Designer Desire: Kenneth Bromfield

Kenneth Bromfield is yet another hugely talented British mid-century poster designer that I couldn’t find much background information about.

There are lots more posters that I could have included however, quite a few of them included photographs of scantily-clad ladies seductively peering out from the poster encouraging the viewer to visit Sussex, Kent, Eastbourne, Dorset and Hampshire. I don’t like those ones so much; I don’t think he did so much either. Perhaps this is why in a 1962 issue of Advertiser’s Weekly he was quoted as saying:

Why is our advertising so bloody awful? Mainly because it is lacking in interest, ideas and design. And repetitive to the point of boredom…. From any cross-section of ads, the general advertiser’s attitude would seem to be: if you are a lousy, smelly, idle, underprivileged, and over-sexed status-seeking neurotic moron, give me your money.
_{Are You a Miserable Old Bastard? Quips, Quotes, And Tales From The Eternally Pessimistic Book – A. Andrew John and Stephen Blake}

If you’re interested, original examples occasionally come up for sale at auction and sell in the low hundreds of pounds. Your best bet is to sign up for alerts at websites such as The Saleroom. Otherwise, try specialist vintage sellers such as Antikbar, Twentieth Century Posters, and Poster Editions.

Image credits:

Designer Desire: Ib Antoni

We’ve been publishing our weekly Designer Desire series for about 3 years now, so you’d forgive us for forgetting who we have, and haven’t, featured so far. One of the items that we get contacted about most often is a vintage Ib Antoni poster (pictured in the montage above). It advertises Danish Fortnight at Neiman-Marcus in Dallas, Texas; we could have sold it dozens of times over! We’re really surprised that we haven’t researched and shared some of the other fabulous designs that he created.

Ib Antoni (1929-1973) was born in Esbjerg, Denmark. He was commissioned by over 150 international brands and companies such as Carlsberg, UNICEF, Philips, Lurpak, Volvo and Life Magazine.

As well as advertising and illustration, Antoni designed textiles and porcelain for Royal Copenhagen and Bing and Grøndahl. In 1968, he illustrated a sweet, little children’s book, Merry Cherry, a story by Henning Nystad about a starling in love with an unattainable cherry. The cover illustration can be seen in the montage above – second from bottom, on the right.

In 1973 at the age of only 44, he tragically died following an arson attack at Copenhagen’s Hotel Hafnia. His legacy work is being reproduced for sale by his family and a small number of original examples can still be found on Etsy.

Visit the official Ib Antoni Instagram feed to see lots of other examples of his work and a few really interesting contemporaneous photographs of his designs out in the wild!

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Additional image credits:

IbAntoni.dk

Designer Desire: Ruben Suryaninov

My first introduction to Soviet propaganda art and design was at university via one of my tutors. David Crowley is a cultural historian of Eastern Europe under communist rule and has published a number of books on and around the subject. Having finished watching (the absolutely brilliant) Chernobyl this week, I was thinking about the ideology, values and beliefs of communism.

Pro-communist agitprop posters were created and distributed on a large scale and there were a number of artists designing them from the 1920s onwards; Ruben Suryaninov (or Sur’yaninov) was one. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find much information about him – just the occasional paragraph in books. Suryaninov (b. 1930) attended the Academy of Riga and is the son of prominent Soviet artist, Vasily Sur’yaninov. Originally a film poster artist, Suryaninov shifted to designing political posters in the mid-1930s.

Subject matter encompassed themes such as productivity, health (or sanitation), safety, sport, farming & agriculture, war, national security and peace.

On the process of designing anti-smoking posters, Ruben Suryaninov observed:

…a scientific council would determine the topics and themes, an artistic director (redaktor) would assign the topic to a particular artist whose style was considered a good match… The aim was to produce a poster that would convey the message in a clear, correct manner.

Around 10 examples of his designs are held in archives at The University of Birmingham. There’s an online gallery of over 80 of his posters at Digital Soviet Art. Surprisingly, original Suryaninovposters come up for sale cheaply on eBay – sleepers, if you ask me!

Image credits:

Alembicrare books | Redbird Auction | Soviet Posters | Soviet Propaganda

Designer Desire: Cassandre

Mentor to last week’s Designer Desire focus, Raymond Savignac, Cassandre was an international graphic design and advertising heavyweight of the 20th century.

Cassandre – real name Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron – is best known for his playful Dubo Dubon Dubonnet artworks and his travel posters. They really give the feel of the time; the 1930s were all about modernism and the machine age – speed, sleekness and adventure. It was an epoch when international travel was becoming accessible to the masses.

He was responsible for creating the famous Yves St Laurent logo and scarf and playing card designs for Hermès. He also produced a number of typefaces including Acier Noir, Bifur, Greyhound and Peignot.

His works are in the permanent collections of MOMA and the V&A. His original posters can fetch as much as £30,000. However, a selection of prints are available from less than £10.00.

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Additional image credits:

Christies

H is for Home Harbinger

Tag: vintage poster design

Designer Desire: Kenneth Bromfield

Designer Desire: Ib Antoni

Designer Desire: Ruben Suryaninov

Designer Desire: Cassandre