Poster
This
is from one of my all time favorite Graphic Design books called Anatomy of Design. Briefly, the book
looks at successful works of design and traces how they have borrowed from past works. For example,
the authors trace this poster back in time to cave paintings in Argentina from
2000 BC (okay, kind of a stretch – but they did use reeds to blow paint onto
the wall with some type of stencil) through 1921 Communist Propaganda posters, World
War II posters, and up to numerous modern works. It is an amazing book and it's
in the library! So, look it up if you get a chance.
So, with the PechaKucha poster weighing heavily on my mind, I am looking for as many different
types of posters as I can find. This one attracted me for three reasons: the
image of Shakespeare, the clean, simple lines, and also the play on words of
the headline. First of all, the imagery, somehow because of the flat image,
Shakespeare looks more human to me – not so pretentious. Perhaps, the imagery of
his time period is too fluffy and soulless for my taste. Secondly, clean and simple lines, everybody
knows by now that I love uncluttered design – simple imagery, text beautifully placed
on a page, a gorgeous color palette to create a piece that speaks to me. Finally
(and this is where I find the piece to be highly creative), the irony and play on
words in the title. FREE WILL, okay, for the obvious - no charge to see Much Ado About Nothing. Now a little bit
of humor, it's a bit impertinent to be so colloquial with The Bard – at least use
William! Now some irony, there has been controversy stirring for years about whether Shakespeare
actually wrote his works or another (or multiple) author(s) should be credited.
FREE WILL can be seen a cry for support of Shakespeare. Clear his name! Give credit
where credit is due! I think the stencil lettering gives credence to this – kind of a militant
proposal. That's my interpretation anyway!
Source: Heller, Steven and Mirko Ilic, The Anatomy of Design, Rockport
Publishers Beverly,
Massachusetts, 2009, p6.
No comments:
Post a Comment