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ANATOMY OF DESIGN
Psychedelic design was one of the first indigenous American graphic design
mannerisms. Born of LSD and marijuana drug crazes in the late 1960s, it was
the language of the alternative rock-and-roll scene. It was also a code
designed to appeal initially to those exponents of the youth culture, but it
quickly spread like a virus into the mainstream of popular culture, where it
lost much of its contraband aura.
Tadanori Yokoo, one of Japan’s leading designers, was smitten by
psychedelia’s vibrating colors, free-form images, and quirky perspectives and
introduced Japan to his own brand of psychedelic style. In turn, he influenced
the postmodern ...