The first real Target:
A short essay looking into this famous roundel and if it influenced Mod-culture. The iconic design was heavily used during the pop art era and I want to find out more. What makes this extremely simple symbol so special and so fundamental to the mods?
What you see above is a very important graphic element in design. After studying a little so far about mod culture, I see this as an icon associated with the band ‘The Who’; but I recently recollected that it is also the RAF (Royal Air Force) roundel too. But for now I am going to delve into the side relative to the current area of interest – youth sub culture.
Just as a small refreshment, as I have spoken about them a little so far, the mods were (and some still exist) a subculture which was most alive during the early to mid sixties. Mods did come about again after the sixties, but this was their main era. This target, to the mods, was associated with The Who. It was an important graphical statement to them: they would use this icon to enhance their scooters and also wear patches with the famous roundel on.
This target symbol, I believe after doing some research, was taken from the RAF. The French Air Service had the first version of this target – but the colours were reversed (red on the outside). The RAF initially used a union jack to distinguish their planes from the enemy but this caused complications as it was often confused with Germany’s air force symbol. The RAF then adopted an icon almost identical to the French but reversed the colour. Pop artists, and bands made the graphic icon famous in the sixties (as mentioned above: ‘The Who’, but also ‘The Jam’). It was now to be known as the mod-target. A symbol which, told others that ‘I am a mod, I identify myself within this subculture’. The symbol no longer meant Royal Air Force, it was seen as MOD! One of the most interesting pieces I have seen that shows the mod target is Peter Blake’s ‘The first real target’. Now, as this was created in 1961 (very early/beginning of mod culture) I wonder if this was the first use of the icon? The Who did not form until 1964, so they would not have made the symbol famous yet. Peter Blake is a pinnacle pop artist and I wonder and would like to find out if the Mods/ The Who were inspired by the RAF or by this pop art piece that Blake created? Pop art was booming in this time period too, I wonder where the influence came from!
The colours are British; red, white and blue. The youth culture was confirming very much that they were proud Britons and enjoyed displaying this. Did this piece of graphic design influence the subculture though? After looking at books of photographs of youth cultures (especially in the book ’London Youth’ Derek Ridgers) it seemed whatever subculture you identified yourself with, patches were the thing! Patches on jackets were somewhat a sort of ‘tagging yourself’ system to let others know who you were. I’ve seen in photographs that mods wore them, as did punks, skinheads and some new romantics. In the present day we do not really use this platform as a way of presenting our culture to people.
The mod target is a very striking design and is easily noticeable. I think perhaps it is its striking demeanour that revived the mods again in later years. Such a simple, attractive, patriotic design, which the youths of Great Britain fell in love with.