Tag Archives: anthropomorphism

Revealing the Language of the Illustrated Travel Poster

A mallard stands poised in high heels and accessories.
Enchanté. Travel Poster (2021)

Revealing the Language of the Illustrated Travel Poster

The travel poster of the early 1900s did not only depict attractive destinations. It also persuaded prospective buyers with images of what could be their future fulfilment. Commercial artists of that period were tasked with showing people enjoying scenic locations, and the comforts of passenger travel. This can be seen in the works of Tom Purvis, Frank Sherwin, and Percy Trompf to name a few. To travel was presented as something for the sophisticated and glamorous, and as the art critic John Berger once wrote, glamour is “The happiness of being envied”.

The Lingua Franca of Marketing

Due to the commercial nature of the travel poster, the unambiguous image was typically met with the explicitness of written text. The esteemed designer/publisher, Adrian Shaugnessy, has described this as the lingua franca of marketing. Being that travel posters were made to be seen by passers-by, the destination and strapline were read at a glance. This placed added importance on concise copy and legible typography. In this market, commercial artists were commissioned by travel agencies, tourist boards, and passenger travel companies operating by land, air and sea. Though commercial posters would later become the remit of graphic designers, the travel poster reminds us of what can be accomplished when coupling design sensibilities with illustration skills.

The travel landscape has changed immensely in the last hundred years. This has contributed to an active secondary market for reprints and original travel posters of that bygone era. Prices range between a few hundred, to tens of thousands of US dollars. The irony is there may now be more glamour in owning a valued poster than visiting the destination it publicises.

The Digital Poster

Today there is less call for printed commercial posters where there are outdoor LCD screens. These make possible animated movement, aid viewing during the nighttime, and ease any corrections that may be necessary. Translation and localisation are certainly more easily addressed with digital posters, and though energy is continuously used to power the screens, this reduces the heavy environmental footprint of paper based reproduction. Overall, it is reasonable to anticipate that many physical posters will be phased out in favour of their digital counterparts.

J Card design for the Posterboy Mixtape
With an oboe held diagonally across her body, a young girl in a long red dress is poised to play. Illustrated poster artwork for World Music Day.
With a chisel-tip marker, a young girl pulls a line of red ink across the surface of an A4 drawing pad.
Shown in profile, the cross section of man's head reveals the lobes of the brain are an arrangement of brightly coloured carnations.
Lit by a warm glow, Posterboy wields the paste drenched brush he uses for hanging up his posters.
A sumi painting brush rests in the beak of a wayward gazing lapwing.
The creative thoughts of a young girl are augmented by the circuitry of an AI neural network.
Tucked in the beak of a bewildered homing bird, a hand-written list is flown through the air
An anthropomorphised tree stands smiling with red leaves abloom
Flying with wings raised, a white dove carries a slice of watermelon with its feet.
Sat amid the trees in his pull wagon, Posterboy uses traditional mark-making tools to draw up the new artwork to be hung.
A profile portrait of Posterboy, chin raised with his poster tube at the ready.
With corresponding eyewear and clothing print, three young kids embrace their chosen screen colours; red, green and blue
An anthropomorphised hotdog stands wearing a tennis headband and drizzled in mustard
A floral assortment emerges from an artist's palette and paint brushes.
With crayons in hand, a young girl uses an upright easel and canvas to draw a large picture of herself.
With a Palestinian flag held to its side, a white dove wearing an arabic kufiya casually smokes a cigarette.
An array of herbs and vegetables are sent flying from the colander of a headless chef.
A rooster stood upon the screen of an upturned smartphone crows in the dawn light.
A note whistled from Posterboy becomes a convenient perch for his feathered companion Lapi.
A double bass player taps on computer keys that lay where his bass strings would ordinarily be found.
An infant learns to play the xylophone.
Illustrated decorative poster depicting the profile of a daydreaming woodsman set amid a billowing foliage of herbal leaves.
A mallard stands poised in high heels and accessories.
A spectacled character with a back-turned cap holds up a giant computer pointer, arguably the most active icon in visual communication online.
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Making Friends

  • A tall man with a bucket of white paint brushes a smiley face onto an open A-board.

Making Friends

(2021) Personal work [self-directed learning] 

One way of coping with social isolation. As humans we anthropomorphize objects more often than we realise, especially those we like.

J Card design for the Posterboy Mixtape
With an oboe held diagonally across her body, a young girl in a long red dress is poised to play. Illustrated poster artwork for World Music Day.
With a chisel-tip marker, a young girl pulls a line of red ink across the surface of an A4 drawing pad.
Shown in profile, the cross section of man's head reveals the lobes of the brain are an arrangement of brightly coloured carnations.
Lit by a warm glow, Posterboy wields the paste drenched brush he uses for hanging up his posters.
A sumi painting brush rests in the beak of a wayward gazing lapwing.
The creative thoughts of a young girl are augmented by the circuitry of an AI neural network.
Tucked in the beak of a bewildered homing bird, a hand-written list is flown through the air
An anthropomorphised tree stands smiling with red leaves abloom
Flying with wings raised, a white dove carries a slice of watermelon with its feet.
Sat amid the trees in his pull wagon, Posterboy uses traditional mark-making tools to draw up the new artwork to be hung.
A profile portrait of Posterboy, chin raised with his poster tube at the ready.
With corresponding eyewear and clothing print, three young kids embrace their chosen screen colours; red, green and blue
An anthropomorphised hotdog stands wearing a tennis headband and drizzled in mustard
A floral assortment emerges from an artist's palette and paint brushes.
With crayons in hand, a young girl uses an upright easel and canvas to draw a large picture of herself.
With a Palestinian flag held to its side, a white dove wearing an arabic kufiya casually smokes a cigarette.
An array of herbs and vegetables are sent flying from the colander of a headless chef.
A rooster stood upon the screen of an upturned smartphone crows in the dawn light.
A note whistled from Posterboy becomes a convenient perch for his feathered companion Lapi.
A double bass player taps on computer keys that lay where his bass strings would ordinarily be found.
An infant learns to play the xylophone.
Illustrated decorative poster depicting the profile of a daydreaming woodsman set amid a billowing foliage of herbal leaves.
A mallard stands poised in high heels and accessories.
A spectacled character with a back-turned cap holds up a giant computer pointer, arguably the most active icon in visual communication online.
Email
FAQ