Posters have been with us since 1870 when the printing industry perfected color lithography and made mass production possible. They are a frequent tool of promoters of events, musicians and films. Posters are also popular with propagandists, protesters and other groups trying to communicate a message. Anecdotely, posters became the obligatory bedroom decoration for angst ridden teenagers in the sixties and seventies. Let’s check out some of the iconic posters that most of us may remember. Feel free to nominate any iconic poster I may have missed, or simply add a comment.
This is where it all began. This is Lautrec’s first poster, Moulin Rouge – La Goulue, which introduced into poster design a bold simplification of form, space, and composition learned from Japanese woodblock prints. Lautrec shows one of the star turns of the place as the dancer La Goulue performs the scandalous chahut (can can) with her loose-limbed partner Valentin Le Désossé (the boneless). In this debut poster, Lautrec had not only his first involvement with color lithography, but also departed radically from previous poster art. The work virtually established his career, and his name became immediately known throughout Paris.
This is a big one, James Montgomery Flagg’s most famous poster. It was created in 1917 to encourage recruitment in the United States Army during World War I. It showed Uncle Sam pointing at the viewer (inspired by a British recruitment poster showing Lord Kitchener in a similar pose) with the caption “I Want YOU for U.S. Army”. Over four million copies of the poster were printed during World War I, and it was revived for World War II. Flagg used his own face for that of Uncle Sam (adding age and the white goatee), he said later, simply to avoid the trouble of arranging for a model.
Here’s the original. A 1914 recruitment poster depicting Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener above the words “WANTS YOU” was the most famous image used in the British Army recruitment campaign of World War I. The poster was designed by Alfred Leete.
Smokey Bear (often unofficially referred to as Smokey the Bear) is a mascot of the United States Forest Service created to educate the public on the dangers of forest fires. Smokey Bear’s message “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires” was created in 1944 by the Ad Council. In April 2001, Smokey’s message was updated to “Only You Can Prevent Wildfires”.
Guerrillero Heroico (“Heroic Guerrilla”) is the name of Alberto Korda’s celebrated photo of the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. It was taken on March 5, 1960, in Havana, Cuba, at a memorial service for victims of the La Coubre explosion. The photo was not published internationally until seven years later. Korda has said that at the moment he shot the picture, he was drawn to Guevara’s facial expression, which showed “absolute implacability” as well as anger and pain. Years later, Korda would say that the photo showed Che’s firm and stoic character. Guevara was 31 at the time the photo was taken.
The ending of the second fight between Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali remains one of the most controversial in boxing history. Midway through the first round, Liston fell to the canvas, in what many have argued was not a legitimate knockdown. Ali stood over his fallen opponent, gesturing and yelling at him, “Get up and fight, sucker!” The moment was captured by ringside photographer Neil Leifer, and has become one of the iconic images of sport. The photograph of the knockdown of this fight is one of the most heavily promoted photos in the history of the media.
The Tennis Girl poster is a hugely popular iconic poster. The photograph was taken by Martin Elliott in September 1976 and features then-18-year-old Fiona Butler, his girlfriend at the time. The photo was taken at Birmingham University, Edgbaston, Birmingham, using a borrowed dress, racquet and balls. The poster achieved widespread distribution when licensed to the poster shop Athena in 1978 where it sold for £2. It sold about 2 million copies by the time Athena collapsed in the early 2000s.
Farrah Fawcett was a pop culture figure whose hairstyle was emulated by millions of young women and whose poster sales broke records (over 12 million sold), making her an international sex symbol in the 1970s and 1980s. When the photo was taken Farrah Fawcett was still an unknown actress wanting to make it big. She hadn’t yet signed on for her hit show Charlie’s Angels but got some work doing commercials. Farah chose the now famous red one piece swimsuit to cover a childhood scar on her stomach. The shoot was at Farrah’s Bel Air, Calif., home of her and then-husband, actor Lee Majors. She did her own hair and they took the photos behind the home by their pool. For the backdrop, photographer Bruce McBroom grabbed the old Indian Blanket covering his car seat and hung it up, “I should have told people I styled this,” McBroom says, “but the truth is it came off the front seat of my ‘37 Chevy.”
Each decade has its iconic poster. Man and Baby was the defining image of the 1980s, capturing the then nascent New Man and making fortunes in the process.
By the photographer Spencer Rowell’s own admission, Man and Baby, or L’Enfant, is “a bit cheesy”. There’s a cute baby, but the eye is drawn to the buffed and muscular male specimen cradling said infant in his lap.It made model Adam Perry a hit with the ladies, and a fortune for the photographer and the poster shop Athena, selling more than five million copies.
The Barack Obama hope poster is an image of Barack Obama designed by artist Shepard Fairey, which was widely described as iconic and became synonymous with the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. The design was created in one day and printed first as a poster. Fairey sold 350 of the posters on the street immediately after printing them. It was then more widely distributed—both as a digital image and other paraphernalia—during the 2008 election season, initially independently but with the approval of the official Obama campaign. The image became one of the most widely recognized symbols of Obama’s campaign message, spawning many variations and imitations.
That’s my collection of what I consider to be truly iconic posters. I’m sure I’ve missed some, so I’ve included nine more (click on a pic for larger image) to get you thinking… what have I missed? Comments are greatly appreciated.
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This collection contains some Behance poster works made at different times. A common point of the posters is that all of them are made using 2D materials to create a 3D illusion, or something like that
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Abduzeedo came across the portfolio of Albert Exergian the other night and knew this was something she had to share with you guys. His poster design style is very clean and geometric with minimal elements sometimes even none, sticking only with color and copy. Just how she likes it 🙂
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