Design Hero Project 01: Poster
Who is Alvin Lustig?
An excerpt from my essay about my Design Hero.
Born in February 8th, 1915, Alvin Lustig was not only known for designing the famous book covers we know to this day, but also for introducing a unique approach to multidisciplinary design. After studying design at the Los Angeles City College and Art Center College of Design, Lustig went on to work under world-renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright and painter jean Charlot. Lustig believed that good design could be applied to every aspect of your life, leading to his long-lasting contributions in textile art, posters, and industrial design. The Lustig chair, his more successful work in the latter realm, is still widely produced and collected to this day. However, it is his contributions in the book-publishing industry that Lustig was widely celebrated for. Lustig began his career designing book jackets in 1937, and in 1944 became the director of Visual research for Look magazine. He maintained a successful professional relationship with New Directions Publishing, a publishing company for which he designed some of his most iconic book jackets. James Laughlin, the founding publisher of New Directions and Lustig’s Long time friend, while commenting on Lustig’s artistry, noted that “whatever the medium, he could make it do new things, make it extend itself under the prodding of his imagination. I often wish that Lustig had chosen to be a painter. It is sad to think that so many of his designs must live in hiding on the sides of books on shelves.”
Why Is he my Design Hero?
I am a huge nut when it comes to mid century modern design. I credit this to my obsession with Mad Men (It is by far my most favorite show on television and also played a huge role in sparking my love of design). I think the sixties marked a huge turning point in the way people thought about design and advertising, as not just a means to an end but as a way to spark joy. I’m really drawn to Lustig’s visual style and his unique approach to design. If his career wasn’t cut so drastically short, I think he would’ve reached a level of success that would be comparable to that of Ray and Charles Eames.
I started my process by sketching out rough ideas on paper. While working on these thumbnails, I took inspiration from a wide range of mid-century modern artefacts such as posters, articles, and catalogues. I was especially drawn to the works of Paul Rand, Ray and Charles Eames, and Elain Lustig-Cohen (Lustig’s wife who continued working after his death). Another great point of inspiration were Herman Miller catalogues. I was thinking a lot about how I might find a good way to incorporate Lustig’s industrial design work with his graphic design work. I am drawing a lot of connections to how Lustig worked compared to other prolific mid-century designers.
Thursday Crit
- Interesting ideas being explored!
- The one that people seem to be most drawn to are the collage pieces and the text overlay. I wonder if it is because these are more flesh out but this is the one time I am going against my intuition and choosing to go with the ideas that other people like the most.
I started going into procreate to roughly flesh out a few rough ideas and concepts while also thinking about color and texture. This screenshot of my Pinterest mood board (below) is sort of what I was thinking about while moving into the next step of the process. A lot of cut out shapes, vintage record sleeves, and exploring the way imagery is treated in print. I’m interested in the idea of using multiply layers to create cohesion.
I find it really important to work broadly at the beginning so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on something towards the end of the project. With these inspirations in mind, I created 3 sample posters that focused on different aspects of Lustig’s work.
I honestly really enjoyed making these in procreate. I am a bit concerned about the strength of each composition, especially when blown up on a larger scale. I am most drawn to the last two- although I think the first idea has a lot of potential, I had a lot of trouble trying to get the images to work while still maintaining a good hierarchy. I really want to explore these wonky looking tactile, cut out shapes in future iterations.
Thursday Crit
- The images are too faint! Add more detail and color
- The portrait in the center is way too big. I have to start working in scale more and think about what a viewer might be drawn to and linger on when looking at a work of that scale because there isn’t much to look at right now.
- Brett strongly suggested that I went back and worked on the collage idea that I had previously and chose not to develop.
Some stuff that I’m starting to think about going into this next set of iterations. I’m looking at collage style works and how I might create movement, variety, and start to incorporate color.
Meeting with Jaclyn was super mind opening. I was feeling really stuck in this specific composition because Brett really wanted me to move forward with it, but after reflecting on it, I think what makes the composition work is its movement and the way the viewer is able to linger on the poster and explore its different elements. As long as I keep these ideas in mind when I’m creating new compositions, I think I will be able to make a compelling poster. I’m also trying to create graphic elements that guides the viewer’s eyes through the poster the same way I did with the decorative flowers.
Other notes from the meeting
- Type is not working. Messiah of Modern is already kind of a weird tag line to begin with and separating the words makes it hard to read.
- Explore different compositions, and look at his face at different scales!
- Definitely try and explore colour more but keep the black and white composition is better.
I went back into illustrator and started to flesh out new iterations while thinking about scale. I tried my best to work quickly and think about the bigger picture and not be bogged down by the smaller visual elements. I’m really glad I did this exercise because it let me break free from the original composition. I think both of the ideas I explored were big improvements from the original, however I am more drawn to the ones where I’m cutting up his face.
I had to try out a different shape language just to get it out of my system. I think it looks cool but not super characteristic of Lustig’s design aesthetic. I’m still thinking about how else I can fill the space. I was debating between using Lustig’s print design work or his traditional mark-making techniques. Overall, I think I’m in a good place and all I have left to do is finesse the smaller details.
Final Crit
Whew, what a process! I went through a lot to get to this point, but I’m happy with what I ended up with. Doing test prints was really helpful in helping me figure out which final elements to tweak. In addition to adding a bunch of smaller visual elements, I ended up changing the colour of the timeline at points where it overlapped with his face to enhance readability. I also decided to add low opacity overlays of Lustig’s print work to create depth.
Reflection
Seeing everyone’s posters pinned up on the wall was super interesting. After going through my first project as an official communication designer, it was refreshing to finally be able to inject my own visual aesthetic into my design work. My biggest takeaway from this project was the importance of Intuition, or more specifically, the balance between going with your own gut feeling or going with the suggestions of other people. As an intuitive person, I discovered the value of going against your gut feeling. When Brett and Jaclyn said that they liked the collage style composition, I felt really skeptical moving forward with it, because it was an iteration that I did really quickly without much thought. In the end, going in that direction was the right choice.
This is also a really important segue into my second takeaway: to constantly question your design decisions. My biggest eureka moment came after I spent hours and hours staring at a composition that I hated wondering why everyone thought it was good. I had a friend not from the school of design look at my previous iterations with me and instead of giving me any feedback, he kept asking why I chose to do certain things with the poster, down to the little details like the shape and color of vectors and why I placed an object in a specific position. I found it a bit annoying at first but it made me realize that I was actually unconsciously thinking about a lot of things while I was designing. It’s always nice to get a fresh pair of eyes on something, especially when it’s from someone who isn’t working on the same project as you. Although design people give thorough and well informed feedback, there’s a pretty high chance that you’ll get the same quality of feedback from a non-design person if you keep asking them ‘why’. Once I realized what drawn people to a certain composition, I was able to take those key moments and recreate it in my future iterations.