Mark Gowing: Inside The Oblong

Poster design in the space between creativity and purpose Mark Gowing: Inside the Oblong collects twenty years of posters by the esteemed designer and is a portrait of his uncompromising process for commercial clients and his own personal practice. Over 288 pages the book explores the rhythms, proportion and dynamics of the oblong space that is the poster. The work is divided into five broad categories: Commercial, Exhibition, Film, Music and Practice. The posters display an approach to type, image and pattern that is immediately recognisable as Gowing’s.As Finn writes, “Gowing deeply understands the rules of design, yet regularly breaks them without restraint. He frequently uses the poster format in the same way one might use an artist’s canvas: as a means to express ideas, to experiment, to challenge, and to discover new things in the process.”Always with an audience in mind, the works featured include posters for the Sydney Opera House, Venice Art Biennale, Australian War Memorial,