Herbert Matter and photomontage

Born in Switzerland Herbert Matter was designer that worked on many commercial projects with his masterful use of photomontage, this included magazine publications such as ‘Vogue’ among others. Much of his work was very influential to artists that came after him especially with a further growing trend of photomontage being used in design.

When looking at an example of his work like the one we can see here, we can instantly see how innovative his use of photomontage was for the time. This poster over here was done for the Swiss tourist office and it highlights some of the key characteristics of his work. The first thing of note with this poster is Matter’s use of colour. We can see a juxtaposition of two elements here in regards to his use of colour. The figure in the foreground seems to have been reduced of colour while the background seems to have a vibrant blue.  We can also see the use of a bold and striking sans serif font which really stands out against the photos in the background.  Herbert Matter’s poster truly were innovative for the time due to how painstaking the process of making them was as opposed to how easy these kind of designs are to make today in the light of so many technological advancements.

This next poster was also done for the Swiss tourist office and I feel like this poster highlights some of the other characteristics of his work. In this poster we can see a very interesting use of perspective and depth. The poster seems to lead the viewer from the bottom sans serif type up towards the road that leads off into a one point perspective.  From then on it seems to get a more surrealist feel as the roan meanders off into a series of twists and turns that don’t seem to make sense in a physical sense. I also find this particular poster interesting due to how the photos blend together to create a somewhat believable yet fantastical landscape. 

I personally found Herbert Matter’s work to be very interesting because of how much his work seems to foreshadow the widely contemporary notion of photo manipulation and digital design that we see today.  With all the developments in computer technology , images and posters like this are all too common and are somewhat easy tom make but for Herbert Matter to get this level of photomontage before the release of the personal computers was a feat in itself.

References: designhistory-designhistory.com-2014  [http://www.designishistory.com/1940/herbert-matter/][last accessed on 23/01/2015]