Warren Dayton
Encyclopedia
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
best known for his posters from psychedelic art
Psychedelic art
Psychedelic art is any kind of visual artwork inspired by psychedelic experiences induced by drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. The word "psychedelic" "mind manifesting". By that definition all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic"...
era, a pioneer of the use of T-shirts as an art medium, creator of corporate branding & logos such as Thomas Kinkade
Thomas Kinkade
Thomas Kinkade is an American painter of popular and commercial realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects. He is notable for the mass marketing of his work as printed reproductions and other licensed products via The Thomas Kinkade Company...
’s Lightpost Publishing, and internationally award-winning book, editorial, commercial illustration and typography. Dayton work ranges from funny and whimsical drawings used in many magazines and books, corporate branding and logos to illustrated features and books that have been honored by selection in design competitions and earned grants from the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
. He has authored and illustrated several books that have become collectors items; he continues to illustrate murals, posters and books. He founded Artifact, Ink studios in 2001 and currently works in the studio in the Sierra Foothills with several other artists and designers.
Biography
Warren Lloyd Dayton was born March 1, 1940 in Sacramento, California as the fourth generation of an early California pioneering art family. He won a scholarship to Chouinard Art InstituteChouinard Art Institute
The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 in Los Angeles, California, by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard .-Founder:...
in Los Angeles in 1961 (now known as California Institute of the Arts
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...
) where he studied illustration and advertising design. After working in ad agencies in southern California, he began a freelance career in 1965. In 1967, Dayton pioneered reproducing wearable art on t-shirts, unique enough at the time to warrant a feature in Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
West Magazine. Upon the emergence of the Hippies and explosion of counterculture art, Dayton's posters such as “Quack” and “Now” came to be highly collected from 1967–1973 and were featured on the cover and lead article about the psychedelic art
Psychedelic art
Psychedelic art is any kind of visual artwork inspired by psychedelic experiences induced by drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. The word "psychedelic" "mind manifesting". By that definition all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic"...
phenomenon in Life Magazine. Warren Dayton's posters can be seen in films and documentaries of the hippie and Haight-Ashbury era, such as American Experience
American Experience
American Experience is a television program airing on the Public Broadcasting Service Public television stations in the United States. The program airs documentaries, many of which have won awards, about important or interesting events and people in American history...
: Summer of Love
Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion...
(PBS Broadcasting, June 2007)
After converting to Christianity in 1974, Dayton founded Prints of Peace publishing the work of 12 Christian artists including fellow Chouinard (CalArts) alumni and psychedelic poster artist, Rick Griffin
Rick Griffin
Richard Alden Griffin was an American artist and one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters in the 1960s. As a contributor to the underground comix movement, his work appeared regularly in Zap Comix. Griffin was closely identified with the Grateful Dead, designing some of their best known...
. In 1985, Warren Dayton moved to the Sierra’s near Placerville, California, where he currently lives and works.
Warren Dayton began the design studio, ArtiFact, Ink in 2001. Recent awards include a poster chosen for the 2009 & 2008 Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles
Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles
The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles was founded in 1953 by a group of Southern California artists and designers "...to promote the professional status of illustration art as well as foster both philanthropic and educational goals"....
national competition Illustration West. He does work for charities, such as logos and mastheads for Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family is an American evangelical Christian tax-exempt non-profit organization founded in 1977 by psychologist James Dobson, and is based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Focus on the Family is one of a number of evangelical parachurch organizations that rose to prominence in the 1980s...
and Habitat for Humanity and murals for an ophanage in Mexico and other worthy causes, and continues to publish limited-edition prints. His poster for the ballet Coppélia, created for Stages: Northern California Performing Arts has been selected as an example of modern poster design in the article about history of graphic design
History of graphic design
Graphics are the production of visual statements on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, pottery, computer screen, paper, stone or landscape. It includes everything that relates to creation of signs, charts, logos, graphs, drawings, line art, symbols, geometric designs and so on...
.
Awards
Warren Dayton’s work was selected many times for juried showcase awards publications, including Society of Illustrators of Los AngelesSociety of Illustrators of Los Angeles
The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles was founded in 1953 by a group of Southern California artists and designers "...to promote the professional status of illustration art as well as foster both philanthropic and educational goals"....
2009 Certificate of Merit and show annual publication Illustration West (3 inclusions: 2009 certificate and gallery for "Illustration West 47", 2008 “Illustration West 46” and Illustration West 26”, see reference below), Graphis Inc. - The International Journal of Visual Communication (5 inclusions magazine and annual, 1966–1972), Communication Arts Magazine and Annual (2 times inclusion), the Los Angeles Art Director's Club Show and the The New York Art Director’s Club.