Poster Recipes: Provocative Elegance by Alain Le Quernec.
This post is part of our Poster Recipe Series, dedicated to getting an inside look into the techniques and design practices used by some of the world’s most remarkable artists in creating their posters.
Alain Le Quernec is one of those truly iconic figures of European graphic design, whose posters simply speak for themselves. His clear and classy imagery is intertwined with the rich emotions and frivolity of a French temperament and is embodied with the love for ceaseless experiments.
Unswayed by the advertising influences, Alain Le Quernec’s posters are mainly political or social statements.
Ingredients
Simplicity
Message
Strive for change
Satisfaction
PREPARATION
As far as I can remember I’ve always been fascinated by the art of the streets. After becoming a professor I’ve chosen the poster as my way of expression, but I had to learn everything on my own since I’ve never actually studied graphic design when I was a student. I suppose that my craving for poster design can be viewed as a form of exhibitionism.
The poster art is full of contradictions. On one hand, I am fighting for the freedom of expression, while on the other my work is driven by demand. My main goal when creating a poster is not to make a client happy, but to feel satisfaction as an author after the work is done. Nevertheless, I practically never work on advertising projects because their philosophy is motivated by money and it forces you to be an illustrator of ideas imagined by others. That is why my posters are mostly cultural, social, and political.
Looking back I can name two events that were particularly important for my career. The first one was when I stopped teaching art, after six years of being an instructor, and moved to Poland for a year to become a student in professor Tomaszewski’s class. This was the time when Poland was still a communist country and the art of the poster was free from any commercial sway. The best designers, who worked on films and theater productions, had full artistic freedom to create posters the way they truly envisioned. I used to say that at the time the profit-driven censorship was much more severe than the political one. This creative utopia only existed in Poland and it lasted about 30 years. To this day the art from that time feels incredibly progressive. Tomaszewski was an amazing professor and he completely changed the way I think about my work.
The second milestone that had a truly profound effect on me as an artist happened during the civil unrest in France in 1968. This was when the walls were covered by political posters printed by art school students using a very simple technique called silkscreen. Following the revolts, French politicians quickly realized the power of a great poster and suddenly every political party wanted to use posters to convey their message, so in the next 15 years political posters were in huge demand. That gave me an opportunity to express how I feel and to participate in the political life of my country.
METHOD
I don’t like the word recipe when I think about my work because I always change what I do from one poster to another. I am constantly afraid of imitating my earlier work, so I continuously strive for change, plus I do not believe that having a well-defined style is necessarily important. I do, however, have certain habits and a particular way of thinking that I cannot escape, and maybe that can be considered my personal style.
For me, the essence of a poster is in its simplicity, its ability to quickly catch a viewer’s eye, and in having a message that can be grasped in a split second even if one doesn’t understand the language. A poster must strike its audience with the clarity of point. I cannot imagine a meaningless poster. The idea can be obvious or concealed, it can have a double entendre or be intricately complex, but it must be there.
The wording is without a doubt an integral part of the poster’s message, which is forged by the amalgamation of image and text. You cannot have one without the other. The relationship between the letterings and the graphical elements are essential for expressing the poster’s overall idea. Of course, there are posters with just wording and no imagery or vise versa, but like the flying fish, they are not very common.
Even though I’ve been doing this for many years, I am regularly disappointed by my work, and yet I am sure that one day I shall create a really good poster.
Olga is an exhibition curator and graphic designer residing in Los Angeles, California. Having a passion for the graphic arts, Olga Severina founded PosterTerritory initiative that became a launching platform for contemporary art shows and poster exhibitions in the US and abroad. Under its umbrella, she curates graphic art campaigns that tackle a variety of social issues and feature artworks by some of the biggest names in the international design community.
