How US illustrator Dorothy Waugh inspired a generation of Americans to travel to National Parks

Being outdoors is good for you. During the Great Depression, the then-US president, Franklin D Roosevelt, saw national parks as a way to boost morale in his country. But how to inspire people to visit them? It was then that the National Park Service decided to hire artist, illustrator and landscape architect Dorothy Waugh for an ad campaign.

Between 1934 and 1936, Waugh created 17 travel posters, which are now on display at New York’s Poster House. It was the first time that such a commission was given to a single designer, let alone a woman, in the US. The resulting ads balance clear messaging with images that range from a dramatic black-and-white Ansel Adams photo to a whimsical illustration of a sunlit deer.

Evident in the posters’ designs is Waugh’s exposure to European modernism while studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as her background in commercial illustration. “She was leading her viewer into new territory but with enough familiarity to make it a pretty easy voyage,” says the exhibition’s curator, Mark Resnick.

Waugh, who hand-drew the posters’ lettering, went on to become the first teacher of typography at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (now the Parsons School of Design). The posters were distributed nationally and hailed for helping to more than double tourism to the parks – a testament to the effectiveness of the designer’s work. Even now, Waugh’s exceptional use of imagery, command of colour and striking typography might leave art directors a little green.

‘Blazing a Trail: Dorothy Waugh’s National Parks Posters’ is at New York’s Poster House until 22 February. Images courtesy of Poster House.

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