Ephemeral Images: Recent American Posters

Poster, DADA

• Designed by Paul Rand
• screenprint on white wove paper
• Gift of Various Donors

• illusionistic
• graphic design
• typography
• letters
• book
• text as image
• overlap

This classic poster by Rand—based on the cover of a book—creates a rudimentary sensation of depth as the black letters float in front of white ones. Why do we accept this illusion? Similar effects occur in our perception of the physical world, where our visual system assures us that partially hidden objects exist in their entirety. The brain reconnects the interrupted letters because their visible edges align.

Poster, Sources and Resources of 20th Century Design, The International Design Conference in Aspen

• Designed by Paul Rand
• offset lithograph on white wove paper
• Gift of Various Donors

• communication
• graphic design
• advertising
• display
• exhibition
• square
• eggs
• splotches
• conference poster

Poster, John Lennon

• Designed by Richard Avedon
• offset lithograph on white wove paper
• Gift of Various Donors

• communication
• graphic design
• advertising
• display
• exhibition
• promotion
• music
• portrait
• psychedelic
• promotional poster
• concert poster
• musicians
• glasses
• celebrity
• eye contact

This poster suggests an altered state of mind by filling John Lennon’s glasses with a swirling optical illusion. The photograph has been converted to a high-contrast image, a technique sometimes called "posterization."

Poster, The Invisible City

• offset lithograph on white wove paper
• Gift of Chermayeff and Geismar Associates

• travel
• graphic design
• advertising
• airlines
• travelers
• typography
• promotional poster
• airports

Chermayeff’s famous poster uses a system of found typography to represent an international conference of designers.