February 2021 – Tiffany Zhong

Victor Moscoso (b. 1935)

Victor Moscoso was a Spanish-born American who studied art at Cooper Union in New York and at Yale University before moving to San Francisco to study at the San Fransisco Art Institute and later teach there. He was best known for being one of the first formally trained artists at the forefront of the psychedelic art scene and for his contribution to the underground comic, Zap Comix.

Signature features of his rock posters are the use of fully saturated contrasting colours melding into a swirling patterns with handlettered copy. He was taught by Josef Albers while he was at Yale so his colour usage may be quite inspired. The combination of colour, pattern, and handlettering often made the poster illegible, but despite that, his designs were bright and eye-catching which made people stop and look a little deeper.

His style is so distinctively iconic of the times and but his compositions, framing, and focal subject matter harken back to the Art Nouveau posters. It’s very interesting to see someone ahead of their times looking back to use some of what he probably learned in school to bring into the present.

References

http://www.victormoscoso.com/about.htm

https://www.moma.org/artists/4117?=undefined&page=&direction=

Advertising Art Director

Bea Feitler (1938–1982)

Bea Feitler lived a short but successful life and career as not just a designer, but also as an art director. She was born in Brazil and later moved to study at the Parsons School of Design in New York and by the age of 25 in 1968, she was named already the an art assistant at Harper’s Bazaar.

After 10 years at Harper’s Bazaar, she moved over to be the AD at the launch of the Ms. magazine with the feminist and journalist, Gloria Steinem. It was the magazine of the women’s liberation movement. She was at the forefront of the feminism movement in the 70s, creating the look and feel for the movement. She was also the first art director to feature a Black woman on the cover of a magazine when she worked for Vanity fair.

What signified her work was her collaboration with artists and photographers, many claim that she inherited the spirit of Alexey Brodovitch (who was also a former AD at Harper’s Bazaar) as she also understood that spreads should be intentionally and individually constructed, yet at the same time should be connected to one another to form a harmonious rhythm.

References