Photographis 85: The International Annual of Advertising and Editorial Photography
Edited by Walter Herdeg
Graphis Press, 220 pages, 1985
If there’s one thing I love almost as much as my stash of 1980s fashion magazines, it’s my collection of graphic arts annuals from the same era. Photographis 85 is a great example of why these trade books are always worth picking up at book sales, thrift shops and on local buy-sell websites like Craigslist and Kijiji (I can’t tell you how many ads I’ve come across posted by retired art directors and graphic artists getting rid of their whole reference libraries for bargain prices). The variety of images is of course fantastic and the quality — both of the images and the book itself — is high, but what I love the most is that the content is culled internationally and includes brochure and trade images the general public would never likely see. So today, I offer a brief taste of what’s in the pages of Photographis 85 as an illustration of why every obsessive ’80s fashion and design freak should be hunting these annuals down to add to their library.
Danskin, Dance magazine. Photograph by Richard Avedon.
Kenzo. Photograph by Hans Feurer.
Catena. Photograph by P.A. Nicole.
Champion paper. Photograph by Al Newman.
Italian Vogue. Photograph by Albert Watson.
Italian Vogue. Photograph by Steven Meisel.
Arnold Scaasi, Connoisseur magazine. Photograph by Alen McWeeney.
Hostmann-Steinberg Printing Inks poster calendar. Photograph by Klappert/Eisermann.
