I’m going to declare now that this is a subject I know little about, apart from Yorkshire supermarkets which I will cover later (if you ask me)
Anyway : its harder to identify advertising designers or graphic designers these days.
Here I am talking about the ‘pulp’ side of the art industry : sure there are a gazillion talented artists doing limited edition graphic design for galleries, the people I’m talking about are paid primarily by clients to get a message across
Ruth Artmonsky’s work : Art for the sake of Money on Tom Purvis is one side of it. Does the money come above the art or the art come above the money. I think in 2017 its always money first.
Anyway I looked further and found an interesting article on graphic artists outside my usual comfort zone and found this fascinating link
http://uk.complex.com/style/2012/03/20-graphic-designers-you-should-know/
Some of the greats are in there including Milton Glazer and Saul Bass, others I am going to research but am guessing there is one major reason that they are outside the mainstream : They didn’t sign their work !!!!
In an interview in Illustrators magazine, Mick Brownfield explains some aspects of the Commercial Artists current existence, harking back to the halcyon days of the 1980s
‘The fees were higher than they are now, because there’s an economic downturn they’ve got less money to spend (now) I seem to spend more time doing more difficult jobs for less money’
So we’ve migrated from an argument of art vs value (1930s) through an art led period (1960s) through a cash led period (1980s) to more of a current arm wrestle today to get adequate fees and recognition.
I’m just glad that we get the best of Commercial art …… looking at it and appreciating it
Going back to my list of 20 iconic designers, here’s a couple of iconic designs
I wonder how they would fair in today’s market.