Being stuck inside most of the day, with no plans to go anywhere anytime soon, I’m daydreaming about travel. I wrote about hotel luggage labels from the ‘golden age of travel’ last year. Now, I want to share some posters by British freelance illustrator Maurice Laban (1912-1970). The following poster advertisements were were made in the late 1950s, and were used to promote the British Overseas Airways Corporation (or BOAC) and Qantas.
The images I’m sharing here are from the art auction site invaluable. Go have a look over there to see these posters at a higher resolution (as well as other vintage posters from this era) if you’re into this type of commercial art.
U.S.A. | Canada
This is my favourite of the posters. I love the racoon’s eyes being stylised as stars! Quite dazzling! The racoon is a little more anthropomorphic than the other animals in this set – standing on its back legs, and wearing a bow tie.
Far East VIA EUROPE AND INDIA AfricaAustralia NEW ZEALAND Britain / Europe
Another poster that I really like. I just find the dogs’ faces very humorous.
These digitised images here aren’t likely as vivid as the physical posters; the original works having been produced through serigraphy (screen printing).
Creatives behind commercial illustration in the 20th century weren’t generally recognised for their contributions as graphic designers are today, and it makes finding information on freelance illustrators such as Maurice Laban difficult. But the fact that these pieces were preserved at all shows their lasting appeal… thank you for the inspiration, Maurice Laban!
Since any significant travel has been restricted for months, I’ve tired to satiate the desire for exploration by traversing the local woodland and such. It’s a solitary activity, and thus I’ve much time to think to myself. I thought about how much overseas traveling there is to look forward to in the future once such movement is safe.
Luggage labels like this were crafted to advertise airline and hotel services in the 20th centuary
When I looked through my last passport, I found very few ink stamps on the pages despite how much I had traveled with it. A lot of the documentation of our travel these days is digital. Long gone is the era of travel ephemera such as luggage labels; the kind that airlines and hotels used to slap on vacationer’s suitcases. Never have I seen luggage labels in person. But exposure to them in vintage cartoons and film leaves me with a romantic impression of them. (And perhaps, a romantic impression of travelling itself.)
Vintage airline and hotel luggage labels
In searching for these specific paper ephemera, I ran across the flikr account of Tom Schifanella, Art of the Luggage Label. All of the images I have shared here are sourced from Tom Schifanella’s account, and so I encourage you to browse through the albums if any of these designs pique your interest.
Different shapes that baggage labels take on
I want to share a few labels that stood out to me for one reason or another, even labels that I don’t feel affinity for – because it’s still possible to appreciate and understand the thought and concept of the designs.
Location-Centric Illustration
The following couple of labels are minimalist depictions of Italian holiday destinations surrounded by water. I like these designs for their limited use of colour; while the design for Hotel Capri uses three colours in total, the Grand Hotel in Lake Como uses four. The bold, sans-serif typeface helps the text read on the small scale that these images would be printed.
A baggage label illustrating the island of Capri, ItalyLabel for a hotel situated in Bellagio, Italy
Despite my attraction to these illustrations for their deceptively simple designs, the corporate illustrations of luggage labels are not all subject to strict restrictions of colour or texture.
Typography-Focused Design
These French hotel luggage labels are almost excessively ornate. While the highly-detailed graphic direction doesn’t appeal to me personally, these designs communicate clearly feelings of grandeur and wealth.
The label for Grand Hôtel de LyonHôtel Mirabeau labek
These decadent visuals aren’t ubiquitous today as this visual direction isn’t always practical or very suited for many modern services and goods, thus the old-school draftsmanship skills used to create these are not so freely taught or learned to students of design today.
Swiss Style
These circular labels are all happen to be advertisements for hotels in Switzerland. They’re all functioning on a limited colour palette, too.
Fox Label from a Hotel in Lenzerheide, Switzerland
This illustration brings up feelings of outdoor activities and exploration in the mountains. The stylisation is nostalgic to European children’s books from childhood.
A peacock promoting a hotel located in Einsiedln, Switzerland
‘Pfauen’ here means peacock, and peacocks bring to mind elegance and beauty. This design takes advantage of the circle shape with a clean, considered illustration. The registration of the pink ink looks to be off, but it also lends this piece more character.
Sun label from a hotel in Arosa, Switzerland
While this graphic doesn’t immediately communicate to me traditional ‘hotel’, I can feel a connection to mountainside spas where one can enjoy the closeness of nature. I can’t help but think of The Sun tarot card when looking at this…? The design does interest me, and makes me wonder what the hotel attached to this sticker was like.
More examples of mid-century Swiss Style
There is so much variety in these miniature illustrations, it’s a little overwhelming tying to take them all in at once – they’re in competition with each other, after all!
A number of these label illustrations are a shock as I would not have even contemplated some of the colour combinations employed, and yet I enjoy them. Other designers have made considerate use of black and I also consider that bold and brave – I’m always wary of how absolute and black is and its power to overwhelm an image. So, in reflection, I realise I can be more adventurous when illustrating in the future.
While it was an impulsive action to seek out these luggage labels, it was rewarding. I found a whole world of corporate design I knew next to nothing about. There’s definitely a lot to pull from if you’re looking to find inspiration from past eras. But in imitating past design it’s important to think about why you want your work to be informed by older works, and if it really does communicate what you want.
Think about why these illustrations have been saved and are still appreciated now – many able to outlive the services they promoted. A lot of thought and heart went into these labels to ensure their impressions stuck!
I thought to write a quick post on some short films made for a Swiss bag, accessory, and clothing company, FREITAG. These animations function as engaging and sharable video advertisement even though they are not marketed as a conventional commercials.
Screen shot of FREITAG video TRUCKIN’ from the ‘TARP BLANCHE’ series
The company FREITAG and its products were born from graphic designers Markus and Daniel Freitag, who in 1993 were in search of waterproof and durable bags to safely transport their creative work in. They found the right materials within the streets of Zurich – truck tarpaulins, discarded bicycle inner tubes and car seat belts. Their items have taken off in popularity across the globe. Today, with the consumer being ever-more conscious of their purchases, the durability of FREITAG bags and the option to trade in bags one has tired of in exchange for a different or new one puts these items ahead of other long-lasting bag options.
The following three videos are from the 2017 ‘TARP BLANCHE’ series, in which the creatives involved had full authority to tell a story about FREITAG as they envisioned. The narratives get pretty wild.
Big Buddy Blue, by Team Tumult:
THE PICKING, by Burcu & Geoffrey:
TRUCKIN’, by Neil Stubbings:
There are other videos in the series, that can be found on FREITAG’s YouTube Channel. Along with many other interesting promotional videos.
I particularly like the aesthetic of TRUCKIN’, which borrows its purposely monochrome palate and silliness from the hand drawn animations of the 1920s. As with the other short films within the series, this animation explores the creation of the first FREITAG bags with a very unique and warm narrative that keeps the viewer’s attention from start to finish.
Have you watched and shared any company ‘promotional videos’ that act as advertisement for a product or service lately? Did they hit that ‘shareable sweet-spot’ many genuine adverts have aimed for?
Newcastle’s Hatton Gallery screened the 1925 Soviet Russian silent film Battleship Potemkin. A cinematic copy was loaned by the British Film Institute, to bolster the celebration of the gallery’s temporary Francis Bacon exhibition. (The influence of this film can be seen in Bacon’s paintings.)
Battleship Potemkin is an important work, dramatising real-world events, it is essentially a five act anti-military propaganda (and intended to be a pro-Bolshevik narrative of the 1905 Russian Revolution). It concerns the mutiny of the battleship’s resentful sailors against their neglectful officers.
It would be nice to break down why I enjoyed the film, and discuss the cinematography, but it is more in tune with my blog to share some of the posters advertising Battleship Potemkin. I’ve picked out two USSR posters, and some international poster advertisements, too.
The poster above shows a scene from Act II: Drama on the Deck. The limited colours of black, white, red, and blue, make the printing of this poster economical, but they also work well together in this composition; the blue representing the sea, and the red the ship’s deck. I like the placement of the text on the ship’s gun turrets as it doesn’t break up the illustration.
I like that the irregular hexagon and limited colour palette makes the image look not unlike a military emblem itself. A very striking, limited colour palette, with strong forced perspective.
On this blog, I’ve looked at illustration produced in the USSR before. Soviet Russian illustration and composition is still very fresh-looking to my eyes.
A sleek, minimal image focussing again on the battleship’s gun turrets. The negative space is well-considered and the text is contained in a neat box. It sets the tone for the cruelty and brutality exposed in the film.
It’s so stripped-down; I think this is my favourite official foreign poster design that I’ve seen for Potemkin.
German poster
It is unfortunate that I cannot find the creator of this photographic poster, or the date in which it was made. It has an unsettling atmosphere about the composition as chains can carry negative connotations such as abuse (of power and authority) and constriction or confinement. I think it’s fresh that this poster focuses not on more iconic battle ship imagery, the sailors, or soldiers, but something a little more abstract.
A poster in black, white, and red. This poster was made long after the film’s original run and depicts what is arguably the most famous scene from the film; the massacre on the steps of the monumental staircase of Odessa.
Because this image directly borrows from a memorable sequence, it loses the chance to be memorable by its own merit, but the choice to use a frame from the film is understandable.
Japanese poster
Another foreign poster with no leads to the date produced or creator. Again the artist chose to use imagery from the massacre that took place on the steps of the monumental staircase of Odessa. This time with overlapping imagery and a greater number of colours. The more I look at it, the more I appreciate the unique colour choice.
As with the Polish poster by Stanislaw Zamecznik, this Japanese poster isn’t an original composition, and it does not stand out as a unique creation. In all fairness, there are other posters that use stills from the film to create photomontages, than original illustration.
It’s been fun and insightful looking at these varied takes on Battleship Potemkin poster advertisements. Can you think of any successful films with overseas posters that you feel capture the essence of the work just as well or better than the first domestic poster? Do the original posters still hold up, or is their lasting appeal intertwined with a lot of nostalgia?
Recently, I’ve been deep into researching Swiss Style and I want to share some very beautiful contemporary poster designs by Mike Joyce that strictly adhere to its laws.
The Smiths at the Venue, 1983
A little history on Swiss Style,also known as the International Typographic Style; it emerged from Russia, the Netherlands, and Germany in the 1920s, and was developed by designers in Switzerland during the 1950s.
In believing that design was a worthwhile and serious vocation, Swiss design is absent of frivolous idiosyncrasies; universal artistic principals were of more importance than individuality (that could lead to miscommunication and the sharing of unclear ideas).
The Cure at Cleveland music hall, 1985
Now, while Swiss Style takes from prior art movements such as De Stijl, Constructivism, and Bauhaus, it emerged without many of the political and historical contexts of those movements.
Fishbone at Cabaret Metro, 1988
Defining characteristics of Swiss design are the firm use of a mathematical grid system used to structure the layout, the industrial-looking sans-serif unjustified typefaces (usually flush left and ragged right), and a preference for photography over illustration. The use of photography is intended to present information objectively, without the influence of commercial advertisement or propaganda.
Unsane at Midtown music hall, 1995
It’s plain to see from Mike Joyce’s adherence to the rules of Swiss style that the grid system still works in favour of commercial advertisements. This is due to the clarity of communication; that only the essential information is on view. There’s no room to misunderstand when a gig is on, where it’s being held, and who’s playing.
You will have also noticed that the text is all presented in lowercase (Berthold Akzidenz-Grotesk medium). Some design movements (such as Bauhaus) reason that both a set of upper and lowercase characters are superfluous and less practical; it’s faster to pick one case to write in.
Built to Spill at Fox Theatre, 1997
I feel that these posters are great examples of marrying strong visual aesthetics with functionality. I hope that I will have the chance to make commercial work that looks as fun, strong, and energetic as these posters – even if I am not emulating Swiss design.
Be sure to check out Joyce’s gallery of posters if you want to see more of these designs… for inspiration, or admiration.
Originally a student of the German school of Bauhaus, studying from 1921 to 1923, Herbert Bayer later taught at the school during the years 1925 to 1928. He became the head of the printing and advertising department, as appointed by the school’s founder, Walter Gropius. A skilful typographer, he taught the school’s first classes on typography.
Soon after Bayer’s work was included in a Nazi Entartete Kunst(literally “Degenerate Art”) exhibition during 1937, Bayer left Germany for the safety of America. Many other students and teachers of Bauhaus fled their homes for overseas countries as the Third Reich’s ridged control over artistic expression threatened not only their livelihood but their lives, too.
Ugly Duckling of the Office, 1939
I want to share some of Bayer’s poster designs he created for the Container Corporation of America. The advertisements Bayer produced for the company cover themes such as integration and responsibility. The careful use of space, limited use of colour, and placement of text gives these posters an enduring modernity.
Weakness into Strength, 1941
This series of posters’ original images are made of mixed media. Most using gouache, pen and ink, and pencil on paperboard; some incorporate collage. And while majority of Bayer’s posters are monochrome – both practical and cost effective – some sport limited colour, such as the Fire Steals awareness poster which makes use of the colour red to reinforce the danger through colour association.
Fire Steals, 1942
Unsurprisingly, the later posters that Bayer produced for the Container Corporation of America intend to invoke the conscious conservation of materials in hard times of war; they’re not just advertisements, they’re social awareness posters. And they’re effective because they clearly communicate ways in which the viewer has the potential to make an impact.
Paperboard Packs a Mighty Wallop!, 1942
Regardless of the content of these posters, I feel that their designs are fresh and clean-looking, even by today’s standards. The school of Bauhaus taught the idea that both mass-production and the individual artistic spirit were compatible, and indeed, these corporate, mass-produced posers still hold artistic merit. The flow of text and image is almost melodic.
There are numerous channels for adverting to reach us; digital, print, radio, video, and so on, and sub-categories to some channels. Though some services and products have better been able to reach their target market through the unconventional means of guerrilla marketing.
The concept has been around since 1984, and generally, guerrilla marketing runs on smaller budgets, yet bigger imagination in order to capture an audience. The key differentiation from conventional advertisement is that the guerrilla marketing is not traditional, it is not a television commercial, or a radio advert; and if it does involve traditional mediums such as posters, they’ll be gimmicky or interactive.
Guerrilla marketing comes in many forms, even in the most innocuous of acts acts such as handing out free goods. Tissue-pac marketing puts the advert directly, into a potential consumer’s hands, and the service or product is more likely to be remembered with continued exposure though use.
Another guerrilla tactic is ambush marketing; it steals the thunder from other advertiser’s efforts. When companies hand out free items to spectators or competitors in a sporting event, but they aren’t a sponsor of the event, they’re either taking advantage of the mass of people in one place, or the sports teams and their presence in the publics’ mind.
“Nothing stops us.”
I want to share an example of guerrilla marketing used by the UK branch of DHL, the logistics company. The agency Ogilvy created a marketing strategy focused on the company’s tenacity in delivering what’s asked of them.
Ogilvy covered DHL vans in distinct road obstructions; traffic cones, construction barriers, even dirt, foliage and tape, to create caricatures of a determined driver’s ride. Seeing any of these vans, the viewer is expected to have a strong reaction. The exact feelings brought up from the sight of the vans are inconsequential, because a strong enough reaction leads to telling others about DHL’s advert regardless, and in turn raises awareness of their service.
“24 Hours Online Tracking.”
China’s DHL branch also commissioned Ogilvy (Beijing), to help promote awareness of their online tracking service. A large silhouette of a computer cursor was installed onto a fleet of DHL’s runner vans that shuttle about Beijing’s central business district. The drivers also sported a cut out of the cursor on their backs when delivering parcels in person.
In this case, the humour breaks though language barriers by being purely visual. While the simplest of visual puns may be understood and appreciated across language barriers (and maybe even cultural differences) most advertisements are tailored to a particular market, and are not needed to work outside the intended market.
Have you ever been ambushed by guerrilla marketing? Does an unusual tactic spring to mind when thinking of a favourite advert? …you may have even been part of a campaign without knowing!
Print media is the form of advertisement that I have the most affinity for; I like looking at pictures. I respect that an idea can be delivered solely with text, with a static image, or a combination of both, and yet speak as loud as a radio or video.
Because all of the advertisements that I have posted thus far are made to sell something, I now want to look at advertisement that takes the form of a campaign. Campaigns can be used to educate and raise awareness of an important issue, not just promote sales of a service or product. Here, we’ll look at a homeless awareness campaign created for DePaul trust.
Bench: “Prostitute Mother. Father Unknown.”
A charity who works with with young homeless and vulnerable people across the UK, DePaul Trust commissioned the agency Publics London to create print advertisements in 2006. “The Root that causes Homelessness” campaign challenges viewers to think carefully about the origins of homelessness. Rather than simply asking potential donors to give money, this campaign helps people to understand why donations should be given, by educating them.
Bag Lady: “Alcoholic Mother. Sexually Abusive Father.”
In these print advertisements, the viewers are given all of the information needed by the visual aid of the “family trees”, while the unfriendly typeface coupled with the honest text asks to be taken seriously.
Dog: “Violent Father. Violent Mother.”
As DePaul explained the needs of the commission, ”For this campaign to have an effect, we wanted viewers to feel the isolation, loneliness and despair of the homeless person in each shot. Location, the type of tree and the light were critical to capturing these emotions. The creative idea required us to shoot wide to capture the entire tree, which indeed makes the person small in the frame. But we found that seeing homeless people in the harshness of their surroundings was more powerful than seeing them up close.”
Bin: “Mother Died. Father Drank”
The photography was by Ernst Fischer. The original intent, was to photograph actual homeless people, but due to UK laws, the people in the photos became models at the last minute.
There are countless campaigns that intend to do good by educating audiences, and I think it is important to consider such advertisements before writing off the advertisement industry as something wholly related to business and profit.
In advertising, a proposition is to promise something; to offer a benefit. With so many companies competing with their own brands of what are essentially the same items, each brand needs a proposition if it hopes to capture an audience. The Unique Selling Proposition or USP was developed by Rosser Reeves, who was a pioneer of television advertising during the 1950s. His words, “Buy this product and you will get this specific benefit.” describe this marketing concept. Reeves understood that consumers were given too much information in advertisements and streamlined the delivery for them, and in the process, increased the sales of products he produced advertisements for. Naturally, as consumers evolved, and learned to better scrutinise marketing tactics and products themselves, different categories of propositions came into use as marketing tools.
A Single Minded Proposition or SMP is the one thing – the most important thing – that the audience needs to know. While this 1950s commercial for Anacin (produced by Rosser Reeves) lists its benefits compared to its competitors, it hammers home the SMP by the end of the video; that it’s “fast“ pain relief. I admire the short animations in this advert that attempt to visualise the pain of a headache.
Today, Emotional Selling proposition or ESP has essentially replaced USP. A person’s buying behaviour is more closely linked to their brain’s limbic system (which process feelings such as hunger, thirst, response to pain, and levels of pleasure etc.) than their brain’s neocortex (which is in charge of spatial reasoning, and conscious thought etc.). Identifying a product or service’s emotional selling point is now just as important as knowing the unique selling point. Although modern advertisement relies on the theory of ESP, before it was named and capitalised on, the concept was recognised early by the businessman and Revlon cosmetics founder Charles Revson, who knew that he was not simply selling products, but was marketing “hope” (or rather, the feeling of hope) to the consumer.
We previously looked at the advertisement agency Mother; now let’s look at a “banned” advert that they produced; Iceland‘s “no palm oil Christmas” television advert. It did not comply with the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) code that Clearcast requires an advertisement to do, in order to be approved for airing on television.
The advertisement is not “holiday-themed”; it’s Iceland’s statement of intent to remove palm oil from their own products. It highlights the impact of palm oil on the environment, and was deemed “too political” (due to it’s roots as a Greenpeace video).
In spite of – or rather, because of – the television ban, it quickly gained awareness and support over social media (Facebook) and by word of mouth. The controversy surrounding the ban was covered in several newspapers, such as Metro, The Guardian and The Independent, further promoting Iceland’s stance on palm oil, and the store’s image itself. Clearcast became an easy mark for negative thoughts on the whole ordeal.
Iceland’s official video even flaunts the word “Banned” in the title.
But, surely, Iceland knew – before submitting the commercial – that it would not pass Clearcast’s standards? Why then, use a retooled Greenpeace campaign video, knowing it would be deemed unfit to air? Because Iceland’s executives also knew it couldn’t be outright forbidden from public sight, and they knew that it would thrive online. It certainly propelled Iceland into the minds of the public unlike ever before. Iceland’s public image and stance on palm oil became a heated discourse thanks to this piece of media. It was a carefully calculated move.
Still, it should be noted that advertisements do have the power and potential to change the target’s mindsets and behaviour. They don’t simply have to market something, but can be used as campaigns. Iceland’s bold, environmentally-conscious move here puts them ahead of their competitors in the minds of many who realise that their everyday consumerist choices do have an impact, and also wish to take environmental conservation and sustainability seriously.
DESIGN WORKS 