Cartoon Modern shows off the fresh, zany and colorful designs of ‘50s animation artwork.

Ah, ‘50s design! Fresh, zany, colorful and “design-y,” the animation artwork lovingly displayed in Cartoon Modern by Amid Amidi is a treat for the eye. In a period where morés were conservative, the designs in this book were the harbingers of a freer way of looking at animation and advertising art. It was an age of optimism, and studios were opening one after the other, producing wonderful work. Perhaps as a result of the avant-garde in fine art, such as Picasso or the Bauhaus group, artists had begun absorbing a new and radically different approach to design, and one of the places it showed up early in the ‘50s was animation, both in BGs and character design.

Look at the Pictures
The introduction states, "Cartoon Modern seeks to establish the place of '50s animation design in the great Modernist tradition of the arts." It talks about people like Ward Kimball (who was more than just a trombone player with yellow suspenders), John Hubley, Maurice Noble, Eyvind Earle and many more. It mentions the contributions that contemporary jazz scores were having. How artists were inspired by magazine illustration and record cover illustrators. Or, you could just look at the book's pictures. They're fun!

Changes the Strike Brought
Then it gets into a bit of history, with the Disney style of animation and the Preston Blair book, Animation, that set the American style of cartoons early on, even back as far as the ‘30s. European animation art was not so constricted. The 1941 Disney strike was a turning point. From it came UPA, Columbia's Screen Gems, Schlesinger Studio and the Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit that enlisted so many good animators. All of these were training grounds for the artists who would make an impact in the ‘50s.

Amidi says, "Disney believed that characters should be live, individual personalities -- not just animated drawings. But '50s animation designers embraced the fact that cartoons were, in fact, a visual composition of lines and shapes..." Artists were looking for inspiration in the European artists, like Miró, Dufy and Calder. Backgrounds were no longer painted with realistic techniques; more attention was paid to negative space and architectural motifs. Characters were choreographed through their settings. Moreover, artists just didn't want to draw in the Disney style.

The Impact of TV
Television was just coming into its own and animation became a major player on the small screen. The change in film distribution laws that eliminated block booking, where a cartoon was always booked with the feature, put more of the cartoon studios in the commercial production field. In the ‘50s, one out of four commercials were animated, according to Amidi.

Part of the reason so much of the commercial work in the era was really good was because animation was new to most advertising agencies. And they took a hands-off approach to the art form for the most part. Artists were given an assignment, went away and came back with the completed work. Nobody looked over their shoulder! No submitting to a committee for okays! What a wonderful way to work, and the results were original, humorous and excellent designs.

Nineteen Studios
After the introduction, Amidi explains that the book shows both production and pre-production artwork. TV spots are identified by designer, not by director. The book then goes studio to studio, alphabetically from Academy Pictures to Warner Bros. (19 in all), giving a short history of each and the impact they had on animation in general. The top artists, in the author's opinion, are given credit for the influence they had on design in the ‘50s era, as well as on the studios they worked in. The book couldn't possibly cover all of the studios, but it does hit the best. Some of those studios were quite short lived, while several are still around.

Even though good artists left Disney in droves, Amidi gives credit where credit is due. Both Disney and Hanna-Barbera are included for the fine experimental work they did, even if it wasn't sustained. Studios like Ray Patin Prods., Shamus Culhane Prods. or Electra Films, of the smaller studios, are thought to have had a larger impact.