A Brief History of Graphic Design
Documenting the history of graphic design from the distant past.
1950
Games, A. (1950). See London by London Transport Coach.Zurich Tonhalle, (1950). June Festival. Concert poster.
Campari Soda by Giovanni Mingozzi, (1950) original vintage poster on linen
An iconic travel poster using bold/minimalist graphic shapes characteristic of Game’s mid-century modernist approach. Games’ London by London Transport Coach poster(s) are iconic as it represents the perfect crystallization of his design philosophy – “Maximum meaning, Minimum means”. In the early 1950s, it was a pivotal time when graphic deign was moving towards the more structured, systematic approach of the Swiss School. As a result, Games’ acted as a bridge between the traditional artist, as well as the clarity and geometric rigor of a modernist in the modern world.
The June Festival Poster was revolutionary at the time as those posters were only printed in one or two colors, making them extremely easy and cost effective to print on mass. He treated the type as a core graphic element and not just there for information. He restricted his use of type faces to ensure that the layout remained clean and legible.
The Campari Soda Poster by Mingozzi was one of the first of it’s kind whereby the poster celebrates an already establish piece of futurist art in the form of the soda bottle designed in the 1930s. This is one of the first to elevate a consumer product which later artists such as Andy Warhol would achieve later on.
1951
Boydell, P. (1951). Festival of Britain.
Unger, H. (1951). London Transportation Poster.
Picasso, P. (1951). Vallauris Exposition.
By using vibrant, celebratory colors (classic red, white, and blue) and clean, optimistic lines, his work is signaled a departure from the “drabness” of war years and towards a brighter future. “Festival Tiling” was the typeface Boydell developed under the commission of the London Press Exchange and that would then serve as the official display face for the entire event.
While artists like Abram Games focused if geometric abstraction and minimalism, Unger brought a unique color-driven wit and handcrafted warmth to the London underground’s public art gallery. Unger was a master of color and painterly commercialism, and was famous for his bold use of color which came along with his unique hand-made approach to poster making.
Picasso was a true pioneer of many design and creative elements more broadly however, his Vallauris Exposition poster was one of the first to blur the line between imagery and type. His more “whimsical” approach to this type of commercial design was a deliberate aesthetic choice that felt refreshing and humanistic as well as learning more towards his hand painted approach to his art.
1952
Tadeusz Trepkowski. Nie! (No!). 1952
Manset, R. (1952). Air France/Paris.
Thompson, B. (1952). Inspiration for Printers.
The Power of the “Visual Window” was revolutionary at the time as this brilliant aspect of the designing is the clever use of the bomb’s silhouette. Instead of simply showing a bomb falling, Trepkowski treated the shape of the bomb as a window. Through this window, the viewer can see the ruins of a burned down set against a desolate. smoky sky.
The visual shorthand is a masterclass as he combines the silhouette of the Eiffel Tower with the image of a white dove (a universal symbol of peace and freedom), he instantly communicated the message of a Paris reborn after WWII. In the early 1950s, when travel was s till a luxury for the elite, these posters didn’t need to show the plane or flight path; they only needed to show the promise of the destination.
The Inspirations for Printers poster highlighted the power of imagery as he uses traditional hand painted imagery which many posters of the time and before used, but combined that with very modern typography. Issue 188 exemplifies this; it treats “low-brow” industrial printing materials and “high-brow” industrial art as equal parts of a modern composition.
1953
Bayer, H. (1953). Olivetti Divisumma.
Bass, S (1953).
Matisse, H. The Sheaf (La Gerbe). (1953)
By 1953, the Olivetti company had become the global standard for “corporate-as-art” advertising. They intentionally hired the world’s best artists – including Bayer – to elevate their office machines. Bayer’s poster was a prime example of this; he didn’t simple show a photo of a calculator; he created an abstract, geometric representation of mathematical precision.
Saul Bass’ early work was iconic because it fundamentally transformed graphic design from a purely functional, decorative afterthoughts into a powerful cinematic storytelling and brand identity. Before Bass, movie posters and title sequences were largely static and ignored; he turned them into an essential, immersive part of the film-viewing experience.
By 1953, Matisse was in the final years of his life and largely confined to a wheelchair or his bed. Unable to paint on a canvas with traditional brushes, he “painted with scissors”. The Shaef is a masterful example of this process. Matisse would have his assistants paint large sheets of paper with vibrant gouache colors. He then cut organic, frond-like silhouettes directly into these sheets.
1954
Playboy (1954). Playboy Magazine Cover, August 1954.
Klein, D. (1954). Travel Poster.
Muray, R. (1954). From Blossom Time to Autumn Frost.
The August 1594 issue of Playboy is significant not because of one single groundbreaking cover design, but because it represents the moment the magazine began to solidify its visual identity as a “lifestyle” publication that blended mid-century modern aesthetics with “Pin-up” culture. The cover art was meant to look modern, clean, and aspirational, mirroring the sleek aesthetic of high-end bachelor apartments they were promoting.
David Klein’s travel posters for Trans World Airlines in the 1950s became iconic because they helped invent the visual language of the jet age. Klein moved away from the literal, cluttered, and often overly detailed illustrations that dominated travel advertising in the 1940s, instead, he distilled a destination into a single, striking graphic idea or concept.
While the new emerging modernist minimalism has been the visual language of the US and UK, these posters leaned into the highly detailed, painterly representations of the animals. The “National Pride” visual language; the promotional art was designed to be evocative and grand, emphasizing the beauty of Germanic forest sanctuary.
1955
Bass, S. (1955). The Man with the Golden Arm.
Muller-Brockmann, J. (1955). Beethoven Poster.
Follis, J. (1955). Art and Architecture magazine cover.
Before Bass, movie posters almost exclusively relied on “star-power” – collages of the actors’ faces to sell the film. Bass took a radical risk by focusing entirely on a single abstract graphic: a jagged, cut-out arm. The arm, with its distorted and awkward pose, served as a brilliant visual metaphor for the “disjointed, jarring existence” of a heroin addict.
Muller-Brockmann famously believed that music was an abstract art and should be advertised in an abstract way. He didn’t use the traditional illustrations (like a portrait of the composer) because he felt they were too subjective. Instead he used geometric shapes – specifically rhythmic overlapping circles to visualize the sound of the music.
Under the influence of the magazine’s creative environment – and especially following the philosophy of designers like Herbert Matter, the covers were built on the principal that “visually excitement is created by tension.” Follis and his contemporaries moved away from purely descriptive imagery. Instead they used, minimalist abstraction and dynamic layouts.
1956
Crosby, T. (1956). Architectural Design, January 1956.
Follis, J. (1956). Arts & Architecture magazine, April 1956.
Hamilton, R. (1956). Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?.
Theo Crosby used typography and layout to signal that architecture was no longer just about “composition” or “Fine art”, but about a complex, information-driven profession. the 1956 covers often utilized tight, sophisticated grids and bold, modernist typography that looked as much like a piece of contemporary art as it did a professional journal.
The mid-1950s was the peal of the magazine’s influence on the “case study house” movement. Follis’ designs were iconic because they were the visual shorthand for this movement. His covers didn’t just show a building, they captured the spirit of Modernism; Airy, optimistic, and precise.
Before Hamilton’s work, fine art was expected to be grand, original, and intellectual. Hamilton’s collage; composed entirely of clippings from American magazines, shattered this elitism. It signaled a shift where the artist’s role was no longer the “creator of beauty” but the “curator of culture”. By elevating advertisements to the status of a gallery piece, he destroyed the distinction between elite artistic expression and common customer desire.
1957
Friedrich, K. (1957). Folio Typeface.
Miendinger, M. (1957). Helvetica Typeface.
Frutiger, A. (1957). Univers Typeface.
By the mid-1950s, the design world was desperate for a clean, neutral, and highly legible sans-serif typeface that could work across the rapidly expanding world of corporate branding and advertising. Because it was less overused than Helvetica during the 60s and 70s, it has remain a designer’s secret weapon when it comes to graphic design.
Designers of the 1950s and 60s were moving toward mathematical grids and clean, functional layouts. Helvetica sans-serif, Neo-grotesque structure – defined by its high X-height, uniform stroke widths, and tightly balanced spacing, was the perfect typeface for this more rigid, orderly design philosophy.
Univers was one of the first typefaces designed specifically to bridge the gap between metal casting and the new photo-composition technology. Because phototypesetting allowed more flexible scaling and layering of type, Frutiger’s approach meant the typeface could be adapted effortlessly across different printing technologies.
1958
Holtom, G. (1958). Peace symbol.
Müller-Brockmann, J. (1958). Neue Grafik.
Institut géographique national (1958). Cartoguide Shell Berre.
Perhaps the most globally recognized graphic design created in 1958 is the peace symbol. Designed by British artist/activist Gerald Holtom for the Champaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). the logo was intended to be used for the first major protest march that year. Holtom combined the semaphore signals for the letters “N” (Nuclear), “D” (Disarmament).
In 1958, the four big designers of Swiss design (Josef Müller-Brockmann, Richard Paul Lohse, Hans Neuburg, and Carlo Vivarelli) launched the multiple language magazine “Neue Grafik (New Graphic Design)”. The magazine only ran til 1965 however, the magazine was essentially the definitive voice of the International Typography Style.
1958 saw the beginning of the Shell Cartoguide series which featured cover illustrations by the French artist Jean Colin. These guides are celebrated in design history for maintaining a consistent, high-level artist format over multiple years, representing the golden age of corporate-commissioned travel illustration and information design.
1959
Charles, J. (1959). Letraset Dry Transfer Sheets.
Rand, P. (1959). Consolidated Cigar Corporation Logo.
Rand, P. (1959). Westinghouse Logo.
Before 1959, creating professional-looking typography required expensive phototypesetting or slow hot-metal setting. Letraset/s dry transfer sheets allowed designers to rub down letters directly onto their layouts. This allowed smaller studios and independent designers to achieve professional results quickly.
Paul Rand was commissioned by the Consolidated Cigar Corporation in 1959 to design a logo which highlighted his specific modernist approach to design, packaging, and identity; stripping away the cluttered, Victorian style flourishes typical of tobacco marketing at the time and replacing them with bold, sharp, and highly recognizable geometric trademarks.
Rand created a modern and symmetrical “W” composed of intersecting lines and circles. It was designed to represent the flow of electricity and industrial precision. The project was considered a masterclass in modern corporate identity. It shifted the focus from a company’s literal name to an abstract symbol or icon.
1960
Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar (1960). Chase Manhattan Bank Logo.
Kamekura, Y. (1960). Design (Japan), 014, 1960.
McCombie, L. (1960). Shopper’s Guide, Consumer Advisory Council, 15, 1960.
Perhaps the most iconic branding on 1960 was the design of the logo for Chase Manhattan Bank by the design firm Chermayeff & Geismar. Throwing away the traditional descriptive illustrations that were common prior to the 50s, the firm created an abstract, geometry symbol. The creation of this symbol is one of the keystone moments where the modern “corporate identity” developed.
Designers like Yusaku Kamekura were beginning to merge the precision of the established “Swiss style” using grids with bold, minimalist, and often culturally resonant Japanese symbols. 1960 was the year that helped establish Japan as a international graphic design powerhouse.
The Shopper’s Guide magazine serves as an excellent case study of how the establish principles of the grid, sans-serif type, clear hierarchy, etc. were being applied to consumer publications to make complex information such as reports much more easily accessible for the general public.