Speeding to that destination

The two hundred posters in this book are probably the pick of the collection from the National Railway Museum in York, England where the two authors worked while compiling the book. Like a lot of US railroad posters the destination was the strong selling point in the early years of the last century and this particularly applies to the output of the four rail companies featured in the book. Eventually, besides the destination, speed and the train (ships as well) were used as a selling point.

I think it's worth saying though that although nearly all these posters have the most beautiful paintings very few of them are what I would call well designed overall. The format was either a painting of a destination placed in a framing devise with the typography below the frame or the art was poster size with the type dropped onto an empty spaces.  Cassandre's famous 1927 Nord Express (page sixty-nine) and Irwin Brown's 1930 poster for the centenary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (page 102) are what I would consider designed posters: combining the painting, graphic and type as one considered whole.

I found the book enjoyable because of the art, the range of styles is very impressive from the mosaic paintings of Ronald Lampitt, flowers and nature by Audrey Weber to flat graphics from H G Gawthorn. All of the artists are incredibly professional. The authors have done a lot of research into the artists and how the rail companies used their work to sell travel.

As well as lovely posters to look at the book presents them in a very attractive way and frequently with the clever devise of enlarging part of a painting on many of the spreads throughout the book. The back pages have artist's biogs and a short bibliography.