Summer on the Wall: Original Travel Posters for Brighter Interiors

Travel posters were built around anticipation: sunshine, beaches, mountains, swimming pools and the promise that somewhere better was only a train or flight away. That makes them particularly good at bringing colour and optimism into an interior.

Start with the destination

A place you know gives a poster an immediate personal connection. But you do not need to have visited somewhere to love the way an artist imagined it.

Mediterranean colour

French and Italian tourism campaigns often use saturated blues, yellows and reds that feel naturally at home in a bright room.

The British seaside

Railway companies also became experts at selling summer. Resorts were presented through sunshine, architecture, beaches and bold lettering — a useful reminder that British travel design could be every bit as exuberant.

A Villemot example

Bernard Villemot's 1968 SNCF poster for Mont Saint-Michel shows how a destination can be reduced to shape and colour without losing its identity.

Do not decorate by season alone

The best poster is one you will still want on the wall in November. Use “summer” as a mood rather than a shopping rule: colour, movement, water, travel and a sense of escape.

For buying originals, read our travel poster guide and framing guide.

Explore the posters featured above: TWA Portugal · Chamonix Mont Blanc · TWA New York · Eastern Airlines Walt Disney World. Continue with our collecting guide, authenticity guide, condition guide and framing guide.