Pop Art Movement and Graphic Design

The pop art movement came around in the late 1950’s and 60s and was one of the biggest art movements in the 20^th Century. Pop art refers to popular culture of that era which was things like: packaging, advertisements, television, comic books and basically any sort of everyday objects which were turned into art works.  Pop artists liked to use commercial methods of production so there artworks could be reproduced, which was a large part of the movement and can also relate to Graphic Design. Some of the most notable and famous artists of this Movement are Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

The pop art style quite basic and uses bright psychedelic colours, most probably influenced from the ‘retro’ ‘hippie’ style of the 60’s and also uses a lot of black for the outlines and to make the artworks stand out.  The images are very flat looking and the shading is only made up of black and white.  Roy Lichtenstein also used halftone patterns to make up the skin for a lot of his artworks which represented the comic book style.

A lot of Pop Art also used a ‘stencil street art look’ which is still quite common in today’s culture

Pop Art and Graphic Design

I think that the pop art movement had, and still is a large influence in Graphic Design, particularly in poster art. Because pop art is so bright and draws attention so well it matches the criteria of poster art perfectly.  Many aspects of pop art is used in modern day poster art, particularly in political posters.

 

 

But it is not just poster art where pop art is still used. It is used in almost every area of design, print design, to create colorful birthday cards, t-shirt designs, badges, calendars, album art, canvas, web design advertising etc.

In my opinion pop art and graphic design are quite similar and only a fine line separates them. Pop art is just art that looks like it has been made by a machine and Graphic Design is conveying a message through visual application but the principles of both are very similar, they stand out, are very bold and can be used commercially for reproduction. I think pop art is the closest art style to graphic design and of all the art movements is still used the most in design today and will be for

More Examples of Pop Art in Graphic Design