logo

Chuck Mountain
chuck@fortissimodesign.biz

Home

Online Store

Silent Speech

A Word In Season

A Year of Jubilee

The Mountain

Artist Statement

Shows and Awards

Links

Bibliography
 		fortissimodesign.biz
The Digital Art of Chuck Mountain
Links
One of my favorite art forms is the poster. The poster's ability to balance type and image is an ideal that I strive for as well. My digital art was shaped by this mould. (See the Bibliography for more resources about posters.)

The Most Comprehensive Poster Resource on the Internet
Rene Wanner's Poster Page
Extensive sources for poster art.
http://www.posterpage.ch/



Commercial Poster Print Sites
AllPosters.com
Commercial prints of fine art and poster designs.
http://www.allposters.com/

Art.com
Commercial prints of fine art and poster designs.
http://www.art.com/

Barack Obama Poster Collection (The Black Art Depot)
http://www.blackartdepot.com/barackobama.htm

Galeria Plakatu Kracow
Commercial Polish poster gallery.
http://www.cracowpostergallery.com/index2.php

Gallery Rouse
Commercial site that sells original vintage posters.
http://www.gallerierouge.com/

International Poster Gallery
Commercial poster prints. Extensive.
http://www.internationalposter.com/

IVPDA: International Vintage Poster Dealers Association
A very large collection of original posters for sale on various sites.
http://www.ivpda.com/

ORK Posters (City Neighborhood Posters)
These posters consist of the outline of a city, say, Los Angeles, filled with the names of the various neighborhoods. Very interesting designs result.
http://www.orkposters.com/

Polish Posters Shop
The title tells you what you need to know.
http://www.polishposter.com/

Poster Classics
Commercial prints of poster art.
http://www.posterclassics.com/index.html

Sports Poster Warehouse
On the navigation bar choose "Vintage Poster Art" for some very well done posters on various sports. I usually skip sports posters, but there are some exceptional designs in this collection.
http://www.sportsposterwarehouse.com

Nancy Steinbock Posters
Don't let the cutesy graphic on the home page scare you off. This commercial site offers posters that in general have high artistic merit. There are several that I have not seen elsewhere.
http://www.nancysteinbockposters.com/

Yaneff International Gallery
A commercial site with Art Nouveau and Art Deco poster art.
http://www.yaneff.com/html/gallery/moderne_plakat.html


Christian Art In Worship Sites
Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
http://www.calvin.edu/worship/

CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts)
http://www.civa.org/


Fine Art Sites (See also Commercial Poster Print Sites, above)
Upstream People Gallery
(5 of my art posters received Special Recognition)
http://www.upstreampeoplegallery.com/

VSA Arts
http://www.vsarts.org


Historical Collection Sites
a Greyspace Poster Gallery
"This gallery mostly consists of Polish posters designed since 1940 (with the exception of some posters by Czech and Cuban designers as well as US born, Saul Bass)."
http://www.agrayspace.com/posters/

Airline Poster Art
A large collection of airline posters from the whole world from circa 1970 through the present.
http://airlineposterart.com

Cochise County Cycling Classic
This small collection is wonderful. The posters are original and often beautiful.
http://www.perimeterbicycling.com/Posters/Poster.html

Merril C. Berman Collection
This collection is the premier source for the avant-garde poster in the early 20th century. I wish that more of these posters were online for study.
http://www.mcbcollection.com/pages/content/collection.html

Jacqueline S. Casey Poster Collection
I can't access this site directly on my Mac using FireFox. But here is a workaround: Navigate to the site below; click on "JUMP TO THIS LINK"; you should have the page at RIT for this collection. Click on "Digital Images of Jacqueline Casey's work" and begin a laborious but rewarding display of her work. I agree with the reviewer that the collection is well worth the hassle of navigating a website that was probably designed by code geeks rather than visual designers. The posters are astounding in their simplicity and power, even in our digital age.
http://www.subtraction.com/2009/05/04/the-jacqueline-casey-poster-collection

Chinese Posters Online (University of Westminster)
The posters in this collection include many works that are not directly political in nature and are often of considerable artistic merit. Yes, I know, politics are the looming backdrop of Communist China. However, many of these works go beyond the stereotypical fat babies and blissfully happy people of "social realism"—that is, lacking in any depth of aesthetics.
http://www.china-posters.org/gallery/main.php

Contemporary Polish Posters
http://www.contemporaryposters.com/

Dansk Plakatmuseum (Danish Poster Museum)
http://www.plakatmuseum.dk/

Far and Wide: The Golden Age of Travel Posters
This collection contains posters that are quite beautiful and well worth the time to view them all.
http://www.lapl.org/virgal/travel/index.html

The International Poster Collection (CSU, Fort Collins, Colorado)
A large collection of contemporary posters.
http://lib.colostate.edu/posters/

ITALIA (Italian Government Tourist Board — North America)
A small, but very interesting collection of Italian Art Deco Posters. I am especially impressed with variety and creative use of typography in these works. You'll have to copy the URL below and paste it into your browser's address field in order to access this page. It's worth the hassle.
 http://www.italiantourism.com/poster3.html
You may also download a PDF of additional Italian posters here: http://www.italiantourism.com/cosmo/posters.pdf

KJA Vintage Posters, Maps, and Prints
The name says it all. A very large collection conveniently organized into 19 categories. See especially the restored WPA posters and the sepia portraits of Native Americans. And if you like garish, in-your-face, there's-a-sucker-born-every-minute style, there is a large circus poster collection as well.
http://www.rainfall.com/posters/catalog.htm

London Transport Museum
Extensive collection of posters for "The Underground." If you like Edward Johnston's famous typeface designed for Underground, then you will find this series of posters irresistible.
http://www.ltmcollection.org/posters/index.html

Museum of the Russian Poster
An extensive collection. The bulk of the collection is from the Soviet era, but there are many posters that were created before the 1917 revolution and after the collapse of the USSR.
http://eng.plakaty.ru/

Nederland Archief Grafisch Ontwerpers (The Dutch Archive of Graphic Design)
Contemporary Dutch posters.
http://www.hetnago.nl/index.php

The National Archives
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/index.html

Pigasus, Polish Poster Gallery (Berlin, Germany)
Yes, that really is its name.
http://www.pigasus-gallery.de/index.html

The Polish Poster Collection: RIT
A large number of posters. Click on "Digital examples of the polish poster collection" to view the posters by title.
http://library.rit.edu/polish-poster-collection.html

Poster Archive of the MAK—
Austrian Museum of applied arts / contemporary art
This is a very extensive collection. Enter "Secession" (=Art Nouveau) and be rewarded with posters that explore the great Austrian work in this style. These posters demonstrate not only the Secessionist graphics, but also their creative use of lettering.
http://sammlungen.mak

Puerto Rican Posters, 1952-1985
http://www.puertoricanposters.com/

Religious Resources
http://www.religiousresources.org/directory

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
Large collection of vintage commercial and military aircraft posters. I cannot access the site using Safari, but FireFox allowed me to enter indirectly. Once on the home page, select Collections from the menu bar and the use the search field to find "Fly Now." Awkward, yes. But, after all, this is a federal government site.
http://www.nasm.si.edu/collections/

UCLA Digital Library
Worldwide posters about AIDS.
http://digital.library.ucla.edu/aidsposters/

VADS (Visual Arts Data Service)
See especially the Halliwall collection.
http://www.vads.ac.uk/

Wikipedia
General articles about posters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poster

WPA Posters Online
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/wpaposters/wpahome.html


Political Poster Sites
Center for the Study of Political Graphics
http://www.politicalgraphics.org/home.html

The Chairman Smiles (International Institute of Social History)
I love the ironic title. The posters are from communist Russia, China and Cuba. While the chairman smiles sanguinely on his people, many of them are being rounded up, tortured and executed.
http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/chairman/sovintro.php

Chinese Posters
http://chineseposters.net/

Creative Defiance: The Graphic Design of Chaz Maviyane-Davies
Powerful and often moving posters on social and political justice in Africa.
http://www.maviyane.com

Liberation Graphics
A very interesting site where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is seen through the poster art produced by both sides in this seemingly endless war.
http://www.palestineposterproject.org/

George C. Marshall Foundation
Large collection of posters related to WW II. The Nazi posters are of particular interest since most of the propaganda generated in Hitler's Germany was destroyed after the war.
http://library.marshallfoundation.org/posters/library/index_posters.php

Poster Collection (American University of Beirut Jafet Library)
"Political posters collected between the 1960s and the 1980s. These posters were collected from their original sources or from the American University of Beirut campus where they were posted. This collection covers two main topics:
  • The Palestinian Question
  • Lebanon and the Lebanese Civil War "
http://ddc.aub.edu.lb/projects/jafet/posters/english.html

Propaganda Posters
Although this site is poorly designed, hard to navigate, and obviously not written by a native English speaker, it is worth the effort to peruse this interesting collection. Here is the hype from page one: "Most posters in our collection are originals, acquired in Russia in the 80's (exceptions are clearly marked), political posters, made in the period 1950 - 1990, published with the supervision of the Communist Party, and were designed to make people work harder, be better communists and good patriots."
http://posters.nce.buttobi.net/

Steven Landsberger Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages
http://www.iisg.nl/landsberger/

The Visual Front
Posters of the Spanish Civil War.
http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/visfront/

War + Iraq: Campaign on Iraq Poster Exhibition
This site displays the reaction of the design world to the war in Iraq. The posters were designed by professionals, students and others. Most are done simply; many are quite powerful.
http://war.miniaturegigantic.com/

War Posters (University Libraries, University of Washington Digital Collection)
http://content.lib.washington.edu/postersweb/index.html


Poster Art Streams
flckr. Poster Design
http://www.flickr.com/groups/poster-design/pool/

Google Images
Click on the URL below, then enter "poster" in the search field.
http://images.google.com/images


Typographic Posters
Various sites that feature typography as the main design vehicle.
http://webdesignledger.com/inspiration/33-epic-works
http://www.designshard.com/inspiration/inspiring-grunge
http://speckyboy.com/2008/10/12/25-examples-of-amazingly
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/05/12/sexy-bold/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/02/25/breathtaking
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/10/15/the-showcase-of-big

Typographic Posters.com
A site that features typographic experiments. Very interesting even though the navigation is confusing and the need to scroll from right to left to see all of someone's posters is awkward..
http://www.typographicposters.com/#/directory