Late Modern 1945-1970

Two page spread from "Westavaco" No 194, created by Bradbury Thompson in 1953.
sourced from  http\\:paris.blog.lemonde.fr

This designer was very adept at combining text, illustrations and photographs. His progressive use of overlapping semi-opaque shapes creates movement and colour, while modernising an old object. On the left page, he cleverly places a line drawing of the object within a cutout shape in a collage effect typical of this era in design. The simple classic font is also an Early Modern favourite.

Illustration from the book "Henry's Walk to Paris" by Leonore Klein, illustrated by Saul Bass in 1962.
sourced from www.ilike.org.uk

In this cute illustration, the artist has used the words of the story to make up the faces of the characters. Integrating text into illustration is an Early Modern theme which is still attractive today. Although this is a book for children, the illustrator has used pictures that engage the reader, making the connection between the shape of words and the pictoral form. The collaged, handmade look is friendly and playful.

I enjoy this period in design history because of the witty way many designers combined text and pictures. The meaning is not overly obvious, but requires some mental input to decipher it, sometimes yielding more than one outcome. The casual, often asymmetrical layouts used are also interesting.