Publicité & Graphisme

“A poster, unlike a painting, is not and is not meant to be, a work easily distinguished by its manner—a unique specimen conceived to satisfy the demanding tastes of a single more or less enlightened art lover. It is meant to be a mass-produced object existing in thousands of copies like a fountain pen or automobile. Like them, it is designed to answer certain strictly material needs. It must have a commercial function.”

-AM. Cassandre, translated by Michael Taylor

AM Cassandre, "Dubonnet" - 1932

In a few days I will be traveling to Paris for a vacation and I wanted to familiarize myself with the history of French design, but I found no books or blogs on its history. This is, perhaps, due to France’s overwhelming amount of cultural history in painting, cinema, food, and fashion. Though French design seems to play a smaller role in France’s cultural history when compared to so many other facets of artistic expression, it’s advertising (publicité) and typographic (graphisme) legacies are by no means insignificant to a broad popular culture. (1) Below you will find an assortment of beautiful French posters that represent a rich cultural history of French graphic design.