I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside

Sometimes nothing quite beats a day by the sea or a trip to the seaside. According to the Historic UK website, the great British seaside holiday came into its heyday after the Second World War. There’s a great article about it here.

The UK’s first motorway didn’t open until 1958, so many people would travel by train. Railway companies sought to attract holidaymakers with posters, often designed by some of the leading artists of the day.

Until the 1920s railway posters had fairly crude designs with lots of different typefaces and a jumble of information.

From the 1920s onwards, as the big rail companies established advertising departments, the posters became more streamlined with strong images and colours and pro-rail slogans, shown alongside simple fonts and a clear message about a single destination.

Here’s a small selection of gorgeous vintage travel and liner posters that are held in the city’s collections. They were mainly designed and printed in London between the 1930s and 1950s.