5 Group Projects at ICA exhibition poster
Contributed by Dom Cooper on Oct 30th, 2024. Artwork published in
.
Dom Cooper. License: All Rights Reserved.
Poster for an exhibition at the ICA London in 1964. The five multi-disciplinary projects came from four schools: Bath Academy of Art in Corsham, St. Martin’s School of Art in London (2×), College of Art in Leeds, and the Department of Fine Art at King’s College in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
The poster was designed by James Meller, a graphic designer who worked extensively for the Institute of Contemporary Arts. It uses Venus Extended for the title and Akzidenz-Grotesk for the information. Meller was one of the eight founding members of Foster Associates in 1967. In the photo shown at the end of this post, he can be seen on the far right, with the team and Buckminster Fuller.
Dom Cooper. License: All Rights Reserved.
Dom Cooper. License: All Rights Reserved.
Dom Cooper. License: All Rights Reserved.
License: All Rights Reserved.
3 Comments on “5 Group Projects at ICA exhibition poster”
Thanks, Dom! I wonder where the large letterforms used for the title came from. They are basically a match for Venus Bold Extended, but are distinguished by counters that get intersected by the vertical stems, see the countershape in g and p. Is this a poster cut (in wood), maybe? Or did Meller redrew the glyphs by hand, introducing these small deviations? The letters also seem to be a tad bolder – but not as bold as Venus Extrabold Extended.
Ah, I can answer the question myself: a look into a specimen poster issued by Letraset in 1965 reveals that their dry-transfer adaptation exhibits such counters. It doesn’t show the letters g and p, but we get to see the b.
Great to see Florian. Those details are what I like about it. The actual poster is a vibrant screenprint, and they could have used letraset on a transparency to make a screen.