Vintage Poster and Print Blog

Making of a poster: virtual printing simulator by MoMA

Today we would like to remind you some good tool, which is a must in our "Making of a poster" series. If you don't know it yet, and you want to know more about printing methods, there's a great opportunity to see the virtual printing workshop and to expand your knowledge in nice and interesting way. Museum of Modern Art prepared special interactive project, which demonstrates main printmaking processes: woodcut, etching, lithography and screenprint. Each step is described and shown through an animated image.

Additionally, it includes pictures of more than fourty prints from the Museum's collection so you can also see the effects of use of each technique.

Check and try this project here.

Posted: Nov 09, 2015 | Tagged: lithography, making of a poster, poster, print, printing process

Read more →

Making of a poster: Lithography

It's been a while since we started our journey across poster creation and printing methods - after letterpress printing and poster stories it's time for another printing technique, lithography, which was often used by poster makers from the past. The name comes from Ancient Greek; Lithos means "stone" and graphein - "to write". The print is, in fact, placed on a stone with a smooth surface, which is a basis for this type of print. It was invented in early XIXth century and for that time it was a main method of commercial color printing until it was replaced by offset lithography - says Kate Desforges, visual artist and printmaker working on a stone lithography print at the Leicester Print Workshop. - It’s a very intuitive process. (…) I think that the intuitive part of it challenges me and I like that. (...) In any other printmaking technique is a certain physical boundary between the image and the artist's mind and the reproduction of this image on the matrix in front of them. In lithography there is no intermedium, there is brain, hand, stone.

You can listen to this story and see the whole process here:

Kate Desforges - Stone Lithography from Bill Newsinger on Vimeo.

Posted: Oct 30, 2015 | Tagged: lithography, making of a poster, print, video, vintage posters

Read more →

Interior inspiration: RM's posters in minimalist black & white spaces

White walls, big windows, clean spaces - in simple, minimalist interior poster can work as a stylish detail or a strong color accent. We connected three chosen prints from our collection with this kind of rooms to show that vintage poster + modern interior is a well matched couple.

Posters used here:

1. Polish Swissair Travel Poster

2. Swiss Industries Fair Basle Czech 1933 Original Poster

3. ST RAPHAËL Quinquina Apéritif - Rouge / Blanc 1933 Original Advertising Print

Posted: Oct 19, 2015 | Tagged: collecting, collection, interior, posters, print, vintage, vintage posters

Read more →

Poster stories

We would like to share with you two short movies which are great reflections of poster passion, seen and presented from two points of view: creators and collectors. Enjoy watching!

1. My passion: Posters

Sophie Churcher, a specialist in the 19th and 20th Century Posters department, tells stories of rare works and describes their special features. This movie was prepared as a part of series of films created to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Christie’s South Kensington.

2. Graphic Wonderland

Contepmporary yet nostalgic journey across the land of posters created in New Zealand: charming imperfection of hand painted works; silkscreen printing process; travel posters encouraging to discover beautiful sceneries and visit new places. Characteristic details: hand painted letters, vibrant colors, a pinch of eroticism and a bit exaggerated details of idealized worlds. Creators talk about their work but also describe how they perceive their projects in retrospect. They also give subjective answers for the one important question: what's the difference between fine art and commercial / poster art?

As we can read in the film description: These posters are more than just advertising; they make people dream.

Posted: Sep 30, 2015 | Tagged: collecting, collection, making of a poster, poster, posters, print, vintage, vintage posters

Read more →

Vintage typography & lettering, part I - books, boards, posters

Good font is very important (often the most important) element of a good poster so - since we love both of these things - we prepared short set of vintage lettering inspirations.

First - Agence Eureka. This rich Flickr collection contains scans of many books and publications related to typography and lettering. A few of them below:

Posted: Apr 22, 2015 | Tagged: book, calligraphy, font, graphic design, illustration, lettering, print, ruemarcellin, script, typography

Read more →