‘With his smooth, warm, red face which radiated light in all directions, Chairman Mao Zedong was a fixture in Chinese propaganda posters produced between the birth of the People’s Republic in 1949 and the early 1980s. These infamous posters were, in turn, central fixtures in Chinese homes, railway stations, schools, journals, magazines, and just about anywhere else where people were likely to see them. Chairman Mao, portrayed as a stoic superhero (a.k.a. the Great Teacher, the Great Leader, the Great Helmsman, the Supreme Commander), appeared in all kinds of situations (inspecting factories, smoking a cigarette with peasant workers, standing by the Yangzi River in a bathrobe, presiding over the bow of a ship, or floating over a sea of red flags), flanked by strong, healthy, ageless men and “”masculinized”” women and children wearing baggy, sexless, drab clothing.’
Designer Profiles, Members Only Content
Karl Oskar Blase was born in 1925 in Cologne, Germany. He was a prolific painter, designer, sculptor and exhibition curator. His work included magazine covers, for publications such as Form and Gebrauchsgraphik, stamp designs for the German Postal Service and film posters for companies such as Atlas Films.
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Advertising Design, Design Archive Feature, Members Only Content, Regional Histories
As a chemist, I have an obligation to be curious – I grab a stack of our chemical journals and start with the advertising section. I start it, the walk through the sand. I don’t want to deny some oases. But soon I’m bored and tired.
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Design Archive Feature, Magazines & Publishing, Members Only Content
Graphis is one of the industries most long-standing magazines. It was first published in 1944 and founded by Walter Herdeg and Walter Amstutz in Zurich, Switzerland. It was released bimonthly and was trilingual, with articles in English, French and German.
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