Great graphic designers

Abram Games – Maximum Meaning, minimum means

In the days long before Photoshop and Power Macs, even before Letraset, a popular artist technique used was the airbrush*.

During the Second World War the airbrush was put to great affect by a little known graphic designer, at that time, called Abram Games. Games had been appointed as the ‘Official War Poster Designer’ and for the 6 years that he held this position he created over 100 posters.

You would be forgiven for thinking that the messages Games was required to communicate in his posters would result in a fairly morbid crop of posters. Far from it however, as Games took each brief from the War Office and injected his own personality into it. The results are plain to see in any Abram Games poster, many of which are now considered to be museum pieces.

Once the war had finished Games went on to produce design work for the Festival of Britain, the BBC, the Financial Times, and Shell. All of his design work featured his signature wit and he continued to work right up until his death in 1996.

As any designer will tell you, we all strive to inject our own personality into our work. We don’t become graphic designers to copy what other people have done. But it takes something special to be able to produce, time and time again, designs that not only capture a message but communicate it in a strong witty fashion.

* I once owned such a device – it sat in my student digs connected to a car tyre (it ran off compressed air). I’d cut out shapes from a piece of paper then spray ink from the air gun onto another sheet of paper, sealing areas I wanted to leave white with the shape I’d already cut out. It was messy, time consuming and fun!

Thanks,

AnsteyDesign's live in blogger