How posters work / Ellen Lupton.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 214-215) and index.

Foreword / Caroline Baumann -- Vision is a process / Ellen Lupton -- How posters are made / Caitlin Condell -- Kauffer's technique: Graham Twemlow -- A note on technique / Edward McKnight Kauffer -- Poster with a central image / Bruno Munari -- Poster No. 524: focal point / Rianne Petter and René Put -- Night discourse / Karrie Jacobs -- Collecting posters / Gail S. Davidson -- Focus the eye -- Overwhelm the eye -- Simplify -- Cut and paste -- Overlap -- Assault the surface -- Activate the diagonal -- Manipulate scale -- Use text as image -- Tell a story -- Double the meaning -- Amplify -- Make eye contact -- Make a system.

How Posters Work is more than a standard exhibition catalogue. Conceived as a useful and illuminating primer in visual thinking, it explores principles of design through a range of historical and contemporary works, uncovering ideas relevant not just to the design of posters but to 2D design more generally. How Posters Work has a unique focus on visual language. Rather than provide a history of the genre or a compilation of collectibles, the book is organized around active design principles. Concepts such as Simplify, Focus the eye, Exploit the diagonal, Reverse expectations, and Say two things at once are illustrated with a diverse range of posters, from avant-garde classics and rarely seen international works to contemporary pieces by today's leading graphic designers. Illustrated with over 150 works from the collection of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, How Posters Work provides a stunning education in seeing and making, demonstrating how some of the worlds most creative designers have mobilized principles of layout, composition, psychology, and rhetoric to produce powerful acts of visual communication.