Behold the most 90s art/graphic design/mail book in the library system (that I have found thus far, the search is eternal).
Delving into old postcard art and old Halloween art at the same time is Fixing My Brain.
The components have been here the whole time -- I have been on my current artistic path for so very long, gathering resources and exploring skills, but one of the things pushing my insane drive though has been something hidden from my own viewpoint.
Spread from Postcard Graphics
It’s postcards.
It’s literally just postcards.
The thing missing from my art practice direction?
Postcards.
Swapping to postcards instead of greeting cards drops production cost by 50-66%, allowing me to sell them significantly cheaper, which allows me to get way, way, way more experimental in art.
On some level I can’t believe it’s this simple and on another level of course it is, I needed this journey.
Spread from Postcard Graphics
What draws me back to '90s graphic design, again and again, is this time period was early enough in desktop publishing revolutionary times to grab the attention of the young and/or weird while being powerful enough to handle the absolute rejection of convention.
Suddenly, you could (and artists and designers often did) work with unimaginable with color, texture, artwork, typography. What used to take days or weeks could be done in hours or minutes. What took industrial workshops could be crafted increasingly on a desktop. What couldn't be done due to physical limitations could suddenly be crafted in the digital space.
There of course limitations!
The styles were not the same, couldn't be the same. Digital technology couldn't build or blend reality as well as models or camera tricks... but rather than shy away from these warps, they were embraced. Pushed further. Distortion, far from being a boundary, became a driving force. Sometimes THE driving force to the artwork, the style, the project.
Not all design went down this path, but a lot of what did, went waaaaaay over the cliff of visual convention, very quickly, and it was/IS fantastic.
Spread from Postcard Graphics
A closing opinion that will comfort some and annoy others:
The line between CORPORATE GRAPHIC DESIGN and SIGNIFICANT PARTS OF FINE ART is thinner and less defined than many on either side are comfortable with.
Both pursue approval — and cash — from outside audiences to ensure production of PASSION PROJECTS (and/or DINNER).
- Designers call it "client work."
- Artists call it "commissions" and "gallery shows."
- A separation is important, often a load-bearing critical distinction, to many personalities, work paths, portfolios.
- This separation is entirely optional.
To my own taste and work, more and more, the two disciplines are almost akin to changing weather patterns.
Each flowing into the other with minimal regard to propeity. Historical guidelines providing a framework for each to weave around, with both being inextricably bound to the other as public, semi-public / semi-private, and private tastes evolve and mix.
