Above One of ninety posters designed by graphic design students at the University of Northern Iowa, to advertise an upcoming talk on WWI ship camouflage by RISD scholar Claudia Covert. This is one of three posters designed by Rachel Matlack. Copyright © 2012 by the designer. All rights reserved.
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Preston Slosson, The Great Crusade and After. New York: Macmillan, 1931—
Dazzle camouflage aimed at deception rather than obscurity. Transports and cargo ships were decorated in huge zigzag designs, like so many floating cubist paintings, until American ports resembled nightmare harbors beyond the gates of ivory and horn.
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C.R.M.F. Cruttwell, A History of the Great War 1914-1918. Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 1936)—
Twenty or thirty ships elaborately camouflaged with streaks and blotches of violently contrasting colors, all zigzagging in formation, presented an uncertain and bewildering target.
