The advertising poster between the 1950s and 1970s

Drawing and colour as a form of resistance and rejection of new communication strategies: the French example

Abstract

Technology changes (or strongly conditions) history, habits, customs, and even drawing. A trainee, a graphos, a rapidograph: objects of graphic archaeology; the fountain pen: a chic, snobbish, elitist fad; watercolour: an affectation for the chosen few. In a short while, the exercise of drawing with the beautiful old tools of the past (religiously preserved and carefully guarded by some) could be seen as a mass recited in Latin (to leave a pseudo aura of sacredness to the gesture), a sort of sinful act, when compared to the current normality of the practice of digital 'representation'. But such occurrences are certainly nothing new, at other times and in different contexts, there has always been a minority who did not conform to what the majority was doing, someone who did not work to choices linked to market rules or technological progress. In the sphere of advertising graphics, between the 1950s and 1960s, the new communication and marketing strategies coming from the 'USA', combined with the perfected systems of letterpress printing and the proliferation of radio and TV, meant that photography took on a predominant role in advertising campaigns and the creation of commercial advertising posters. The 'beautiful' gradually disappears to be replaced by the 'efficient' and, above all, by the 'fast'. A photographic sign is realised quickly and can be more direct in marketing strategies, and above all, it is much cheaper than a 'designed' one. At the same time, the creative work of the 'only' poster designer is being replaced by 'MAD Men' agencies, a team effort involving various technical figures and specialists in marketing, sociology, economics, image, language and music in the realisation of an advertising campaign. We want to talk about a group of French poster designers of the 1950s and 1960s who rejected the use of photography in posters, who left the communication strategies linked to the overbearing advent of mass media and who still believed in the work of the individual, in creativity, in the power of drawing and colour. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)