Exploring Typographic Posters and Books

Firstly, again starting with research, I wanted to see some classic examples of typographic book cover and posters. I looked at examples from the early 60's, as nowadays mostly photography or artwork is used, with some exceptions.

I simply typed in the Google search to see, firstly what came up. There were covers with old, bold text, and some with smaller text but nothing else, and some with drawings as the font to create a bit of fun. This one here caught my eye first, however. We had worked on Mary Shelley's work last week, and, even though it is a version of her book, I found the typography interesting. The letters are almost jumbled and look very gothic, especially with the colours, and this relates to the content and genre of the book. I found it really fascinating that something as simple as letters - no drawings or pictures - could relate to the book.

There were also other examples I enjoyed. Such as, the 'Cheeses of the World' cover. I found this interesting because there were drawings, but they were designed in with the font. This is a really creative and less subtle way to link to the book cover itself, and, again, there's minimal colour.

There was a Canadian teacher and philosopher, Marshall McLuhan, who wrote the books The Medium is the Massage, and Understanding Media. He believed it was the media, and not the content, should be the focus of study. He explained this using a lightbulb. A lightbulb is a medium with no content (like a newspaper with no articles), yet it stills enables for people to see light when there would be dark. A lightbulb creates an environment without any content, much like a newspaper could create an atmosphere without content (articles).

This relates to typographic posters and covers, as you could remove the content (book pages) and it still creates an atmosphere, and is almost content itself.

I, then, looked at 60's inspired posters. There was a small project done by someone online, where they took modern brands, and advertised them 60's style. I thought this was really interesting, as they have used 60's styles, such as using helvetica (which was on the rise) and retro colours. This helped me think of my colour schemes that I'm going to use.

Next, I will post a blog post with my idea, sketches and final draft. I plan to design this with Procreate at home.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan
https://www.behance.net/gallery/33585031/Modernistic-1960s-Advertisements-Typography-Posters