- While much of the design world in the 1960s and 1970s
embraced Swiss modernism and Helvetica, another group
of designers turned to an eclectic and exuberant approach.
Unlike the Fillmore posters, this work was rooted
in ideas of decoration, expressive form,
and the human touch, rather than rebellion and drugs.
Again, technology is a strong component of a shift.
In the 1960s, phototypesetting became
the prevalent way of getting type.
For decades, designers ordered type that was set in metal.
Now, a system existed that used a negative and film
technology to generate letterforms.
This opened the door to typeface designs that could
never be made in metal because they were
too thin, too heavy, or too elaborate.
Now with phototypesetting, the finest of hairline rules,
ultra-tight letter spacing, and highly complex letterforms
could be generated and used by a designer.
Like the Fillmore posters, the Eclectic movement
also looked back to Victorian and Art Deco forms.
These had been deemed bad design for the generation
following Bauhaus modernism, but many designers
began to feel boxed in by minimal Swiss modernism and wanted
to work with other styles in a more humanist approach.
Now led by designers like Herb Lubalin, designers looked
back and integrated these styles into their work.
This wasn't simply a copying of a Victorian design.
The best solutions took the forms and images
and repurposed them for a contemporary audience.
A magazine spread by Lubalin adopts 19th century
typography and ornament and adapts it
with a Modernist grid and vibrant color.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the layouts
became more and more elaborate,
and the typefaces more extreme.
The overly decorative and exaggerated forms
shocked most of the design establishment.
A split began between the Modernists and the designers
rejecting those hardline rules.
Illustration began to replace photography as a way
of embracing a warmer, less clinical and functional tone.
Push Pin Studios adopted Art Deco,
Art Nouveau, and other historical forms
and mixed illustration with typography.
Typographic Eclecticism was never meant
to be elitist or considered high art.
Designers like Herb Lubalin in New York and Margaret Larsen
in San Francisco considered Swiss typography
to be aimed at a small elite, while Typographic Eclecticism
was warmer and appealed to a wider mass audience.
Like the Fillmore posters, this idea opened the doors
to a wide variety of design movements to follow.
Rejecting functionalism, embracing personal expression,
mixing media, and appropriating forms from other time
periods became components of the Post-modern movement
and dominated design in the 1980s.