Waldemar Swierzy was a polish designer, professor, and graphic artist who was very active during the 1960s and 70s, making pop art, photo collage, remix, and psychedelic poster design for musicians and artists (for my favourites) Louis Armstrong and Jimi Hendrix.
Swierzy was born in Katowice, Poland, and graduated from the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts to become a designer in 1952. And from 1965 to 1994, he was a professor at two Universities, the University of Fine Arts in Poznań and the Academy of Fine Arts in Warshaw.
Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Swierzy applied unusual concepts with different techniques to his poster designs, such as from polish social history, folk art from the 50s, pop art from the 60s, portraits from the 70s, and TV images from the 80s. Some more artists that Swierzy made these interesting posters for Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, and more (mainly featuring Jazz musicians). Swierzy’s poster designs are very colourful, and strikingly bold, with large portraits in the centre of their compositions. Personally, I enjoy looking at Swierzy’s posters because of his use of boldness and excess colours to create eye catching designs, and he inspires me to add these elements into my future projects as well.
Waldemar Swierzy
