three different designers with one thousand different opinions and varying tastes plus three very ‘different’ colours… things are probably going to get messy with our first ‘silkscreen bash’ later this week, if the poster turns out anything like as good as i’m hoping i’ll let you know, if not forget i even posted this…
an article in the arts section of the dutch newspaper ‘het parool’ from journalist jan pieter ekker dated 19th of january bemoans the role of marketing departments in the choice of imagery for cultural posters and specifically as relates to the work of designer ‘lex reitsma’ who has designed the posters for the dutch opera (dno) for more than twenty years now
evidence for this phenomenon is mainly provided by two poster designs for the same production ‘the cunning fox’ both by the same designer and with virtually identitcal typography… one (2006) with a clever image of a smoking gun in the form of a fox’s tail, the latest (2010) with a rather staid ‘on stage’ image instead, based on this evidence and the fact that i had also noted the change for the worse in this case, one finds it hard to disagree with the arguments
although the fact that the journalist and designer are acquainted makes me wonder why neither the designer nor the marketing department in question, were asked to react to this article, it does seem to be a change for the worse but do they agree and if not, why?…
the rotterdam film festival is celebrating it’s jubilee with an ‘XL’ edition this year, the poster is from rotterdam’s finest 75b, a lot of their work has a really unpolished quality to it (much like ‘mevis and van deursen’) which is one of their strongest points, unpretentious and highly communicative work
nice series of minimalistic graphic posters depicting the range of musical genres…
pictured are a few of my favourites…(thanks to our ‘german correspondent’ uwe for the tip)
i’ve just completed my latest ‘the dutch national ballet’ poster, for the upcoming ‘van manen – master of dance’ program later this year
the portrait of hans was shot by ‘erwin olaf’