Psychedelia

The psychedelic era began in the 1960's during the hippie subculture. Designs within this era were inspired by psychedelic experiences often induced by drugs, which were popular amongst youth culture at the time. The word 'psychedelic' means 'mind-manifesting' and designs that fit into this era often opted to visually capture the feeling of 'tripping out.' Common elements within psychedelic designs included bold colours, lines creating optical vibrating effects, abstract and curvilinear shapes and typography that was often morphed to fit inside shapes or follow abstract lines.

Three influential designs of this era were Victor Moscoso, Alton Kelley and Wes Wilson. Many psychedelic elements were used within their designs, such as bold colours, skewered typography and abstract shapes and all three produced large amounts of pieces during the 1960s. Below I have included some art works by each artist that represent pieces from this era.

This design is by Wes Wilson and represents this era through morphed lines, typography following these lines and contrasting colours. Often designs from the Psychedelic era had text that was very hard to read and encouraged people to look deeper for meaning. This is an example of really capturing psychedelic feelings through the vibrating lines. I like this poster because of the way it flows and I believe it would have been very appropriate and effective at the time it was produced.

The above is a very famous design by Milton Glaser, founder of Push Pin Studios. Here we can see that the image is abstracted to the max and Glaser has used vibrating colours and morphed lines to form the hair. Push Pin Studios became one of the most influential design studios in graphic design and were one of the first studios that sold many pieces based on their distinctive style. The poster was promoting Bob Dylan and I was attracted to the piece just through the bright colours and abstracted elements.