Month: February 2022

After serving in the Army National guard, Wes Wilson moved to San Francisco where he started his career as a designer. He worked at Contact Printing where his first job was to produce handbills for Mime Troupe Appeal parties. This job ultimately profiled him as a poster designer and he would be commissioned to create posters for weekly dance concerts for the Avalon Ballroom and the Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium. Further, Graham allowed Wilson to be experimental, this led to Wilson’s inspiration derived from the Art Nouveau movement and the Viennese Secessionist lettering style developed by Alfred Roller. Wilson used this style to create his own aesthetic and made them indistinguishable by expanding their outlines and inset shapes. He experimented with foreground, background, and colour to make his designs more exaggerated with each new creation. Melted lines, letters that filled every space, and vibrant colours is what made up his new style of the psychedelic poster. Wilson’s style was very unique, but by the mid 1960s, many artists copied it. Wilson is still credited for pioneering the psychedelic poster style and became the father of 60s rock concert posters. Overall, I love his work because it gives me a sense of joy when I look at it. His aesthetic his always been one that I admired and it’s really fascinating to learn about how it all started.

Sources:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/wes-wilson-psychedelic-poster-artist-dead-obituary-945946/

https://www.bahrgallery.com/artist-master/wes-wilson

https://www.wes-wilson.com/about-wes.html

https://americanart.si.edu/artist/wes-wilson-27389

https://www.classicposters.com/artist/wes-wilson/

Gene Federico was an American graphic designer and art director who pioneered the idea of mixing type and imagery. He was first influenced to become a designer in high school where the prestigious Art Squad was formed. Federico was inspired by the European advertisements shown in his classes and based his early designs on the work of A.M. Cassandre. After high school, he left for the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to enhance his knowledge of European and American design. With the help of one of his professors, Federico eventually took a job with the Abbot Kimball Company in New York. Later on, he received a position in advertisement for Bamberger’s Department Store, but it was cut short because he was shipped off to serve over seas for World War II. Following this setback, Federico received opportunities to work on some projects, but he wasn’t able to find a stable job until he landed a position in the Doyle Dane Bernbach firm where he worked on ads displayed for Woman’s Day magazine. This started the beginning of his “visual puns.” Once he concluded his job at Doyle Dane Bernbach, he began working for Benton and Bowles for eight years. After creating successful IBM advertisement, the rest of his work kept getting rejected by his department. Due to this, Federico began his own firm known as Lord Federico but would later leave after receiving an AIGA medal. Overall, Gene Federico is an inspiration. His work is timeless and his creativity is admirable. I love his work because it reminds designers to always think outside of the box and not to conform to societal trends.

Sources:

https://go.distance.ncsu.edu/gd203/?p=52172

http://ideasondesign.net/speakers/speakers/gene-federico/

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/10/business/gene-federico-81-graphic-designer-dies.html