Lengyel Sándor

Lengyel was an important poster artist with a unique tone. Despite posters having a humorous style was a common thing in the 1950s and 60s, Lengyel still managed to create a playful style of his own.  

Lengyel studied at the University of Applied Arts. From 1949 he had been working as an independent designer. In the 1960s, he was a highly wanted commercial poster and advertising artist. The majority of his designs was commercial posters, however, other thees can be found in his ouvre, such as circus, road safety, etc. Besides working a lot on posters, he also designed several slide films.

The slowly growing economy of the 1960s gave most of the comissions for Sándor Lengyel: he worked for big companies, well known brands, and state owned department stores.

The most typical element on Lengyel’s posters is that they display cartoon-like, attractive and charming figures: smiling little girls and boys, fashionable men and women. These cheerful figures emphasized the advantages of the product by creating a joyful and carefree atmosphere. Lengyel had a clear, simple, yet very elegant and effortless drawing style that originates in cartoon design. He also liked to use papercut techniques thus creating vivid, colourful shapes.  For fashion brands, he used a less humorous and playful style, which was more elegant. He built up his compositions from black silhouettes, surfaces of raster dots or other patterns, and colourful shapes. Lengyel also worked for bars, cafes, pubs and circus shows.                                                                                                                             .