Psychedelic movement

The word itself psychedelic in mind is to produce vivid visions which affect the mind greatly, the art techniques themselves are immensely powerful it is as if the designer was hallucinating while doing it as if he or she was in a kind of drugged state to produce this kind of work, however it is very fascinating on account of the designer had to be in a different state, exploring abnormalities that make the movement interesting.

There are several movements and techniques, which inspired psychedelic for instance the flowing curves, textures from the movement Art Nouveau, the use intense colour, practically undecipherable letters, complimentary colours, making use of popular culture images. Plenty of the designers in this movement were inspired by Pop art. Other things that inspired the psychedelic movement:  Rock musicians had inspired fashion had inspired youth culture, vibrating effect in graphic lines and texture was made into many wall paper designs, underground comic book styles were also popular.

Social life was absolute chaos during this movement, which have inspired a large number of artists and designers to create interesting, designs, magazines. Even fans created interesting magazines themselves, in spite of not being designers themselves they created interesting magazine concepts titled “Fanzines” it is basically a nonofficial and nonprofessional published work, created by fans of a particular culture, fanzines improved over the years, in the beginning fanzines  were hand-drafted or typed, only a limited number were made at the time, but eventually grew popular, however since technology developed greatly, there is a little difference between a normal fanzine and a professional magazine.

The movement developed in the mid-1960. The Psychedelic movement had affected cultures, lifestyles, music, social activities, literature and various other day to day activities.  

Victor Moscoso was a trained designer in the psychedelic movement, one of his techniques was to reduce a photograph to its most essential shapes, Art Nouveau inspired curvilinear shapes, illegible hand-drawn type and intense optical vibration which was inspired by the Pop art movement.  Moscoso applied what he had learned about the colour theory and  turned it upside thereby creating colour discord by colliding up colours of similar intensity next to one another. Moscoso had designer over 60 concert posters within eight months.

Peter Max was another influential designer of the psychedelic movement; Peter Max used softer colours and more accessible images, simple outlines illustrations which were often gave a comic book feel to his work, however his ideas were very inspiration he also rejected most of the anti-establishment values of youth culture and focused on softer ideas.

 Reference 

Anon, 1960-1975 sixties’ Psychedelia [online] available at: http://gds.parkland.edu/gds/!lectures/history/1960/psychedelia.html [accessed 17^th December 2013]

Renee T. 2011. Psychedelic 60s [Online], available at: http://visualartsdepartment.wordpress.com/psychedelic-60s/ [accessed 17^th December 2013]