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One of the things about this time period, and Lester Beall's work really shows it,
is the interest in utilizing symbols and
putting symbols together to create an idea
that has more complexity than a conventional illustration.
This is a poster that Lester Beall designed for
a governmental entity: the U.S. Housing Authority.
And it's a poster advocating the building of new housing
to replace substandard housing and slums.
It's kind of a scary poster.
It says, “Slums Breed Crime”.
And you see behind, an image of a hand in a shackle,
like somebody has been arrested.
A photograph of a police action in a neighborhood with substandard housing.
You're meant to see them both together and to carry away a kind of memory
that's bolstered by the combination of the symbol and the realistic imagery.
Here's another poster for the same entity, where a hand that
is literally crossing out a picture of substandard housing,
shows a photograph in the hand of the new government-built housing,
which is landscaped and painted and obviously looks more inhabitable,
but the overall image is of the new crossing out the old.
It's a complex strategy for making an image that you will remember for
it's overall symbol, and then perhaps, think back to the detail under it.
For a while, in a series of posters that Lester Beall designed for
the Rural Electrification Administration that was funding, basically,
infrastructure projects, mostly in rural areas, to put in proper electricity,
and in some cases, water, he created this set of posters,
which were meant to hang in the offices of the Rural Electrification Administration,
which utilized big, bold, brightly colored symbols,
and then simple, straightforward graphic elements, like lines,
that appear like rays of light or indications of energy.
Or this poster, which advocates, again, the work for providing running water,
which simply shows an outline of a faucet and the idea of water being indicated both
by the blue background and then the arrows moving through the shape of the faucet.
These posters are like haiku, those short form,
Japanese poems that mean to create an idea with as little as possible.
In Lester Beall's posters during this time,
it's almost as if he's created a game for himself to see just how
simple a set of symbols he can create to make a memorable idea in a poster.
A more complicated set of posters for the same agency
are seen in this design where he uses the red, white, and
blue of the American flag to subtly remind people that
the benefits that are coming from this agency are part of the government.
Another series uses pictures of black and white photographs
of people attesting to the benefits of the activities of the government.
For instance, this woman doing her sewing by an electric lamp,
with the simple words, “Now I'm Satisfied”.
Or [LAUGH] this one,
of a man next to his horse, just simply saying, “Things Look Better”.
Things look better under light, and
that's indicated by that large white shape, and the bright yellow background.
So the energy of color, and
those big abstract shapes that you see in this series hold together
the idea of the advancement of the future and happy outcomes.
Here's another, from the same series, back to red, white, and blue,
add the caving, again, electricity in the role of defense of the country.
Or this poster that utilizes a man using electrified farm equipment.
The electricity and all of the things that are new,
are really symbolized by the color and the form.
It's this interesting balance that Beall achieves between the photograph and
how he frames it, in these posters, that works so well.
Louise SandhausFaculty, Program in Graphic Design
Lorraine WildFaculty, Program in Graphic Design
