Our new Master is known for his genius mind and kind heart. He is a true friend of the Poster Poster family and we are very happy to share his incredible talent with you.
István Orosz is a Hungarian painter, printmaker, graphic designer and animated film director. He is known for his mathematically inspired works, impossible objects, optical illusions, double-meaning images and anamorphoses, which have often been compared to the works of M. C. Escher. István studied at the Hungarian University of Arts and Design (now Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design) in Budapest. After graduating in 1975 he began to deal with theatre as stage designer and animated film as an animator and film director. Currently he works as Film director at the PannóniaFilm Studio in Budapest, Habil; and is a Professor at the University of West Hungary in Sopron. He is a regular participant in the major international biennials of posters and graphic art and his works has been shown in individual and group exhibitions in Hungary and abroad., He is co-founder of the Hungarian Poster Association, and member of the Alliance Graphique International (AGI) and Hungarian Art Academie. He has published several books and has won many important international awards, including Best Script at the 1st KAFF Animated Film Festival, Gold Medal at the Biennial of Graphic Design Brno, First Prize at the International Poster Biennial Lahti, Icograda-prize at the International Poster Show in Chaumont; and the Gold medal at the Annual Exhibition of Society of Illustrators in New York.
Istvan’s Answers
We asked Istvan our “Poster Poster Questions” and this is what he had to say.
1. What does the poster mean to you and why do you design posters?
The poster is like a short circuit, a quick electrical circuit which means a dramatic connection between 2 notes, the idea and the image). This circuit causes a strong visual explosion. I work with posters because this is the profession I studied, because I have poster commissions regularly and because I earn money with this. Sometimes I also design posters without any commissions and of course with no salary, so probably I also like to do it or maybe I am infected, anyway posters are part of life.
2. What would you say makes a good poster?
Generally speaking the poster is the art of the present tense. The message of the poster has a meaning only in a single moment and it does not make any sense in other places or times. Posters are the channel of the here and the now but good posters I mean the really good ones are valued all over the world, and if you were with these posters you remember them for a long time. Let me hazard to say forever.
3. What do you think is the role of the poster on the world today?
The role of the poster is different to what it used to be 20 or 30 years ago. In those days the poster was most important part of the visual communication. Now there are fresher and less expensive medias. We can see less posters in the streets but more and more posters on the buses, galleries, museums, exhibitions, etc. It is good and bad at the same time. Bad because the original function of the poster disappears, yet it is good because the new pieces are made without the demands of the clients, which was in most of the cases a kind of censorship. So they are freer, more independent, fresher and they can take new, sometimes more responsible functions.
4. What is your typical design process for making a poster?
There is no typical design process or in my case I do not follow it. All posters are different this is what makes the work exciting. There are 2 parts of any pieces of work: the idea and the graphics. There are cases when I have to think about the idea for weeks or even longer and sometimes there are days when they ready in a second. There are no rules to follow, I drink coffee, I read some books, I walk in the forest nearby, I surf on the internet, I draw dozens of sketches and then tear them up into pieces and so on. Well the biggest assistance which usually makes me to finish the work is the deadline.
5. If you could chose a poster in history as your favourite, which one would it be and why?
I like a lot of posters and I have many favourites poster designers some of them I know personally, some of them inspire me and the others I simply admire. But I do not want to pick up any of them as my only favourite. Poster is a democratic type of art where we do not have icons and we do not follow a god.
6. What advice would you give to new designers who might want to become poster designers?
If you want to create a poster try to sum your idea in a short text. Read it through, carefully and try to reduce it. You will realise that there are sentences that you do not really need. Delete them. Edit through a few more times again and you will still find words, phrases, attributes which can also be deleted. Minimize all the text again and then you do not not need any letter at all. You have become a poster designer). Sorry that I was speaking for so long it does not fit to the poster and thank you very much for your attention.
