A commercial site of interest can be found at the International Poster Gallery, which offers An Introduction to Vintage Poster Art--a good short history of poster production.

For general poster history, see also

History of Polish Poster Art
Postermania: A Collector's Dream (a short essay on the history of posters, with no images--from a vintage poster shop, which you can get to by clicking on the "back" button)
Reproduction Vintage Posters: a history of the poster from Art Source International
Turkish Movie Poster Art I found this by accident, but it's really interesting
Wes Wilson's pyschedelic poster art is back in vogue; here's an apparently official home page. I used to have a Letraset page linked here with an essay on Wilson, but it seems to have gone away.

Posters are often used for propaganda, and you can see this aspect in full flower at this site: The Chairman Smiles, which explores the relationship between art and the politics of China, the Soviet Union, and Cuba. The site on History: East German Posters is also helpful in this regard, as is the site on Cuban Poster Art. For American contributions to this aspect of poster art, see Powers of Persuasion: Poster Art from World War I (a lesson plan from the National Archives and Records Administration). The Provincial Museum of Alberta, Canada, has a virtual version of its exhibition, The Poster War: Allied Propaganda Art of the First World War.

You might also be interested in reading this brief article by Armin Hofmann, Thoughts on the Poster. Or take a look at the Poster Art of Jeff Kleinsmith, which features music posters by a contemporary Seattle graphic artist, and A Brief History of the Silkscreened Rock Poster (exerpted from an article on "The American Seriagraph Explosion" by Chad Hensley).

New from the San Diego Museum of Art: an online exhibition on The Posters of Toulouse-Lautrec, which includes a section on Paris and Printmaking--which in turn includes other artist's works.

In terms of poster design, and the use of typography, the following sites might prove helpful (remember, however, that there are specific criteria for your assignment):

Recent art titles of interest to progressives (a list of books on progressive political posters via the Berkeley library); thanks to Lincoln Cushing for the link.

Web Poster Exhibition: Foundations of Typography M (see also Foundations of Typography B). The home page is interesting, too.

An outfit called Web Page Design for Designers has a separate page for typography which offers some helpful advice (some of which can be applied to posters).

Scientists of all stripes often deliver poster sessions--short illustrated talks on their research--so it shouldn't be suprising that helpful advice about posters can be found on the webpage of the Biology department of Vrije University in the Netherlands. The page is called How to Make a Poster?

Communication Arts features a short page called Typographic Voices with some interesting poster designs.

Don't forget to look at the Typography links page, too.

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01.07.10