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The golden age of ocean travel in the 20th century coincided with the rise of the illustrated poster. Shipping companies employed the greatest graphic designers of the day to visualize technological innovation and promote leisure, modernity and progress.
The rise of the poster began in the 1880s and 1890s, thanks in part to the simplification of color lithographic printing. In the early 20th century, with the extraordinary expansion in global manufacturing, entertainment, and travel possibilities for the masses, posters became the essential method of spreading a commercial message. Advertisers were driven to outdo their competition with ever more eye-catching, original, and appealing imagery.
Shipping companies were quick to embrace progressive poster design. The 1910s saw fierce competition between the two German giants of shipping, the Hamburg-Amerika Lines and Norddeutscher Lloyd, and the two leading British companies, Cunard, and White Star Lines –with speeds hotly contested on the shipping routes from Europe to New York.
