Basquiat American Masters Poster Series

This ad poster series was developed to promote PBS’s American Masters TV series, which highlights a wide range of artists and their cultural impact throughout American history. Basquiat has uniquely colorful work, but many of his available picture portraits are in black and white, creating heavy contrast. This series is designed to blend his art with his photos to show how he was deeply intertwined with his work, as it represented his self-portraits, cultural upbringing, and social struggles. With the black and white versus color contrast, the sub-headline, “ a flash of color on the American timeline,” was developed, which recognized both his bold artistic style and his tragic passing. To further convey the relationship between him and his work, the title uses a lower contrast piece that is embedded into “Basquiat” while letting “Jean Michel” give dimension and be used for visual support.