Sunday, January 25, 2009

Poster Designs


These are a couple of poster designs I did a few years ago. I had always wanted to do posters for myself, creating the subject matter, doing the illustrations, and writing the copy. Both posters are done with tongue firmly planted in cheek. The idea of the first one was, what if they had created a monorail system that crossed through the entire United States. Instead of flying or taking a train or bus, the family would climb on the Flying Tortise monorail, and relax and enjoy a luxurious sightseeing adventure across this great country of ours. It looks like it would be perfectly safe and very comfortable. I know for a couple of years between 1953 and 1955, they ran this monorail very successfully from St. Paul to Milwaukee. The only problem was, it took longer, and was more expensive than if you just drove your car. Of course, it's totally ridiculous, but it's still fun to imagine what the advertisement might look like.

The second poster, was meant to promote a non existent school. The school was to help young men develop careers in aviation design. It was a non traditional school, in the sense that, the boys were encouraged to "think outside the box". Unfortunately most of the designs that came out of the school were totally impractical and never had any commercial application. The only student to ever actually achieve employment, within the aviation industry, was Chubby McNeal. He went on to be successfully employed with TWA, he stayed with the company for three years as a baggage handler. It was never made clear what Mrs. Sinclair's exact role in the school was. 

I ran an ad in Juxtapoz magazine in an effort to sell my large inventory of posters. Much to my delight, the response was great, and I actually sold five posters. I never came close to making my money back on the posters, or even the cost of running the ad, for that matter. If anyone is interested, I think I have a very limited supply of around 200 for each of those posters. The size is 18" x 24" and they are printed on high quality (expensive) paper. In case you haven't figured it out, I'm not a very good businessman.

1 comment:

  1. always been a big fan from WAAAAYYYY back in the day when you were 'randall dahlk'...love the pull toy...drop me a note when you get some time..js

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