Week Two: Style

In class, in our word brainstorm, one of the columns that we looked at were styles, we thought that it would be beneficial to research some types of graphic design styles and how they are useful in design to communicate a certain point or address a certain target audience. This process advanced us in my project by enabling us to see what different styles represent and what effect they have when communicating a point or concept, so therefore I can ensure that I am choosing the correct style for the point/argument/concept that I want to portray in my poster design.

The following list is compiled from the major design movements that make up what most designers know today to be the various styles of design or approaches to design.

Victorian – characterized by symmetrical layouts, heavy ornamentation and decoration. This approach has seen a revival as of late with its heavily ornamented type, and detailed illustrations.

Art Nouveau – best known for its flat, outlined illustrations and hand-drawn typefaces. Often, this style is confused with Art Deco, but there is a clear distinction between the two. Art Nouveau looks hand drawn and lacks the highly geometric shapes that define the Art Deco style.








Early Modern – geometrically based, with a minimalistic approach, this style is dominated by clean type and photos rather than illustrations.

Art Deco – employed aero-dynamic shapes, Egyptian zigzags, motion lines and an airbrushed or grainy look. Think original comic books and old car show posters. This style has, once again, become increasingly popular over the last year or so and will most likely continue to do so. Unlike the Early Modern style, Art Deco highly exercises its use of illustrations and graphic representations of everything from everyday objects to cars and cruise ships.

Late Modern – mostly known for, distorted geometric shapes, and informal layouts. The only aspect of this style that isn’t informal is the type, which was devoid of decoration.

Swiss/International – best recognized for its complete lack of embellishment, this style employs the use of negative space, or areas lacking content, in layouts and could appropriately be labeled as very “clean.”

Contemporary – exemplifies simplicity and structure. Often, with the Contemporary style, visual metaphors and conceptual imagery are used.

Post-Modern – this miss-mash style is best characterized by a tilted axis, collage-like illustrations, overlying figures, and impulsive decoration. This style has been used in varying degrees since its first uses and, if used correctly, can give projects a unique expression.

Digital/Grunge – the most recent step in the design evolutionary process, this style emerged only within the last decade and is easily recognized by its extensive use of distressed textures, unrefined edges, and a seemingly nonsensical approach to layout.

Psychedelic – promoted the use of abstracted curvilinear shapes, clashing colors, and hard-to-read fonts. Rarely used in today’s designs, the trippy posters of the 60s are the most easily recognisable contribution of the Psychedelic style.

Sachplakat –  The term Sachplakat, or Object Poster, was coined in Germany to describe a new type of poster which featured a realistic depiction of the product and little else.

Surrealism – Surrealism images explored the subconscious areas of the mind. The artwork often made little sense as it was usually trying to depict a dream or random thoughts. 

Collage – Collage is a technique of an art production, where the artwork is made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. A collage may sometimes include magazine and newspaper clippings, ribbons, paint, bits of colored or handmade papers, portions of other artwork or texts, photographs and other found objects, glued to a piece of paper or canvas

Photographic Design  – Photographic design is when you use photographs as either the main element or background image. Sometimes treatment and/or editing takes place, this is done so that the photo matches the  content and theme of what is being advertised.

After looking into these, we think that the most applicable to our topic, which we will explore further in our designing, are late modern, contemporary, surrealism, collage and photographic design.