ICM - Leeds Design Agency

Otl Aicher created possible the finest set of sports posters for the 1972 Olympics, and I’d go as far as saying the finest sports posters ever. He is held in such high regard over his involvement with that olympics that he set the bench mark for many future designs.The posters are timeless and wouldn’t look out of place at this years olympics.

What made them so great was the fact they captured the nature of each event they represented, simplistic yet bold and with great use of typography.

The canoe and 100 metre sprint posters capture the movement of the sport so well because of their simplicity, straight lines on the track give the feeling of speed, and the mass of texture on the canoe poster make you feel the power of the rapids.

The boxing poster has an certain intensity because of the contrasting colours, almost looking like a thermal image you can feel the heat of the two boxers.

In contrast the on archery poster you get a sense of concentration due to the calmness of the olympians face.

I’m really looking forward to the 2012 London olympics posters and hope they live up to the standards set by a truly great design…

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Part 2 of band poster is here, click here for a look back on part 1

This Lomita really benefits from being two colour. In the background old newspaper clippings add depth, and in the fore ground stylish hand written typography dominates, grabbing your attention.

Band of Horses are an Interesting band with a interesting vocal style, The poster is advertising a show in Dallas and seems to have a Western feel to it, what looks like the corner of a dollar bill points to the text which has an image of the Texas wilderness in it.

An extremely linear and uniform poster for the band TOY, with a clear hierarchy of type sizes, I like this but think it could of be even better if it had been done in a screen printing style.

Angular illustration is used to create a stylish end result for this Radiohead poster. The type appears to be an extension of the main illustration, and the whole piece fits together very well, in part due to the extended hands drawing the viewers eye all over the poster.

I like this Death Cab for Cutie poster because of the contrasting image, a teddy bear holding a knife, and what is he going to do with it?

Some posters are far too busy. This Cold War Kids poster isn’t one of them. It makes excellent use of white space, and really draws the viewer’s eye to the band name and illustration.

Bold strips of colour on this The Dirty Sound poster push the retro illustration of the balloon towards you, to create a sense of perspective. Having the text on an angle also creates moveme…

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Sometimes posters catch your eye, make you look twice, smile and even laugh. If you remember the product the poster was advertising then it’s a job well done.

Different countries have different styles and in this early 80’s Japanese motocompo poster it’s obvious they are trying a westernised approach, the result is hilarious, but in a strange way so uncool it’s really cool.

It made me want to find out more about the motocompo.

The motocompo is a ‘trunk bike’ that was produced in the early 80’s by Honda and is now something of a collectors item. The two-wheeler features fold-away handle bars, which allow it to fit into the back of a hatchback car. It has a sturdy rugged design, which seen as no one appears to own a table it can come in handy. If they can get Madness on the promotional material they must be doing something right.

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