Poster Hunters

We have visited museums, archives, relatives and private collectors – all to find the best Swedish vintage travel posters. Now we want to show them to the world.

That is why we made a bulky ”Coffee Table Book” with 210 travel posters – posters that have been used to promote Sweden both at home and abroad – and why we make reprints of these fabulous posters.

We are also curious about the poster artists – our heroes. We have interviewed artists, relatives and co-workers and found remarkable life stories. We have encountered everything from stiff competition to lasting friendships amongst these often unknown artists of utility art.

Why travel posters?

Why travel posters you may be wondering. We see them as time capsules, as cultural history. Travel posters convey how one during the first part of the 1900’s viewed one’s own country and hometown. Sometimes the message becomes comical and completely turned around from how we today would describe our home country.

Take a look at Sundsvall for example. When the town arranged the Swedish skiing championships in 1947, a girl with a map over Sundsvall points out the town with her ski pole. To show how progressive the town Sundsvall was the poster pointed out no less than 16 smoldering dirty factories that decorated the approach to the town…

Let us agree on one thing: to travel is the best there is. Poster artists back then really knew the art of visualizing people’s expectations and dreams about the land in the north. A trip to the mountains in Jämtland, a week at the spa in Varberg or why not a summer trip to Visby, in the world of the posters everything was within reach.

Trough posters we can also follow the development of the society. The oldest emphasize the machine: big boats, fast trains and shiny airplanes. Later it is all about the illustration of the destination and the joy and glamour of travel.