Discover 13 Historical Posters

Go back in time and discover the power of historical posters. Learn about the stories and visual elements that shaped different eras and cultures.

Poster design dates back more than 100 years. The first posters were called leaflets. They were large sheets of paper printed only on one side in one color and a completely typographic design: a very strong and bold typography. The typography was very specific of the time, they are those typefaces that today we know as slab serif typography. The fact is that they attracted a lot of attention. Therefore, the main function of these early posters was advertising, propaganda or some announcement of interest to society. With these typographic posters only a new era began. From that point on, they moved on to images in primary colors, red, blue, yellow with a very primitive, yet beautiful printing technology and incredible line resolution and tones.

Designer and teacher Richard Mehl makes a selection of some of the most impressive vintage posters in his Domestika online course Color Theory: Exploration and Application- we can't wait to show them to you!

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: Moulin Rouge, La Goulue

One of Richard Mehl's favorite designers of the late 19th century is Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. This artist uses a very simple typography and primary colors more black and white and also grays. This poster was commissioned for the Moulin Rouge, showing "La Goulue", a dancer with a cancan, and her audience around her. It was Toulouse-Lautrec's first poster and, with it, he was crowned as one of the most influential artists of the late 19th century.

Beggarstaffs: Hamlet

The Beggarstaffs promoted a kind of poster design, well established today, but too novel for that time: silkscreen printing. They could create volume thanks to paper stencils. And they used three colors: brown and black, which dominate the image, and a touch of white underneath the layer. This type of minimalism was not yet widely accepted by society. They were ahead of their time, we still had to wait a bit to give a big welcome to this type of poster.

Gustav Klimt: Kunstausstellung Secession

This lithograph by Gustav Klimt was created to advertise the first exhibition of the Vienna Secession, created by a group of artists in order to rebel against traditional academic norms and promote a modern artistic approach. In the work we see Klimt's characteristic style with its gilded motifs and stylized figures.

Herbert Bayer: Poster design (unrealized) for Bauhaus Exhibition, Weimar

This is a Bauhaus poster. It is a sketch for a poster. The visual hierarchy is very interesting: your eye first goes directly to the red square, and then travels through the rest of the composition. Everything is based on rectangles and angles and primary colors. Negative and positive space are fully integrated with each other.

The Lissitzky:USSR Russische Ausstellung

Lissitzky creates a new visual language during the first half of the 20th century in the Soviet Union within Russian Constructivism. With the work USSR Russische Ausstellung (USSR Russian Exhibition), El Lissitzky creates a unique visual and spatial experience that reflects revolutionary ideals. Colors, shapes, space and images are highly symbolic. Nothing is casual in El Lissitzky's works.

Herbert Matter: Pontresina Engadin

This 1930s poster advertises the sport of skiing in Switzerland. The typography at the bottom of the poster is slanted, parallel to the lips, eyes and at an angle opposite the head and neck. The skier, although very small in size and represented abstractly, does not go unnoticed. The dramatized scale of the elements of the composition was quite common in poster design at the time.

Saul Bass: The Man with the Golden Arm

A great work by Saul Bass is the poster for the film The Man with the Golden Arm, directed by Otto Preminger. Saul Bass is characterized by his pragmatic and functional design when it comes to communicating a message. The film's plot deals with the heroin addiction of its protagonist who, after being released from prison, wants to become a drummer in a band. Therefore, the arm of the poster has a great significance. As for the use of typographies, it is an informative use. But this does not mean that they cannot transmit an emotional message or that they can give movement to the composition and coexist perfectly with the image.

Armin Hofmann: Wilhelm Tell

Armin Hofmann's Swiss style is identified in his innovative form of visual expression. Simplicity and complexity. Representation and abstraction. His posters were known for the lack of color, as a reaction to what he called the "trivialization of color", and for the primary use of typography. This poster represents his style and form of expression.

Paul Rand: No Way Out

This is the poster for the movie No way out, with a great visual hierarchy. A spectacular typography in the center of the composition. It does not go unnoticed either the small typography on the left side, in which the bold and light type are perfectly integrated.

Paul Rand: Death Mask

Paul Rand is the father of the logo. For him, everything, absolutely everything, is design. His style is defined by being simple modernist, by a good use of typography, geometric shapes and by placing white spaces in the perfect place. And so we see it in this poster, although in this case precisely what is striking is that it lacks typography. It is an absolutely visual message.

Wolfgang Weingart: Kunsthalle Basel Kunstkredit 76-77

Considered the father of Swiss punk, he broke the mold of classic Swiss typography. Weingart's style is experimental, thus clashing with what had been in use for decades in Swiss design. Although he recognized the great qualities of Swiss typography and took what interested him most from them.

Corita: Community

Corita Kent was a revolutionary artist of the 1950s and 1960s. Her story highlights her dual vocation: the religious world and the art world. Corita used art as a means of social protest. Her pop style was illustrated with bright, bold and daring colors in harmony with text and typography.

April Greiman: The Modern Poster

This artist is categorized within the "new wave" typography. The typefaces mix sizes and compositional weights. They also float on the surface giving a new place to a dynamic space, giving a new dimension of depth from diagonal lines.

Now that we've traveled through these works of art, do you feel like exploring a little more about colors in design?
- What is the color wheel?
- Free Color Palette Websites