbing imagery.
ALIEN
178
Alien poster with the amazing piece of copywriting; ‘In space no one can hear you scream’.
ALIEN POSTER
180
Alternative poster for the Alien films playing on the typography of the Alien title screen.
ALIEN ALTPOSTER
182
A film all about madness and isolation set on the Moon. The poster reflects this with very simple imagery.
MOON FILM
184
The Voyager deep space probes launched in the 70s contain a time capsule of human life for aliens to find. A beautiful summery of life, culture and maths.
VOYAGER GOLD
186
Yuri Gagarin. The first man in space suited up for liftoff, 1961.
YURI
188
Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong achieve something that people have dreamt of for millennia. 1969.
APOLLO 11
190
The Apollo 11 mission patch. A horrible concoction of nationalist imagery crammed into a tiny area. An achievement in itself.
MISSION 192 PATCH
Shepard Fairey’s design for the ARK 1 mission to the ISS. A great example of retro modern design done right.
ARK 1 PATCH
194
The most expensive object in existence. The International Space Station is a testament to what we can achieve if we ignore national borders and work as a global team.
THE ISS
196
A plan for the first British spacecraft. The Skylon will be the first singlestage-to-orbit spaceplane. A concept straight out of star wars.
SKYLON
198
Andromeda is the closest galaxy to the Milky Way. If we could see all of its light this is what it would look like in the night sky.
ANDROMEDA
200
The Hubble Telescope took this deep field photo showing the density of galaxies in the observable universe.
DEEP FIELD
202
The Sombrero Galaxy takes some of the best photos. Here it is in visible+infared.
SOMBRERO
204
The Pillars of Creation are collections of hydrogen and dust in deep space, 7,000 lightyears away.
CREATION
206
A nice transition from space into Music. This record sleeve is the best I own, reflecting the tone of the album, a cross between Sabbath, The Beach Boys and White Stripes.
FUZZ
208
Cover and subject can be likened to the Design of Dissent chapter and Soviet/ DPRK artwork, in a western style.
RATM
210
A very simple design, however the cover contains a special lamination resulting in some insane colour patterns.
TOOL
212
This cover for Tame Impala gives insight into the condition in which they made the album. It’s suitable as an end point to this book as it was made under similar conditions.
IMPALA
214
And on that note... this area is for notes.
NOTES
216
Design Inspiration and Context Book Luke Rossiter