Designer Days: Make it POP

Art has had many tendencies over the years, one of which emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain - it was that of Pop Art.

Posing a challenge to the fine art traditions that preceded it, pop art became not so much about the content of the works but the attitudes that developed and embraced it.

Pop art often takes imagery from popular culture such as advertising and news as its subject matter.

One of the most well know artist of the pop art world was Andy Warhol. Warhol in his days understood shopping and the allure of celebrity. Together these obsessions drove the economy post World War 2. During this time Warhol captured an authentic American aesthetic through packaging products and people in his works. Warhol exploited his own ideas and his own creative talent to make money and enjoy his, and help others have their, "15 minutes of fame" - an expression he widely used and coined.

Warhol understood colour influences and their effects based on historical findings of Goethe. According to Goethe, what we see of an object depends upon the object, the lighting and what we believe it to be - our perception of what it is. For example, red makes you hungry, this is why McDonalds uses the colour in their advertising as apposed to blue which is a calming colour and would not entice one to eat.

Complimenting his use of colour Warhol focused on graphics works as he believed it to exhibit more than normal significance in a rapidly changing world with the development of technologies.

Andy Warhol died on February 22, 1987 but his art lives on.