Another Christies auction of posters is coming up soon – and while I really like a lot of the old posters, the fact that a lot of other people share my interest tends to push the prices to unaffordable levels. Alas.

Fortunately, the Christies website is quite good at displaying the posters being sold, and provides for a gentle 10 minutes of viewing pleasure.

Don’t put your computer mouse over the poster on their website though, otherwise you may cry at the prices some of these sheets of paper can command.

A few of my personal favourites are:

MILES, MAURICE FOR THE ZOO lithograph in colours, 1933

CUNEO, CYRUS CINCINATTO; FLYING AT HENDON lithograph in colours, 1914

BRENET, ALBERT IMPERIAL AIRWAYS

(just 10.5 days to Australia – wow!)

KLEIN, DAVID; NEW YORK, FLY TWA, c.1963

(reminds me of the end sequence to 2001, A Space Odyssey)

HANS SCHLEGER; THESE MEN USE SHELL, JOURNALISTS, 1938

(One of the more surreal posters from a series of adverts)

Finally, something topical…

BATEMAN, HENRY MAYO COUGHS AND SNEEZES SPREAD DISEASES, MINISTRY OF HEALTH, c.1940

I am a bit of a fan of the slightly rose-tinted memory of the so-called “golden age of transport”, and the posters that it inspired – although far too poor to be able to afford to collect them, alas.

Like running my tounge over a sore tooth, I sometimes visit displays of posters from that era, such as the recent excellent collection that the Transport Museum had. Their display though was, understandably, focused on their own art work. What I particularly love though are the posters used to advertise the great sea liners of the inter-war period.

It always seems a bit odd that something so glamerous was advertised by such a humble media – but I have to remember that most liners made the bulk of their income transporting ordinary working class people to the USA to seek a new life. The glamorous life going on the decks was only a tiny side of their function.

Anyhow, in a couple of weeks, the Christie’s Auction House will be selling a large collection of vintage posters, and they have their wonderful public viewing days. Ostensibly for potential buyers to see the wares, they are open the general public as well – and make for an enjoyable, if wistful hour of so of viewing pleasure.

Their website also has images of the posters being sold – I tend to click on the “grid” icon to make viewing easier.

Which are your favourites?

The Orwellian posters, adverts and their ilk that are going up to warn us to snoop on our neighbours report legitimately suspicious behaviour, such as not recycling the glass bottles have invevitably lead to a website to make you your own fake versions.

Make your own at http://jamesholden.net/billboard/

Via: RailwayEye

Tip to people who make these mock image websites – allow direct linking to the website with the created image. I had to save the image, resize it and upload it to the blog, which also means I can’t just send a link of a joke billboard I made to friends. Yes, it pushes your bandwidth though the roof, but is very good for viral distribution and long term link building/search rankings.

Last night I (and friend) had tickets to attend the opening evening of the Transport Museum’s latest exhibition – a history of posters on the London Underground.

It turns out that London Underground was probably the first transport network to commission posters from artists to promote the rail network, and the exhibition shows off some of the most famous and notable posters which the company commissioned.

There is also a display of posters designs which were rejected, including one by John Nash – which was deemed to be a bit too dull for use!

I was more interested in some of the older poster designs, and there were some comments about the difficulty of printing too many colours on early posters, so the artists had to be very careful when designing them to take those sorts of restrictions into account.

A few bits of the infamous fonts and styles – and at the entrance to the display is a newly commissioned poster by Sir Peter Blake – the iconic artist who is most famous for the Sergeant Pepper album cover – although he has done the odd other thing since then. He was the guest of honour last night and gave the opening speech, along with the curator of the exhibition.

I had my tickets as part of a recent fund raising auction for the museum, and the grandly titled Stakeholder Relations Manager, but very pleasant, Justine took us around some of the displays and showed us how to get up to one of the other displays which shows some of the printed posters which resulted from the art shown in the main display.

I also got a copy of the book accompanying the exhibition, signed by the two main editors (woo!) – and I have to say that based on a flick through it on the tube home, it is a very good book with absolutely loads of posters being shown inside. I don’t normally get excited about the books produced to accompany museum shows (usually being put together just to fleece visitors of cash), but this one is unusually good.

Towards the end of an evening spent wandering round with a glass of wine which was regularly and liberally topped up, I met the infamous Annie Mole who writes the Going Underground blog.

Rather a nice evening out.

The exhibition opens to the public today – details here: http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/136.aspx