Read Soviet Space Graphics

I truly appreciate when an art book is primarily art — I’m here to look at the pictures 😉 Love the cover on this. They chose a nice matte paper that complemented the soft style of artwork throughout. I appreciated that they mostly dedicated full pages to each piece. I was drawn by the bright color palettes in use through many of the illustrations. Overall the selection felt relatively limited, representing mostly the same few magazines.

The color palette is striking, the blue nearly glowing against the orange sky. I like the soft, colorful illustration style applied to technology.

The gray-green background scattered with energetic white dashes is what catches my eye here. You’d think it would be too distracting, but it complements the main illustration instead by adding more liveliness. I have fountain pen ink similar to that greeny-blue color, which feels properly retro.

I like the combination of vibrantly colorful illustration contrasted with spare, high contrast black and white photography. The perspective is slightly skewed, the cross-sections slightly inconsistent, casting a hint of outsider art to the style.

In the 1969 piece, I see the influence of psychedelia, with its rainbow overlays on a black and white photo by V. Brel. The 1971 piece almost feels art deco with the bold symmetrical design and repeating background pattern.

With its sweeping curving lines, detailed and confident outlines, and a geometric illustrative figure, the style of this piece feels art nouveau inspired, which had a resurgence in the 60s and 70s. It’s interesting to me to see the visual influence of the western world leak over into Soviet illustrations — or perhaps it’s the reverse given Mucha’s slavic roots.