60s Graphic Design

How It Works

I’ve selected a few simple base prompts that depict common 60s graphic design topics. You can see how each keyword changes the artwork from the base image below.

Psychedelic Art takes a more hand-drawn, organic look to it. Since hallucinogenics were popular in the 60s, this trippy and alternative Art emerged as a strong design trend.

Midjourney tends to generate brightly coloured, alternative artwork that looks like it came from a weird trip on acid.

I feel like I recommend minimalism in every one of my style guides, but the fact is it works so well with all styles and AIs, so it’s hard not to recommend.

Most image generators today have an issue of overcrowding. They generate so much noise in the background that the subject gets lost. The minimalist prompt helps Midjourney simplify its artwork and helps the subject stand out.

Also, the minimalism movement began in the 50s but gained popularity in the 60s. That’s why Midjourney is really good at generating these striking pieces meant to replicate the design of that period.

This is the most famous style to come out of the decade. With popular culture getting more and more integrated into people’s lives, artists started to incorporate it into their art.

Although pop art’s style was actually quite varied at the time, Midjourney (and frankly the rest of the world) tends to associate the style with the work of its two most famous artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. This means brightly colored, silkscreened images that look like they’ve jumped off the page of a comic book.

Most image generators today tend to have an issue of over crowding. They generate so much noise in the background of an that the subject gets lost. The minimalist prompt helps Midjourney simplify it’s artwork and it really helps the subject stand out.

Also, the minimalism movement began in the 50’s, but really gained popularity in the 60s. That’s why Midjourney is really good at generating these striking pieces meant to replicate design of that period.

Conceptual Art is Art in which the concept behind the artwork is equal if not more important than that of the aesthetic itself.

Midjourney interprets this to come up with some pretty unique compositions.

Acid was the name of a popular hallucinogenic, and taking the drug helped many graphic designers in the 60s find inspiration for some pretty trippy designs.

This prompt has a cool, melted effect on Midjourney. It generates images that look like the artwork has gone through an accident at the candle factor.

Similar to acid, trippy describes designs that were born out of a wild adventure on hallucinogenics. They are very psychedelic in nature.

It’s also a great prompt to use in Midjoueny. It creates brightly colored line art that you can’t stop looking at.

This prompt has more of a general effect. It just makes the images look more solidified in the 60s period.

Lithography printing is where a person etches their design in a metal plate, and then the design is printed on the paper through a chemical reaction.

Images generated using this keyword have a weathered look like they haven’t completely printed properly. This is the risk of using this type of printing. They also have a hand-drawn look to them, mimicking the design look.

Pro Tip: If you’d like your images to be colorful, make sure to add the words “colorful halftone” to your prompt.

Etching is used in a wide range of printing styles, such as Lithography. It’s the process of carving your design onto a material that can be used to print the design. It can be metal like in lithography, or it can be wood like in Ukiyo-e, or simply just rubber like in stamps.

Since it’s such a manual process, the designs often come out imperfect and faded.