Friday, March 20, 2009

Old Chicago poster art

Old Chicago poster art. I love that olde-worlde poster art. I wonder why lineal art is so lost today.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder why lineal art is so lost today.

Gresham's Law.

Digital cameras. YouTube. Computer-generated graphics.

Good line drawings take time and talent. In commercial venues, it takes money. Modern technology lets us create slick graphics without much time, talent or money. The cheap drives out the good.

Anonymous said...

Aware I'm skewing the topic to mention modern elevated lines i.e. monorails . . . think Eolake may excuse this . . . if he enjoys the technical and (artistic) beauty of the Shonen line. Great urban mass transit: http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/Shonan2003a.html
-Eric

Anonymous said...

It's the fusion between fine art and graphics that I love about these images.

You're almost right Michael, modern technology can create slick graphics, but it always looks like a photo that has been treated. With these posters, an artist has used talent to balance light, shade and colour.

Also, they were produced to be reproduced within the constraints of the printing technology at the time so their 'look' was, to a large extent, determined by the technology of the day.