The 1940s and 50s brought forth a shift to optimism. 

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​Rebuilding was on the horizon.  Who better to help with rebuilding then the designers of this time period?  ‘Expos’ were symbolized as a sign of optimism.  Europeans used the Expos to create an ‘inspirational enthusiasm’ for future changes.  The aforementioned expos of ‘Britain Can Make It’, and in Holland, ‘All Hands on Deck’, paved the way for the young designers of the time.  For America, The Marshall Plan provided hope for financial recovery during 1947. (Roberts, 26-27)

The 1950s also saw a shift in jobs.  By now, most jobs were completed by using a letterpress or even silk-screen technologies for large scale Graphic Design like posters.  Screen printing is the process of ink being forced through a mesh screen.  Parts of the screen are taped or covered, and the areas of the screen that have not been blocked, ink will flow through.  Silk-screening was expensive, so most of the time designers could only use a limited color palette.  These inks that were used were primarily ‘straight from the pot’.  Colors were much more vibrant than the flat and somewhat dull colors that printing could achieve.  Later, designers found a creative way to overcome the limited color palette.  They started printing over already printed colors to form even more colors by using tints and halftones.  Photographs during this time were usually printed in halftone and in one color.  “Despite the development of lithographic photomechanical printing, color remained expensive well into the 1960s.  Commercial availability of full-color at that tie generated an interest in the creative potential of photographic realism.” (Roberts, 42-43)

Paul Rand had a pivotal moment that is well recognized in Graphic Design history in 1956.  He created the IBM logo using a City Medium typeface. 
“This is a geometrically constructed slab-serif typeface designed along similar lines as the geometric sans serif styles. Redesigned into the IBM corporate logo, a powerful and unique alphabet image emerged, for the slab serifs and square negative spaces in the B lent a unity and uniqueness.” (“Logo Design History”)
1957 also held weight in the history of Graphic Design.  One of the most commonly used typefaces of today’s modern world was born. The ‘Neue Hass Grotesk’ type face was created by a man named Max Miedinger.  Little did he know that this typeface would become the default typeface on all software packages under its new name, Helvetica. (“Max Miedinger”)

A publication that is still alive and influential today had its first printed copy debut in 1959.  Communication Arts was a publication that was the first in America to be printed using the offset lithography technology. 

Offset lithography is defined as “a process used for printing on a flat surface, using printing plates. An image is transferred to a printing plate, which can be made of a variety of materials such as metal or paper. The plate is then chemically treated so that only image areas (such as type, colors, shapes and other elements) will accept ink. Water and ink is applied to the plate. Because of the chemical treatment, ink only "sticks" to the image areas, which reject the water. Areas without images reject the ink. The plate is then rolled onto a rubber cylinder applying the inked area, and in turn the rubber cylinder (or "blanket") applies the image to the paper. The system is "offset" because the plate does not come in direct contact with the paper, which preserves the quality of the plate.” (“Offset Lithography”)