Tag: poster art

Designer Desire: Aaron Fine

Montage of Aaron Fine graphic designs | H is for Home

Vintage travel posters are one of our favourite subjects, we’ve featured quite a few designers who worked in the industry.

For someone so prolific, talented and who worked for one of the biggest corporations in the world, we can’t find out much about Aaron Fine. All we’ve found out is that he was friends with Andy Warhol and that he died of cancer.

Other than Pan Am posters we have only seen evidence of him authoring and illustrating a single children’s book, Peter Plants a Pocketful in 1955. He illustrated The Hidden House by Margaret Wise Brown.
Vintage original examples come up for sale occasionally on eBay or you can find prints much more easily on Etsy. In addition, there’s a range of prints available from Classic Vintage Posters.

Image credits:

Classic Vintage Posters | Mike Lynch Cartoons

Designer Desire: Jean Carlu

Montage of Jean Carlu poster designs | H is for Home

Jean Carlu (1900-1997) was an award-winning graphic designer producing advertising posters for Perrier and Cinzano, Pan-Am an Air France, Vanity Fair and the US Government.

Amazingly, in 1918 and an architecture student, he lost his right arm in an accident involving a Paris trolley bus. He didn’t allow it to hinder him. He adapted, instead pursuing a graphic design path and carrying on with a creative career.

Unable to return to Paris after Hitler’s invasion, he emigrated to the United States, living there from 1940 to 1953. During this time, he produced a number of public information posters for the American war effort.

During his long career, his style developed and evolved, reflecting the art movements of the day; Art Deco (e.g. his 1921 film poster for Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid), Cubism (e.g. his 1924 Mouton Rothschild label) and Surrealism (e.g. his 1929 poster for the Aquarium de Monaco).

Jean Carlu (on the right)Jean Carlu, standing on the right

Image credits:

Invaluable

Designer Desire: Walter Hofmann

Montage of poster designs by Walter Hofmann

A few weeks ago, we featured Harry Stevens, a designer who used scantily-clad ladies in his poster creations. Walter Hofmann also used swim-suited lovelies in his work; in fact, he specialised in the subject!

Hofmann (1906–1973), was an Austrian designer about whom we couldn’t find much information.  He was commissioned by Nivea, Ulka, Matzner and Kajak Badedress (a Danish swimsuit manufacturer, we think).

His style and palette are so evocative of the mid-century modern era. It’s very reminiscent of another favourite design team of ours, Lefor Openo.

Image credits:

Artnet | Artsy | Invaluable

Designer Desire: Harry Stevens

Montage of Harry Stevens poster designs

Whilst researching Kenneth Bromfield a couple of weeks ago, I was reintroduced to the work of Harry Stevens.

Stevens (1919-2008) was another talented graphic designer who produced a number of advertising posters for the General Post Office (GPO), London Transport and British Railways amongst others. Despite having no formal training in art, he won the Council of Industrial Design Poster Award in 1963.

As well as advertising posters, Steven illustrated a few children’s books including Who’s That?, Parrot Told Snake and Fat Mouse.

As we’ve been discovering, online information about many of the designers of this era is scant. There are images of Stevens’ posters in a couple of museum internet archives. Luckily, you can find a few physical examples of his work available on Etsy and eBay.

Image credits:

1st Dibs | London Transport Museum