Victor Moscoso and Psychedelia

Somewhat overlapping with the Punk subculture chronologically, Psychadelia and punk were pretty much polar opposites when it came to aesthetic and philosophy. Similarly enough Psychadelia was also politically charged in the sense that is was a post war reactionary culture that yearned for peace and compassion and made their voices heard in a much more calm fashion than the punks. Encompassing many aspects of culture, Psychadelia was not only popular in the graphic design medium but also other media such as music and fashion. The term ‘hippy’ was thrown around at the people who partook in the culture. Another major aspect of the culture was the rampant use of hallucinogenic drugs which lead to psychogenic hallucinations which made the recipient of the drug see colourful and vibrant flashes of colour dance around before their eyes. These hallucinations lead the the colourful imagery we very often see displayed in the designs of the culture.  Some of the visual characteristics that we will be seeing include natural and flowing lines that seem to harken back the Art Nouveau style, bright and vibrant colours and also the use of photomontage in conjunction with textures.   

 Victor Moscoso was a designer that relevant within the psychedelia culture and had designed a number of posters within the style. An example of one of his works is seen here. The first thing I would like to highlight from this poster is the way the font is handled. We can seem many natural curves featuring across the type, as it almost feels like it is taking the shape of its container just like a liquid substance would. This gives the font an Art Nouveau feel to it with a mix of the dream like nature of surrealism. This way of handling type was very typical of work done in the psychadelia style. Another thing of note with the font is the legibility. Due to the highly manipulated nature of the type, the legibility of especially some of the smaller words has been sacrificed. This to me is very interesting because it is in stark comparison to the principles of modernism which was in fashion not too long before this. We can also see the manipulation of photography to achieve certain effects such as this one here where the colours of the photo seem to have been reduced to two shades. Texture is also a thing that has suddenly become something that is experimented with as evidence to this poster, which is vastly different again from the early modernists and their predominant use of clean block colours.

As a personal reflection on both Punk and Psychadelia, the visual styles of these two movements were vastly different from each other in an almost opposing fashion, but one thing they both had in common was how we their visuals characterise the general attitude of the people within their respective cultures. With Punk and its rebellions nature and Psychadelia with its free-spirited whimsy.

References:

·         Robert Urquhart-grafik.net-2014[ https://www.grafik.net/category/archive/victor-moscoso][last accessed on 23/01/2014]