Irissprague bookdesign

How Posters Work 1

How Posters Work Ellen Lupton Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

How Posters Work

2

How Posters Work 3

How Posters Work

4

ESSAYS

Table of Contents

7

Ellen Lupton, How Posters Work

13

Caitlin Condell, How Posters Are Made

19

E. McKnight Kauffer, A Note on Technique, 1937

20

Bruno Munari, Poster with a Central Image, 1966

24

Karrie Jacobs and Steven Heller, Angry Graphics, 1991

30

Rianne Petter and RenĂŠ Put, Focal Point, 2012

40

Gail Davidson, Collecting Posters

How Posters Work 5

POSTERS 44

Focus the Eye

58

Overwhelm the Eye

68 Simplify 88 Overlap 98

Cut and Paste

108

Assault the Surface

118

Use Text as Image

132

Make Noise

152

Double the Meaning

162

Make Eye Contact

176

Communicate with Scale

186

Exploit the Diagonal

196

Make a Grid

206

Make a Series

222 INDEX

How Posters Work

Essays

6

How Posters Focus the eyeWork 7 7

Edward McKnight Kauffer Poster: Tea Drives Aways the Droops, 1936 Offset lithograph on paper, lined 75.7 x 50.3 cm (29 13/16 x 19 13/16 in.)

Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer, 1963-39-84

Edward McKnight Kauffer Poster: Step on the India Noskid Types and Feel the Difference, 1935 Offset lithograph on paper 71.5 x 47.7 cm (28 1/8 x 18 3/4 in.)

Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer, 1963-39-79

8 How Posters Work

The American-born designer E. McKnight Kauffer (1890–1954) studied art in Germany and then went to work in London. There, he designed numerous posters for the London Underground and other clients. Although Kauffer was never

well-known in the U.S. during his lifetime, the Museum of Modern Art exhibited his work in 1937. The essay reprinted here is from that catalog.

He describes the diverse tools he used as well as his interest in applying abstract art to advertising.

Edward McKnight Kauffer Drawing: Hand, 1935–38 Air brush and white gouache on blue paper 22.9 x 19.1 cm (9 in. x 7 1/2 in.)

Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer, 1963-39-960

Edward McKnight Kauffer Drawing: Abstraction with a Hand, 1935–38 Brush and gouache, graphite on thick paper 31.1 x 21.6 cm (12 1/4 x 8 1/2 in.)

Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer, 1963-39-963

How Posters Focus the EyeWork 9 9

A Note on Technique E. McKnight Kauffer, 1937 (Excerpt from a letter)

‘…I have used all kinds of instruments common to most

the War Office, asked to see me with the idea of designing

contemporary painters, such as tooth brushes, cheese cloth,

a new flag for the Royal Air Force. Mr. Churchill's appreciation

wire netting, etc.—in fact anything that suggests interesting

of this ‘modernistic’ design was flattering, but nothing further

textures. The air-brush I seldom use now, but when I did use

happened. I think at this moment a new direction in poster

it a few years ago I realized that it was a tricky instrument and

designing was created, but I realized that more persuasive

that its use required an exceedingly disciplined technique.

methods would have to be employed. Rightly or wrongly, the

At the moment I prefer methods less exacting and with more

progress of poster designing as done by myself has been

direct contact between my idea and the medium.

slowly won, mostly by discussion, argument and a good deal

of fighting. But English clients, once they are convinced, are

Lithography still tends to be commercially practical for

reproduction and most of my posters are done by an old �rm

prepared to go full steam ahead.

still using in many cases actual lithograph stones.

experiment I have made and it is an endeavour to dramatize

When I began advertising design in England in 1916, the

The cover design for the catalog is the most recent

outstanding work then was of the Munich realistic school,

shapes in space, to give an excitement to the mind with the

more pictorial than poster. My enthusiasm, to counteract that

use of non-naturalistic symbols and to suggest to the person

influence, was at first by violent methods, but such designs

who sees it a conflict of which he is a solitary witness. I am

as I did were confined to exhibition posters for the then. Modern

working more on these experiments, about which I shall write

group of painters known as the London group, of which

you later....

I was secretary.

In 1919 I produced the first and only Cubist poster design

in England—a flight of birds, which was sold to an advertising agent for �fty dollars. It eventually appeared without my layout or lettering and for the Labour Paper, the Daily Herald. This design was so much noticed that Mr. Winston Churchill, then at

10 How Posters Work

The Italian designer Bruno Munari (1907–1998) wrote extensively about art and design. During the 1920s, he joined the second phase of the Futurist movement, led by F. T. Marinetti. Well-known as a children's book author, he also contributed to the discourse of design theory

and education. This essay from his book Design as Art describes the optical effects of different geometric structures and makes fun of recurring ideas in poster design.

Basic pattern of a poster in the form of the Japanese flag. The eye is attracted by the dark disc and has no way of escaping. It has to tear itself away. The space around the disc isolates the image from any other near-by forms

Basic pattern of a poster cut up into separate sections. The eye wanders over the surface and is continually forced to follow the dividing lines between the light and dark sections.

These lead it out and away from the poster. Besides this, the sections themselves may easily seem to belong to the posters next door.

How Posters Focus the EyeWork 11 11

Poster with a Central Image Bruno Munari, 1966 The old idea in advertising was that a poster should hit you in

with strident shapes. And the worst thing of all is that there are

the eye, and even today many people would agree. It is a way of

thousands of them all bellowing at you in satanic discord. Not

getting information across to the average passer-by, who might

having studied the exact techniques of visual communication,

well be thinking about the transformation of a caterpillar into

advertisers fall back on commonplace images which they

a butterfly: a violent transformation, and everyone knows that

multiply ad nauseam and without thinking whether the forms

violence has to be opposed with equal violence.

and colours they are using could not equally well be applied to

tyres, soap or aperitifs. But the designer’s experiments have

But joking apart, what did these old-fashioned advertising

men mean by hitting you in the eye’? They probably meant

taught us that it would be enough to employ an unusual colour,

that a poster must stand out a mile from the other posters

a different form, and to give the passer-by exact and immediate

displayed around it in the street. It must jump out at you,

information instead of assaulting him time and time again until

surprise you, capture your attention by an act of banditry. The

he is battered senseless.

same thing goes for all the other posters nearby.

they seem to have been deliberately camouflaged, and it is

A poster for soap, for example, or for some detergent,

On the other hand one sometimes sees posters so jaded

must be quite different from any other poster for soap.

incredible that they could have been accepted and printed. It

We already know that a certain detergent washes white, that

probably happens like this. The painter (not a graphic designer)

another washes whiter, that·a third washes whiter still, that

makes a rough sketch of the poster and takes it along to the

a fourth washes whiter than the first and second put together,

advertising manager’s office. This sketch is full size, say three

that a fifth washes easily twice as white, and that a sixth (which

feet by five, and done on canvas or stiff paper. It is propped

is in fact the same powder as the one which started the whole

up opposite the advertising manager’s desk for his approval.

idea) washes so white that it makes things look black.

Now his office is furnished with exquisite taste, as befits the

head of a department: for one must not only be the head of

It usually happens that when someone cannot keep his

end up in an argument he begins to shout. In this way he does

a department, but must be seen to be such. The colours are

not add anything new to his argument, but at least he makes

muted, the furniture of a classical restraint. There is nothing

himself heard. Many posters want to make themselves heard

in the least gaudy about it. In these surroundings the poster,

at all costs, and so they shout with their colours, yell at you

even if it is ugly, has an explosive force. The picture hanging on

the wall beside it looks like a washed out photograph. The

poster is accepted and printed, and only then is it realized that

posters. On the other hand it is a mistake to divide the surface

surrounded by a mass of other posters it is barely noticeable.

of a poster into different blocks of colour or print. Such a poster

But what’s done is done, and all we canhope is to do better

fades too easily into its surroundings, and each part of the

next time.

composition flows off into the poster next door, confusing the

public and absolutely nullifying the effect of the message.

There is one basic kind of poster that graphic designers

often use, because it is so visually compelling. This is the Japanese flag, a red disc on a white background. Why is such a simple design so effective? Because the white background isolates the disc from everything around it, from the other posters, and because the disc itself is a form that the eye finds it hard to escape from. The eye is in fact accustomed to making its escape at the points or corners of things, at the head of an arrow for example. A triangle offers three escape routes, a square offers four. A circle has no corners, and the eye is forced to go round and round in it until it tears itself away with an effort.

How is this basic pattern used in a poster? The disc

may represent or become a tomato, a plate of soup, a clock, a football, a shell, a steering-wheel, a cooking pot, a round

12

cheese, a button, a champagne cork, a gramophone record, a flower, a roadsign, a wheel, a tyre, a target, a ball-bearing, a

How Posters Work

Gothic rose-window, an open umbrella, a cogwheel ... and last but not least the globe. A photo of a globe, the globe painted with bold strokes of the brush, a globe made of strips of paper or torn paper scraps, in black and white, in colour ....

Even today you will find this basic design used for countless

How Posters Focus the EyeWork 13 13

Posters

14 How Posters Work

Gottlieb Soland Poster: Exhibition Grammo-Grafik, (Recorded Music Graphics) Kunstgewerbemuseum, Zurich, 1957 Lithograph on wove paper 100 x 69.9 cm (39 3/8 x 27 1/2 in.)

Gift of Sara and Marc Benda, 2009-12-19

Munari may have had this poster in mind when he mentioned “phonograph records� in his list of round objects.

Swiss graphic designers in the 1950s and 60s sought to create a universal language of visual communication with gridded layouts, sans serif typefaces, and stark, iconic representations.

How Posters Focus the EyeWork 15 15

Focus the Eye In the early twentieth century, designers in the German Plakatsil

the balanced stability of symmetrical arrangments, purely

or “poster style” movement created arresting advertisements

symmetrical designs can yield dull results. A centered picture

that highlighted a single object. They employed heavy lines and

or a centered line of text can feel static, like words carved on

flat colors to depict the industrial goods of the day—from hats,

a tombstone. Bernhard chose to push his typewriter off to

shoes, and pens to matches and cigarettes. In the poster above

one side, but he centered the product name at the top. Many

by Lucian Bernhard, sturdy letterforms match the forthright

Plakatstil posters employ a similar mix of centered and

heft of the illustration.

off-centered elements to create compositions that have a clear

focus while also conveying a sense of movement and surprise.

Bernhard’s poster is not as simple as it might seem,

however. He created a sense of depth by making the typewriter

overlap the product name. The black and red frame around

ordinary object. The emphatic headlines are also centered.

the text directs our attention to it, and the outline around the

Sitting above and below the image, the headlines establish an

letters gives them dimension and brings them further into focus.

order of reading and thus allow a story to unfold as we read

The main lettering and the sheet of paper in the typewriter are

the poster from top to bottom. Dramatic lighting heightens

the composition’s brightest elments, giving the design a clear

attention on the central object. The symmetry is broken,

and uncontested anchor.

however, by the napkin and water glass, wihch make a strong

diagonal movement across the surface. Without that break,

Bernhard’s famous poster employs design techniques

The poster Food is a Weapon centers our gaze on an

that remain commonly used today. Book covers, advertisments,

the poster would feel still and stagnant.

websites, and packages often establish a clear point of focus.

Designers use line, color, contrast, and placement to show

everyday object. An ordinary glass of water glass looms above

viewers where to look first.

the tiny fighters on the ground, acquiring monumental stature

from the contrast in scale. Light and shadow intensify the

The easiest way to get someone to look at an image on a

Bardasano’s Spanish Civil War poster also centers on an

page, screen, or poster is to make it big and put it right in the

drama, while the angle of the glass pushes against the poster’s

middle. Symmetry is one of design’s oldest and most reliable

dominant symmetry. The hand-drawn text conveys movement

conventions. The human body is symmetrical from side to side,

through both its forms and placement.

while flowers are symmetrical in multiple directions. Symmetrical

designs feel balanced because they evenly distribute elements

design strategy than can support dynamic tension as well as

around one or more axes. Although humans have a deep-seated

clear communication.

Leading the eye to a main point of focus is an effective

16 How Posters Work

Lucian Bernhard Poster: Adler Typewriter, 1909–10 Lithograph on paper 34.5 x 47 cm (13 9/16 x 18 1/2 in.)

Gift of the Eric Kellenberger Collection, Switzerland and museum purchase from General Acquisitions Endowment, 2005-12-2

German designer Lucian Bernhard began creating stark, simplified depictions of industrial goods in the early twentieth century. He eliminated people, environments, and narrative details in order to direct the viewer’s attention to the product itself.

How Posters Focus the EyeWork 17 17

Office of War Information Poster: Food Is a Weapon, 1943 Lithograph on paper 57.5 x 41 cm (22 5/8 x 16 1/8 in.), 1987-24-23

There’s no intrinsic drama in a plate of chicken bones. This poster creates dramatic tension by shining a spotlight on these ordinary objects.

The arresting headline heightens the emotional intensity.

Bardasano Poster: El agua en malas condiciones/produce mas bajas que la metralla Lithograph on paper Gift of William P. Mangold, 1997-21-15

Grids function throughout society.

The street grids used in many modern cities around the globe promote circulation among neighborhoods and the flow of traffic, in contrast with the suburban cul de sac, a dead-end road that keeps neighborhoods closed offand private.

18 How Posters Work

James Miho Poster: Friend? Or Foe?, 1976 Screenprint on metallic coated paper 91.7 x 61.2 cm (36 1/8 x 24 1/8 in.)

Gift of Various Donors, 1981-29-153

During World War II, civilian and military spotters learned to distinguish enemy aircraft from allied planes.

This poster for the National Air and Space Museum shows the alphabet of silhouettes that spotters learned to recognize. A military emblem dominates the center.

Bardasano Poster: El agua en malas condiciones/ produce mas bajas que la metralla Lithograph on paper Gift of William P. Mangold, 1997-21-15

Grids function throughout society.

The street grids used in many modern cities around the globe promote circulation among neighborhoods and the flow of traffic, in contrast with the suburban cul de sac, a dead-end road that keeps neighborhoods closed offand private.

How Posters Focus the EyeWork 19 19

Dan Friedman Poster, 20th century Offset lithograph on paper 63.5 x 48.4 cm (25 in. x 19 1/16 in.)

Gift of Ken Friedman, 1997-19-198

This poster emphasizes the moon and makes the sun a small and distant object.

Tai Tsuge Poster: Nippon Good Design Show, 1963 Lithograph on wove paper 102.5 x 68.8 cm (40 3/8 x 27 1/16 in.)

Gift of Sara and Marc Benda, 2009-12-20

The large ball shape is centered towards the bottom of the poster, but the typography is set flush left. This is a common layout for modern posters.

20 How Posters Work

The Möbius strip and the Möbius short are one-sided structures whose surfaces flow from inside to outside.

The Klein bottle is a self-penetrating object; it has no inside or outside and could only be physically constructed in four dimensions, since it must pass through itself without a hole. Jacques Lacan saw this mathematical object as an analogue for interwoven and

contradictory planes of human thought.

See Steven M. Rosen, Topologies of the Flesh: A Multidimensional Exploration of the Lifeworld (Ohio University Press, 2006) and http://mathworld.wolfram. com/KleinBottle.html.

Henry van de Velde Poster: Tropon est L’Aliment le Plus Concentré (Tropon, the Most Concentrated Food Supplement), 1898 Lithograph on wove paper, lined 111.8 x 77.5 cm (44 x 30 1/2 in.)

Museum purchase through gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lee S. Ainslie III, Marilyn

Friedman, and Nancy Marks; General Acquisitions Endowment; Drawings & Prints Council Fund, 2007-2-1

How Postersthe Overwhelm Work Eye 21 21

Overwhelm the Eye Tropon was a German food product made from processed

the eye with visual noise. In psychedelic graphics, modernist

egg whites. Perhaps such an abstract product warranted a

ideals of flush-left type, open “white space,” and sophisticated

highly abstract representation. In Henry van de Velde’s 1898

intellectual concepts give way to an unquenchable hunger for

advertisment for Tropon, extravagant curves overwhelm

immediate sensation. These posters, produced as souvenirs for

the poster’s surface, and an intricate maze surrounds the

concerts, were graphic analogues for the orgiastic experience

product name. No space is left untouched by line, shape, and

of music, sex, and drugs.

ornament. Van de Velde, a proponent of the international

Jugenstil or Art Nouveau movement, engaged the viewer in an

and reference points to address the thirst for visual sensation.

optical experience rather than depicting a product or telling a

Inspired by doodles, grafitti, and randomized and automated

concrete story. He and other designers of the era led the eye in

processes, designers have created warped and layered spaces

a restless journey across the surface.

where lines and forms overlap, confounding a viewer’s attempt

to pin down a stable structure or compact message.

The psychedelic posters of the 1960s revived the sensual

Designers in the twenty-first century have used new tools

organicism of Jugendstil. Bonnie MacLean, Victor Moscoso, Wes

Wilson and other designers of the era employed waves of

Sulki and Min have pictured interpenetrating surfaces similar

swirling lines and repeated forms to overtake the surface and

to the Möbius strip or the Klein bottle; in these mathematical

keep the viewer’s eye in continuous motion. Hand-lettered text

structures, surfaces flow from inside to outside, confounding

ignored traditional typographic values of legibility

clear distinctions between front and back, flatness and depth,

and uniformity.

2D and 3D. Psychoanylitic thinker Jacques Lacan used the

Möbius strip and the Klein bottle to picture the complexity of

Inspired by modern color theory, these designers of

Ralph Schraivogel, Michiel Schuurman, Felix Pfaffli, and

psychedelia often juxtaposed colors that compete for attention,

human subjectivity. Such models of design and mind reject

challenging the eye’s desire to find a place to focus. Colors that

the search for clear, unambiguous representations of ideas,

have different hues (such as red and green) yet are close in

messages, or human identities—no representation exists on a

value (having a similar level of lightness or darkness) are said to

single plane. Reaching beyond the visual “high” of psychedelia,

“vibrate”—a shimmering effect occurs where the edges meet.

this late-breaking wave of experimental design generates

Vibrating colors are visually unstable, appearing to move and

strange graphical landscapes whose fractal-like depth operates

flicker when we try to fix our gaze on them. Intensely colored

across multiples scales, from macro to micro.

silkscreen inks amplify the effect, distracting and exciting

22 How Posters Work

Vibrating colors create visual noise where the two edges meet. The colors have sharply different hues but the are similar in value (light and dark).

How Postersthe Overwhelm Work Eye 23 23

Jan (Johan) Thorn-Prikker Poster: Holländische Kunstausstellung (Dutch Art Exhibition in Krefeld), 1903Lithograph on white wove paper 85.4 x 121.8 cm (33 5/8 x 47 15/16 in.)

Museum purchase from the Members’ Acquisitions Fund of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, 2008-4-1

Bonnie MacLean Poster: Jim Kweskin / Jug Band, 1967 Offset lithograph on white wove paper 58.2 x 36 cm (22 15/16 x 14 3/16 in.)

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie J. Schreyer, 1979-34-9

Victor Moscoso Poster: Junior Wells, 1966 Offset lithograph on white wove paper 50.3 x 36 cm (19 13/16 x 14 3/16 in.)

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie J. Schreyer, 1979-34-37

Victor Moscoso Poster: Chambers Brothers Band, Neon Rose #12, 1967 Lithograph on wove paper 50.2 x 35.7 cm (19 3/4 x 14 1/16 in.)

Gift of Sara and Marc Benda, 2009-12-23

Wes Wilson Poster: The Association, 1966 Offset lithograph on white wove paper 50.6 x 35.1 cm (19 15/16 x 13 13/16 in.)

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie J. Schreyer, 1979-34-25

How Posters Work

24

How Postersthe Overwhelm Work Eye 25 25

Sulki & Min Poster: Three Questions for Death, 2014 Offset lithograph on paper H x W: 59.4 × 84 cm (23 3/8 × 33 1/16 in.)

Gift of the designers, 6829.4.2014

The designers have broken the texts and images into simple shapes filled with vibrating colors (opposing hue, similar value). The thin white lines help the viewer pull sense out of this jittery surface. Posters like this one engage the viewer in an active process of looking.

Sulki & Min Poster: Works in the Open Air, 2010 Offset lithograph on paper 59.4 × 84 cm (23 3/8 × 33 1/16 in.)

Gift of the designers, 6829.3.2014

Shiro Shita Saori Poster: Solo Exhibition, 2014 Digital print on paper 103 × 72.8 cm (40 9/16 × 28 11/16 in.)

Gift of the designer, 6827.2.2014

Bodies and objects melt into the landscape in this grafitti-like exploration of figure and ground. The imagery suggests impossible topologies and a dreamlike stream of consciousness.

The disembodied eyeball recalls surrealism and psychedelia.

26 How Posters Work

The tangram is a geometric puzzle invented in China. Children use the pieces to create simple drawings.

Edward McKnight Kauffer Drawing: Oak Tree Trunk, Leaf, Star, 1936 Brush and black wash, graphite on cream paper.

7.2 x 4.3 cm (2 13/16 x 1 11/16 in.)

Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer, 1963-39-873 875

Edward McKnight Kauffer Poster: Spring in the Village Lithograph mounted on linen (linen lining): 109.5 x 72.2 cm (43 1/8 x 28 7/16 in.)

100.1 x 62.6 cm (39 7/16 x 24 5/8 in.)

1963-39-82-2

How Posters27Work Simplify 27

Simplify Inspired by Cubism as well as by German poster art, E.McKnight Kauffer designed posters and drawings in the 1920s and 30s that explored fluid relationships between figure and ground, form and void. Studies in ink and pencile became the basis of finished posters featuring graphic interpretations of natural or manufactured things.

Schematic icons long predate the modern poster. The tangram is a traditional Chinese puzzle made of seven shapes cut from a single square. The shapes fit together in countless ways to build angular pictures. Japanese designer Ikko Tanaka used a tangram to construct a portrait of a geisha in his famous poster Nihon Boyu, which produces an elegant fit between the figure and its parts.

Designers often simplify an image in order to focus attention on a strong message or idea. Stark silhouettes of objects became a hallmark of modern poster design in the 1950s and 60s. John Massey’s poster for the furniture company Herman Miller offered a mid-century update on the Plakatstil tradition, presenting a painterly, high-contrast interpretation of Charles and Ray Eames’s famous Soft Pad chair.

Swiss designer and educator Armin Hoffmann called such images “graphic translations.” Although the end result may look simple, creating these translations required painstaking hand skills as well as close observation and analysis; learning to do this became a rite of passage within modernist design training in the 1950s and 60s, and the exercise is still used in many curricula today, albeit with digital tools.

These remarkable film posters were produced in Poland in the 1960s and 70s. The posters advertise popular American films, but they perform outside the conventional language of Hollywood film promotion, exemplifying the creativity and artistic sensibility of Polish poster art. Designers working behind the Iron Curtain often didn’t have access to photographs or illustrations sharp enough to reproduce at large scale.

Working with available materials, Polish designers drew on personal experience to tell the story of the films and their characters.

Poignant details bring these minimal illustrations to life.

When King Kong makes eye contact with the viewer, his gaze is both ominous and endearing. The red lips of the Midnight Cowboy capture the sensuality of Jon Voight’s character, a male prostitute living at the raw edges of society. The designer for Point Blank probably enlarged a photograph or photocopy to create a high-contrast image and then printed it in two colors, flattening out the interior details to create a more universal figure.

How Posters Work

28

How Posters29Work Simplify 29

Ikko Tanaka Nihon Buyo, 1981 Screenprint 103 x 72.8 cm (40 9/16x 28 11/16 in.)

1993-55-6

Yusaku Kamekura Poster: Black Lightbulb with Colored Outline, late 20th century Photo-offset lithograph on paper 102.7 x 72.4 cm (40 7/16 x 28 1/2 in.)

Gift of Sara and Marc Benda, 2009-20-17

John Massey Poster: Eames Soft Pad Group, Herman miller, 1970 Screenprint on coated metallic paper 122.8 x 81.2 cm (48 3/8 x 31 15/16 in.)

Gift of Various Donors, 1981-29-124

How Posters Work

30

How Posters31Work Simplify 31

Marek Mosinski Ucieczka King Konga [King Kong Escapes], 1968 Offset lithograph on wove paper Gift of Sara and Marc Benda.

2010-21-104

Waldemar Swierzy Poster: Nocny Kowboj [Midnight Cowboy], 1973 Offset lithograph on wove paper 82.3 x 58.5 cm (32 3/8 x 23 1/16 in.)

Gift of Sara and Marc Benda, 2010-21-103

Bronislaw Zelek Poster: Zbieg z Alcatraz [Point Blank], 1970 Offset lithograph on wove paper 83.4 x 59.4 cm (32 13/16 x 23 3/8 in.)

Gift of Sara and Marc Benda, 2010-21-101

32 How Posters Work

Eye-tracking software shows that when given a picture of a face, the eye repeatedly returns to primary facial features, especially the eyes.

From A. Yarbus, Eye Movements and Vision (New York: Plenum, 1967).

Francisco Dosamantes Exposision Litografia, 1939 Lithograph on paper 45.1 x 59.7 cm (17 3/4 x 23 1/2 in. ) 2004-34-1

How Posters Make Eye Contact Work 33 33

Make Eye Contact In this 1939 poster for an exhibition devoted to lithography

arbitrary or whimsical judgments. The grid offers a rationale

presents, a wide-open eye symbolizes visual creativity. Modern

and a starting point for each composition, converting a blank

designers commonly used the eye (as well as the hand) as

area into a structured field.

an emblem and marker for visual art and for the powerful

new tools unleashed by modern design and technology, from

form that exists outside of the individual producer. At the same

photographic reproduction to lithographic presses.

time, the grid is culturally associated with modern urbanism,

architecture, and technology. The facades of many glass high

But the eye is more than a symbol. The eye in this poster

Many artists have embraced the grid as a rational, universal

is looking at you. It is initiating an intimate form of contact and

rises and other modern buildings consist of uniform ribbons

communication. The human vision system is specially attuned

of metal and glass that wrap the building’s volume in a continuous

to recognizing faces. Human beings see eyes, noses, and

skin. In contrast with the symmetrical hierarchy of a classical

mouths not only on the visages of living things but on nearly

building, with its strong entranceway and tiered pattern of

anything configured in the general pattern of a face,

windows, a gridded facade expresses a democracy of elements.

from a simple smiley face to the grille and headlights of a car.

in many modern cities around the globe promote circulation

Intuitively understanding the power of eye contact,

Grids function throughout society. The street grids used

graphic designers often include faces that are looking directly

among neighborhoods and the flow of traffic, in contrastwith the

at a viewer, challenging the viewer to look back. Paula Scher’s

suburban cul de sac, a dead-end road that keeps neighborhoods

posters... Indeed, eyes play an important role in theater.

closed offand private.

Guidelines help the designer align elements in relation to each

other. Consistent margins and columns create an underlying

designers to leave some areas open rather than filling up the page.

structure that unifies the pages of a document and makes the

Software interfaces encourage the use of grids by making it easy

layout process more efficient. In addition to organizing the

to establish margins, columns, and page templates. Guidelines

active content of the page (text and images), the grid lends

can be quickly dragged, dropped, and deleted and made visible

structure to the white spaces, which cease to be merely

or invisible at will. (Indeed, it is a good idea when working on screen

blank and passive voids but participate in the rhythm of the

to switch off the guidelines from time to time, as they can create

overall system.

a false sense of fullness and structure as well as clutter one’s

view.) This chapter looks at the grid as a means of generating form,

A well-made grid encourages the designer to vary the

scale and placement of elements without relying wholly on

By breaking down space into units, grids encourage

arranging images, and organizing information.

How Posters Work

34

How Posters Make Eye Contact Work 35 35

Paula Scher Poster: New York Public Theater/Nude Nude Totally Nude, 1996 Offset lithograph on paper 116.8 x 76 cm (46 in. x 29 15/16 in.)

Gift of Pentagram, 1997-99-3

Paula Scher Poster: Him, The Public Theater, 1994 Screenprint on paper 116.8 x 76.2 cm (46 x 30 in.)

Gift of Paula Scher, 2013-25-1

Grids function throughout society.

The street grids used in many modern cities around the globe promote circulation among neighborhoods and the flow of traffic, in contrast with the suburban cul de sac, a dead-end road that keeps neighborhoods closed offand private.

How Posters Work

36

How Posters Make Eye Contact Work 37 37

Edward McKnight Kauffer Print: Subway Posters Perform, 1948 Lithograph on paper 21.6 x 14 cm (8 1/2 x 5 1/2 in.)

Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer, 1963-39-166-c

Marlene McCarty Poster: WAC Is Watching, 1992 Offset color lithograph on paper 56.9 x 56.9 cm (22 3/8 x 22 3/8 in.)

Gift of Marlene McCarty and Donald Moffett, Bureau, 1996-44-1

Paul Rand Poster: The Prepared Professional, International Design Conference, Aspen, 1982 Screenprint on paper 96.5 x 53.7 cm (38 x 21 1/8 in. ) Gift of Marion S. Rand, 2002-11-11

Grids function throughout society.

The street grids used in many modern cities around the globe promote circulation among neighborhoods and the flow of traffic, in contrast with the suburban cul de sac, a dead-end road that keeps neighborhoods closed offand private.