Imperial Airways posters

The swish of a curtain, the smell of a cigar, red faced colonels face flushed complaining about their gout.

Hats : trilby’s school caps, governesses in tweed.

The scene from an Agatha Christie novel or your typical Imperial Airways pre war crowd?

For British aviation posters, Imperial captures the imagination like no other brand

Their are three interesting examples at auction currently by Dominic Winter

 

Lets dive in a little more:

The first example is by our old friend Lee Elliot (see Speedbird logo post)

Imperial Airways 2

Its got everything you need in a poster : simple, effective , cool graphics and understandable.

The second is a route map by Laslo Moholy Nagy (must dig further!)

On the face of it, a simple design but it keeps the attention (i covered map posters before and was slightly derogatory : time for a rethink perhaps?)

Imperial airways 3

The final offering from Winters is this route poster from 1939

Imperial airways 4

I can’t find out much about this one but have established that there is a copy on display at the Solent Sky Museum in Southampton (new to me !)

My next post goes into more depth on the golden era (courtesy of Come Step Back in Time)

Also for airline posters in general, a fantastic resource is

http://simmonscollection.com/posters.cfm

 

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