Talk:Poster artist

Art or Artist?
Doesn't Affichiste refer to the practitioner of this technique rather than its products? --RichardVeryard (talk) 10:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You are absolutely right...I shouldn't do this stuff that late...thanks for the heads up! Legotech (talk) 15:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I fixed it. That said, I think this could safely be merged with Decollage J L G 4 1 0 4  15:47, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Posters or Torn Posters?
An affichiste is a person that creates posters. Please do not merge with decollage, which is a technique that can be used among others to create a piece of art, such as, but not limited to, a poster. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Babaliu (talk • contribs) 22:43, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Babaliu has replaced the previous article with a bad translation of the French article on Affichiste. However, there is no evidence that the English use of the word matches the original French word, and some evidence that it doesn't. --RichardVeryard (talk) 19:48, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I have removed Babaliu's changes and reverted to the previous version which is consistent with the encyclopedia published by the Oxford University Press. --RichardVeryard (talk) 20:22, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Poster Designer
Dear RichardVeryard, thanks for willing to make this accurate. Please allow me to emphazise what the reference (the encyclopedia published by the Oxford University Press) you are using says:

affichiste. Name (literally ‘poster designer’) >>> It is written, very clearly with plain words, right here: "poster designer".

taken by the French artists and photographers Raymond Hains (1926– ) and Jacques de la Villeglé (1926– ), who met in 1949 and during the early 1950s devised a technique of making collages from fragments of torn-down posters. They called these works, which they first exhibited in 1957, affiches lacérées (torn posters). '''>>> So it says here, that these two poster designers ("affichistes") explored a technique of recycling older posters to create what they called "torn posters". >>> It DOES NOT say that an "affichiste" creates exclusively "torn posters".'''

Villeglé manipulated the posters to create particular images and effects, but Hains left them more or less as he found them in an attempt to demonstrate the aesthetic bankruptcy of the advertising world. Other artists adopted a similar technique in the 1950s, notably the Italian Mimmo Rotella and the German Wolf Vostell. '''>>> Also here it shows that the common tread is to create posters, not to use a specific technique to create posters. One of theses artists works on the material, while the other doesn't.'''

Please accept the French word AFFICHISTE for what it means literally, "POSTER DESIGNER", for it would be sad to limit this definition to only one of the many poster design creative techniques, the collage being one of them.

Best Regards, Babaliu —Preceding undated comment added 22:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC).


 * Hi Babaliu, thanks for the clarification. I want to make two points in reply. Firstly, when an English encyclopedia uses the word "literally", I understood this to mean that although this is the original meaning of a word in another language, the sense has shifted. (Just as the word "smoking" literally refers to the activity of putting lighted cigarettes in one's mouth, but in French the word is commonly used to refer to a certain kind of jacket worn when performing this activity.) So I am unwilling to conclude from the word "literally" in this reference that the word "affichiste" is used by English-speaking art experts to mean "poster designer". Secondly, you are partly basing your argument on unverified statements - in other words, statements for which we don't have a published source. (See Verifiability) It would greatly improve this article, as well as helping us to resolve this editing problem, if you are able to provide additional sources of factual reference. --RichardVeryard (talk) 01:53, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

-- Dear Richard,

thanks for you words, let me try to help here:

Point 1: I researched the meaning of "litterally", and according to the dictionnary - and unlike you understood - it is used to specify that the meaning has NOT shitfed. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/literally lit⋅er⋅al⋅ly  [lit-er-uh-lee] Show IPA –adverb 1.	in the literal or strict sense: What does the word mean literally? 2.	in a literal manner; word for word: to translate literally. 3.	actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy: The city was literally destroyed. 4.	in effect; in substance; very nearly; virtually. Origin: 1525–35; literal + -ly

Point 2: I'm not sure what you call "argument", also we are using the same reference - you provided yourself - that says clearly what this word means... But since you suggested more: Pocket Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary © 2005 Oxford University Press: affichiste /afiʃist/ noun, masculine & feminine poster artist. affichiste: WordReference English-French Dictionary © 2009 affichiste		nmf	poster designer

Please be assured that I am just trying to make the meaning of this word accurate. I am not trying to overwrite your article not to discredit your research, which is a great asset to the Wikipedia community.

Best Regards, Babaliu —Preceding undated comment added 22:43, 2 June 2009 (UTC). However, it is also clear to me that "affichiste", if it is used at all in English, simply means "poster artist" or "poster designer". And, so far, I don't see any signs that this subject has real notability beyond being a dictionary definition, in French. Brianyoumans (talk) 15:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * As a native English speaker, I agree that the word "literally" does not mean, in itself, that the meaning of a word has changed. However, in use it is frequently part of sentences like "although 'blue plate special' literally means 'a special deal on blue plates', it actually means a specially-priced meal in a restaurant, at one time, in certain restaurants, such specials used to be served on blue plates". So, in actual use, I would interpret "literally" to mean, "this is what it means if you translate word for word" - but, the real meaning in use may be otherwise.


 * As Brianyoumans says, the use of the word "literally" is a clue that the real meaning in use may be otherwise, as seems to be the case here: the Oxford University Press book, which is the only published source we have for this word in English, indicates that although the French word literally means poster designer, the word has come to mean something rather different in English. Babaliu persists in deleting the material that comes from this published English source, and replacing it with a French definition, but without any published source that verifies Babaliu's version. I agree with Brianyoumans that Babaliu's version of this page has no notability beyond being a dictionary definition of a French word. However, this would not be true of the previous version of the page, based on the OUP definition, and it was this version of the page which I had proposed merging with Décollage. Babaliu's objection to this merger is based on his unverified definition of the word Affichiste. --RichardVeryard (talk) 22:54, 3 June 2009 (UTC)


 * A cursory Google search is sufficient to reveal that Oxford is, in fact, smoking crack. I see no such sense of the word in use, even in French sources. The modern meaning appears to be "Poster designer". Instances: L'Affichiste is a shop in Quebec that sells vintage Art Deco posters; this artist in Hollywood calls herself an "affichiste", but the description of her technique does not mention torn posters (although some of it does sound like collage); this video is in French, but many of the pieces pictured do not look particularly collage-like, and the artist is termed an "affichiste". It appears that even in modern French, an "affichiste" is simply someone who makes posters. It may be that historically, at some point in France, there was a small group that called themselves "affichistes" and practiced the torn posters/collage method - but I think the meaning has, at least in most circles, been lost. Brianyoumans (talk) 00:39, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I thought the debate wasn't about how the word was used in France (or French-speaking Canada) but in the English-speaking art world. But I agree that if the Oxford definition can be discredited, then the English word appears to collapse into a synonym of "poster designer", in which case this article should be merged with a redirect into Poster. --RichardVeryard (talk) 16:30, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

proposed deletion
Legotech removed the proposed deletion notice on the following grounds "Created as part of the WikiProject Missing articles and has had several editors". In this case, however, I believe the multiplicity of editors indicates a fundamental disagreement conflict about exactly what an Affichiste is and the validity of the references. Unless these issues can be sorted out, I think the article may not survive. --RichardVeryard (talk) 02:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I note that the article has taken yet another turn around the track. I am not yet convinced by Brianyoumans argument above, attempting to discredit our only published source, because his argument seems to be largely based on French-language sources, and fails to acknowledge the likelihood that the English usage has diverged from the French usage. However, it is a pity that we can't find any other independent sources. --RichardVeryard (talk) 15:38, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I have removed the first line (dictionary definition of the French word), reworded the rest slightly, and !voted "keep" at the current AfD on the basis that as a dicdef of the French word for "poster designer" the article is no good, but that a Google Scholar search turns up enough references to the artistic school/movement to suggest that a valid article is possible. JohnCD (talk) 17:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 29 June 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved to Poster artist. Jenks24 (talk) 05:50, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Affichiste → Poster designer – There doesn't seem to be any great need to have this at the French title, except for the etymology and in the article text where it makes sense to do so. (I am the translator of the French text today: I've tried to translate to say "poster designer" when the sense is clearer.) We don't usually keep things under foreign titles, WP:COMMONNAME and WP:USEENGLISH. Affichiste can remain as an or  or both, as desired. Si Trew (talk) 13:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC) Si Trew (talk) 13:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Suggest move to "Poster artist" because that's the WP:COMMONNAME as per Google Ngram. Khestwol (talk) 14:13, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Support move to poster artist. This is not a commonly used term in the English-speaking world. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:45, 1 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.