Stick ’em up!
When done well, posters can persuade us to buy a pen, observe social norms or fly to a faraway land. They look great too. Put them on your walls.
Good graphic design can transform advertising into an artform. At their best, great campaigns use deft illustration or artfully rendered ideas to create idealised, soft-edged and simplified versions of the world. They pique our interest with promises and appeal to our desires: for order, exploration, ideas or excitement.
The pleasing shapes in these posters, their tight typography and eye-catching colours, come together to raise awareness – of an exhibition, perhaps, or about consumer electronics – but they can simultaneously cause us to raise an eyebrow, crack a smile or start making plans.
Who wouldn’t want to hop on a flight to Rome, Greece, Geneva, or even Kandersteg after taking in the glowing representations of these pretty postwar posters? Here’s our paean to the alchemy of advertising done well.
twentiethcenturyposters.com
Designed in 1960 by Tom Eckersley for an exhibition organised by the Society of Industrial Artists.
twentiethcenturyposters.com
Contemporary poster advertising a night at Glasgow’s Numbers club.
designmuseumshop.com
Herbert Leupin poster from 1962 for sparkling water brand Eptinger.
galerie123.com
A 1960s design by Reymond Zahler for Swiss stationers Caran d’Ache.
galerie123.com.
Piet Sluis designed this poster for Aer Lingus in 1950.
sotherans.co.UK
polishpostergallery.com
Miroslaw Adamczky’s design was created for the Wybrezeze theatre in Gdansk.
polishpostergallery.com
“Don’t be silly, drink Perilli” reads Cioma Schonhaus’s design for the vermouth brand.
galerie123.com
A 1965 exhibition at Germany’s LGA-Zentrum is the focus of HW Kapitzi’s design.
postermuseum.com
Frederick Vincent Carabott designed this poster in 1961 for the Greek tourist board.
galerie123.com
The Swiss region of Kandersteg is showcased in this 1960s print.
galerie123.com
A poster from 1964 advertising boat trips on the Swiss lakes.
galerie123.com
elbe.paris
Swedish radio-makers Radiola enlisted René Ravo to create this design in 1960.
elbe.paris
A Japenese poster from the 1930s advertising riverboat trips.
antikbar.co.UK
polishpostergallery.com
Hibner Maciej’s design for Polish carrier LOT was originally printed in 1961.
polishpostergallery.com
