Black Flag, 1981
Henry Rollins with Black Flag playing at Cardiff Top Rank during their UK tour. I watched an interview where Rollins explains that he keeps track of which year a photo was taken by looking at his hair length. Short means early in his career, like in this photo.
Although this IS a design blog, creatives often take inspiration from those who like to break and bend the rules.
Slash was a Punk/New wave magazine focusing on the LA scene that was in print from 1977 to 1980.
Here’s a quick side-by-side of a “punk” poster compared to a more conventionally designed poster. Immediately what is noticed is a more D.I.Y. and rugged feel to the punk style. It intentionally breaks design rules and standards and prioritizes a non-comformist feeling.
The detail that this style of poster gets right is always emphasizing the bands. By making this one of the biggest items on the flyer it immediately weeds your audience down to: those who know and would like to attend, and those who are curious and are interested in attending. Of course, this sacrafices other details like address, time, and date, which are all the smallest details at the very bottom.
Raymond Pettibon for Black Flag, 1980
Arguably the most prolific punk illustration artist to come out of American punk scene. Pettibon made a name for himself by designing flyers for Black Flag, and other SST groups, during their peak years.
Another important facet of punk flyers is the imagery. Many of these groups opted to hire artists or use their own art, and many times these illustrations are be polarizing. The art above is one of the more tame examples. This again would weed-out those who seek out more extreme versions of music as oppose to those who would rather not listen.
At its core, Punk, and the hardcore genre in general, is a political movement. All of these flyers call to some type of social issue through its design language; even if goes against all the rules of design. These sentiments range from anti-establishment, anti-war, anti-capitalism, to anti-racism. All in all enveloping the message of:
All power to all the people.