The psychedelic art movement emerged back in the 1960’s and was a mainstream style. The style was based on psychedelic experiences which usually are a result of hallucinating drugs such as LSD. The word psychedelic means mind manifesting. If you take a look at the style it makes perfect sense with characteristics of the style.
Psychedelic art is based on the use of bright colours such as complementary colours on top of each other, example; the use of bright yellow typeface, on bright purple contrasting background. The style is also composed of optical vibrating effects of graphic lines or optical illusions. This character comes out when the artists use colorful lines to portray a psychedelic experience as never seen before. The artists usually compose the work using curvilinear shapes to keep the psychedelic sensation. Progressing with curvilinear shapes the text was usually oversized, squeezed and stretched to fit a particular shape, thus having the main title of the work illegible. Usually in their posters they used to have a smaller typeface giving instructions on what the poster was about. The artists were usually using text as an image, not just a way to make people read. They used to make the text hard to by readable, probably to make people more interested in the piece of work.
The style managed to influence the mainstream audiences, resulting in the popularity of the LSD. This was also a boost to the psychedelic style as the drug was usually associated with style. More over the hippie culture became highly famous and due to the connection between the hippie culture and the psychedelic movement the psychedelic art movement went viral, with famous psychedelic music artists hiring psychedelic artists to portray their music into album covers, posters, flyers and more.
Psychedelic artists were highly influenced by the fact that the WWII had just passed, and the people were demonstrating and advertisement about peace and love. Some also call the style as the peace and love style.
The style had many collaborators such as; Victor Moscoso, Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin and many more. Victor Moscoso known for many works with the psychedelic art movement had a particular preference when creating posters or designs. When he used to create posters the photography technique was highly used by different artists. But Moscoso was different, although there was photography he still preferred keeping everything hand painting, keeping emphasis that works done by hand are easier to have exactly what you have in mind.
In my opinion the style still leaves an inspiration for the artists today, not just graphic designers but also fashion designers, interior designers and more. The fashion from the hippie culture is still used today, for example the use of the peace sign is still mainstream, and still being used and worn as a pendant like they used to do back in the 60’s.
Psychedelic art is based on the use of bright colours such as complementary colours on top of each other, example; the use of bright yellow typeface, on bright purple contrasting background. The style is also composed of optical vibrating effects of graphic lines or optical illusions. This character comes out when the artists use colorful lines to portray a psychedelic experience as never seen before. The artists usually compose the work using curvilinear shapes to keep the psychedelic sensation. Progressing with curvilinear shapes the text was usually oversized, squeezed and stretched to fit a particular shape, thus having the main title of the work illegible. Usually in their posters they used to have a smaller typeface giving instructions on what the poster was about. The artists were usually using text as an image, not just a way to make people read. They used to make the text hard to by readable, probably to make people more interested in the piece of work.
The style managed to influence the mainstream audiences, resulting in the popularity of the LSD. This was also a boost to the psychedelic style as the drug was usually associated with style. More over the hippie culture became highly famous and due to the connection between the hippie culture and the psychedelic movement the psychedelic art movement went viral, with famous psychedelic music artists hiring psychedelic artists to portray their music into album covers, posters, flyers and more.
Psychedelic artists were highly influenced by the fact that the WWII had just passed, and the people were demonstrating and advertisement about peace and love. Some also call the style as the peace and love style.
The style had many collaborators such as; Victor Moscoso, Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin and many more. Victor Moscoso known for many works with the psychedelic art movement had a particular preference when creating posters or designs. When he used to create posters the photography technique was highly used by different artists. But Moscoso was different, although there was photography he still preferred keeping everything hand painting, keeping emphasis that works done by hand are easier to have exactly what you have in mind.
In my opinion the style still leaves an inspiration for the artists today, not just graphic designers but also fashion designers, interior designers and more. The fashion from the hippie culture is still used today, for example the use of the peace sign is still mainstream, and still being used and worn as a pendant like they used to do back in the 60’s.
Reference:
Art History, N/A, Introduction to history of Psychedelic art. [Online] Available at: <http://www.arthistory.net/artstyles/psychedelicart/psychedelicart1.html> accessed on: [29/11/14].
Wikipedia, 08/12/14, Psychedelic Art. [Online] Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_art> accessed on: [22/11/14].
Visual Art Department, N/A, Psychedelic 60’s. [Online] Available at: <https://visualartsdepartment.wordpress.com/psychedelic-60s/> accessed on: [22/11/14].
Art History, N/A, Introduction to history of Psychedelic art. [Online] Available at: <http://www.arthistory.net/artstyles/psychedelicart/psychedelicart1.html> accessed on: [29/11/14].
Wikipedia, 08/12/14, Psychedelic Art. [Online] Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_art> accessed on: [22/11/14].
Visual Art Department, N/A, Psychedelic 60’s. [Online] Available at: <https://visualartsdepartment.wordpress.com/psychedelic-60s/> accessed on: [22/11/14].