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Breathtaking Typographic Posters
February 25th, 2008 in Fonts, Inspiration | 207 Comments
You can’t design without type. However, yon can use only type (or mostly only type) to create breath-taking designs. In fact, many graphic designers and artists take exactly this route to communicate their ideas through their works. The results are sometimes crazy, sometimes artsy, sometimes beautiful, but often just different from things we’re used to. Thus designers explore new horizons and we explore new viewing perspectives which is what inspiration is all about.
You can’t design without type: this is an argument for it.
This post showcases over 50 breathtaking typographic posters designed by artists across the globe. We feature Oriental, Iranian, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese and Russian typographic posters as well as a number of further references. This isn’t a “best of”, there is no ranking and the collection isn’t supposed to be complete; it’s rather subjective and quite random. All screenshots are clickable; however, links not always lead directly to the corresponding image (e.g. it’s impossible in Flash-based sites) — sometimes you’ll need to search for it.
You may also want to take a look at the article Typography In Motion we’ve published few months ago.
So what can be achieved out of simple letters and symbols? Please be patient, some screenshots are huge.
Breathtaking Typographic Posters
Christina Koehn / University of Washington, USA
Alex Banks / United Kingdom
Emiliano Lionel Suárez / Argentina
Juanma Teixidó / Asunción, Paraguay
Emil Kozak / Spain
Pablo Alfieri / Buenos Aires, Argentina
HeyHo / France
Vincent Bousserez / Paris, France
Drew Kora / Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
Aron Jancso / Budapest, Hungary
Andre Bergamin / Brazil
Oh Ishi / Siam, Thailand
Alejandro Paul / Buenos Aires, Argentina
mrgraphicsguy / Germany
lee25 / United Kingdom
Shaun Morrison / Brighton, England
25ah / Stockholm, Sweden
Andy Cambiaso / Argentina
Puerto Baires / Buenos Aires, Argentina
Todd Roeth / USA
Piotr Fedorczyk / Florence, Italy
Noel Tanner / Minneapolis, USA
Kate Andrews / London, United Kingdom
Experimental Jetset / Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Lennart Wolfert / Netherlands
Farhad Fozuni / Iran
Yaronimus Maximus / Israel
Bunch / USA
Playful applications for the 55DSL 2007 Christmas instore incentive. Tape and posters were designed and sent to each store where the staff were then encouraged to get creative with what they taped up to win 555 GBP worth of prizes.
Alex Trochut / Spain
Arjo Wiggins Poster
Pixelgarten / Germany
Apirat Infahsaeng / New York
Poster announcing Brian Collins’ lecture Design Changes Everything.
MAISON DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE Création de la nouvelle identité visuelle.
Projet non retenu.
Purple Haze / Germany
Rote Sonne Club (2007). Poster design for a clubnight.
Think Experimental / France
Aaron Pou / USA
Maxime Delporte / France
Job Wouters / Netherlands
In collaboration with Roel Wouters. Printed by Knust.
Folded A3 flyers for Jungstar (formaly known as Zeitgeist) a bimonthly party held at the sugarfactory organised by the MRKMLN-group.
There’s always work in progress / you’re always a work in progress.
Sterk Water / Belgium
Poster made for a expo of a local art school promoting the free grahics and the sculpturing department.
C100 / Germany
A Club Poster from Berlin
Mark Andrew Webber / Falmouth, England
Hanna Czapka / Germany
Bonus
Job Woulters
80 of 500 handdrawn typographic posters by Job Wouters are shown in a 3 minute filmclip by Roel Wouters. The posters promote the students final works at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. The handwriting is… beautiful.
References and Resources
- Oriental Typography Posters
By Malik Anas.
- Iranian Typography Now
- Chinese Typography Pool
- DailyType.ru
A creative project run by several russian type designers. Day by day, they create original typefaces and post their results along with routine.
- Hebrew Typography
Oded Ezer.
- Hebrew Type Flickr Pool
The showcase of Hebrew Typography.
- Japanese Typography Flickr Pool
- Pingmag Typography section
- Best 100 Posters from 2006
- The Pleasures Of The Text Flickr Pool
- We Love Typography Behance Circle
- What is graphic design? Poster Competition: Winners of the competition
- Typotecture: Typography as Architectural Imagery
- In Love With Typography Deviant Reports
Regularly collected by Stefano Picco. - Helvetica Now Poster Contest
- 100 Best Posters
- hands on the poster - a photoset on Flickr
amfis (February 25th, 2008, 2:05 am)
Nice collection! Some of them are from Veerle’s competition: “What is graphic design”.
Piotr (February 25th, 2008, 2:12 am)
Thank you for featuring my posters. I’m honored!
Sander (February 25th, 2008, 2:22 am)
Nice list! Also be sure to check the website Link [www.aisleone.net] for many updates about type and posters.
Rolando Bouza (February 25th, 2008, 2:32 am)
Nice collection! love typography posters…!
Fodcj (February 25th, 2008, 2:58 am)
Fantastic collection of posters… love this article and site!
Keep up the good work
Thomas (February 25th, 2008, 3:10 am)
Great collection. But I am absolutely missing contest winner #3 of veerles Contest!
The contribution of ‘my way home’ fits perfect in this collection.
I’d consider to put it also in.
bye, tk
Adam (February 25th, 2008, 3:20 am)
I love thoses pieces! Thanks and Hello to all who create!
SITS Hannover (February 25th, 2008, 3:21 am)
A nice and very inspiring collection.
Henning (February 25th, 2008, 3:41 am)
I. love. this. blog.
Jacob Cass (February 25th, 2008, 3:50 am)
I have done a post on Link [justcreativedesign.com] that relates very much to this…
Great list as usual.
wolfgang (February 25th, 2008, 3:52 am)
Wow, how long do you need for your research to find so many great posters?
Thank you
Ben Jacob (February 25th, 2008, 4:01 am)
Hey Look at the #7th entry.. (Some Black and white stripes) Its repeated twice.. Am I correct ?
And totally inspiring.. Thanks
stefano picco (February 25th, 2008, 4:11 am)
thx 4 feature
meanwhile there is “In love with typography” #26 and #27 out :)
One Winged Angel (February 25th, 2008, 4:11 am)
I love typography arts as well. Very nice post :)
Amanda Kern (February 25th, 2008, 4:49 am)
Great collection. Here’s a bunch more typography posters that you guys missed:
Link [www.flickr.com]
Juanma Teixidó (February 25th, 2008, 4:57 am)
Typography and grids, when used properly, CAN’T BE BEATEN.
Here are my other 2 submissions for Link [www.ttthings.com]
Jon Aston (February 25th, 2008, 6:09 am)
Expanding slightly on comments above: I am both surprised at and disappointed with Smashing for not mentioning the design contest at Veerle’s blog…since it was obviously a source for this article.
Rodrigo (February 25th, 2008, 6:31 am)
Very nice post, one of the best ever. It’s also quite inspirating!
andotyjazz (February 25th, 2008, 8:33 am)
Holy smoking! Thanks smashing. You made my day.
\a/
chazzuka (February 25th, 2008, 9:01 am)
excellent list dudes, i vote for ” Drew Kora / Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA ” awsome!
gr8pixel (February 25th, 2008, 10:06 am)
what a beauty! :D
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (February 25th, 2008, 10:24 am)
@Jon Aston: please take a closer look at the References section. “What is graphic design? Poster Competition” is Veerle’s competition - the link leads directly to Veerle’s Flickr pool.
Jon Aston (February 25th, 2008, 11:08 am)
@Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz: My mistake (and apologies!!). Thanks for pointing it out!
Eliseu sb (February 25th, 2008, 12:14 pm)
Ooowwww, nice, nice !!!
Joseph Lee (February 25th, 2008, 12:15 pm)
Sweet post! Thanks guys!
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (February 25th, 2008, 12:50 pm)
@Jon Aston: sure, no problem. We’ve added the link to Veerle’s post as well to avoid misunterstandings.
Zeki Volkan Iscen (February 25th, 2008, 1:59 pm)
Great article!
Paul D (February 25th, 2008, 2:06 pm)
Pure dope.
I can take as much of this as you’ve got…
Thanks
Sesebian (February 25th, 2008, 3:08 pm)
BEATİFUL, THANKS smashingmagazine
Sarah (February 25th, 2008, 4:03 pm)
For the record:
“You can’t design without type: this is an argument for it.” It’s a wallpaper from Veer.
If you love Typo, you have to love veer!
Link [www.veer.com]
Mirza (February 25th, 2008, 4:26 pm)
Anyone know where I can get the “You can’t design without type” wallpaper ?? Also there is a great flickr pool about this topic
Mohamed Alaa (February 25th, 2008, 6:02 pm)
That’s really nice post thanks alot Smashing Magazine
Tony (February 25th, 2008, 9:53 pm)
This list isn’t so impressive, especially the posters from Veerle’s contest which was a huge disappointment. I can’t believe the posters that won. A lot of them were very amateurish.
TIM (February 25th, 2008, 11:00 pm)
Can you do a post where I can buy these posters? I would love to buy a few.
João Cunha (February 26th, 2008, 3:00 am)
as usually SM is always a surprise. Typography is something I want to implement in my works and im trying to learn technichs and develop some ideas and this article have some nice examples to start my research. Thanks SM
Fubiz (February 26th, 2008, 4:15 am)
Simply amazing selection!
Daniel (February 26th, 2008, 4:33 am)
Great posters.
Very funny to see a poster of one of the clubs I’m dancing almost every weekend: Rote Sonne.
Btw: they always have great posters - one of the last promo poster for november hangs in my office :-)
Elson Di Nardo (February 26th, 2008, 8:06 am)
Very Nice List! Good projects.
drew kora (February 26th, 2008, 6:45 pm)
Man, I’m nuts about that pixelgarten poster. Love all that sketchy style with the people. Simply gorgeous.
Also love the tons of tiny layered text look of andre bergman and andy cambiaso’s posters. Good work.
codingjoker (February 26th, 2008, 9:16 pm)
It’s a Nice one I haven’t seen many typo designs like this. I also want tiny comments in my blog.
Link [www.maukha.wordpress.com]
Syed Balkhi (February 26th, 2008, 11:19 pm)
Smashing collection … i love the snellen chart one
Sandeep Jangir (February 27th, 2008, 3:35 am)
woooooooow! awesome collection !
John B (February 27th, 2008, 4:13 am)
Thanks for some inspiration for my 100th blog post
Badi Dang (February 27th, 2008, 6:42 am)
beautiful! simply.
ryan (February 27th, 2008, 8:30 pm)
instead of Mr. Graphics Guy posting a tribute to Scott Hansen/ISO50, you should’ve probably just showcased …
Wonderful work…
Andrew Nock (February 28th, 2008, 2:02 pm)
Brilliant set of posters! Always good to check here for a bit of inspiration.
One thing I would love to help with inspiration - and thing having issues with at work is creating good looking mailers/posters with a lot of text. The boss likes to write a lot and getting that on a good looking corporate poster is hard! I defo think that would be a good thing to look at in the future!
ShabirGilkar (February 29th, 2008, 2:42 am)
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Himanshu Kapoor (March 3rd, 2008, 1:59 am)
unique. good inspiration.
web design in cheltenham (March 3rd, 2008, 5:50 am)
in my personal view typo graph is one of the best things about designs, these designs above are breath taking and shows to creativity - to turn text into something of beauty - i will be referencing this site for creative typograph inspiration. i salute thee
Kristian (March 3rd, 2008, 3:45 pm)
I’m in love with the helvetica poster. Could potentially serve as inspiration for a web design.
Neha Bahuguna (March 4th, 2008, 9:29 am)
really nice, i like taped green 5s one and French film festival (calligraphy)
Justus (March 5th, 2008, 2:26 am)
Thanks for such great inspiration by designers all over the world–its a great job done. Please identify the names of the typefaces used. Thanks
Robert (March 5th, 2008, 10:27 am)
WOW!! Really good stuff :)
andotyjazz (March 9th, 2008, 2:08 pm)
I love it! I love it! I love it!
michael (March 10th, 2008, 2:07 pm)
theres a amazing poster in the artext website called inspiration.
Mark Webber (March 15th, 2008, 1:58 pm)
ohh wow soo many cool posters… great to see my poster with them!!… im going to be doing some more typographic maps….Paris next! just thought i would let people know!!! CHEERs AGAIN!
kishoreblog (March 18th, 2008, 4:06 am)
Nice collections.
Link [www.kishoreblog.com]
Manoj.G.Nath (April 2nd, 2008, 8:39 am)
its really nice to see wonderful poster design using types..i would like to submit few desing based on Indian languages
mrG (April 3rd, 2008, 9:14 am)
ohh, very good!!!
MRgraphcsgay, you are exelent…. I loved your work
aloooo BRASIL, salve salve a todos DESIGNERS brasieliros!
tenzin (April 14th, 2008, 12:07 pm)
its really good…inspiring..and mind opening..gr8
nod (April 15th, 2008, 2:11 am)
great collection!
But you definitly missed that one: Link [shop.designinmainz.de]
it is related to the decodeunicode.org project
K.Brown (April 15th, 2008, 7:13 am)
Simply Beautiful.
Dave (April 22nd, 2008, 12:34 am)
Cool… love the huge water colour numbers one..
Ronzan (May 13th, 2008, 4:07 pm)
The talent of these artists is simply breathtaking.
Navin (May 23rd, 2008, 4:30 am)
Good collection, Excellent work
andrew (June 10th, 2008, 12:58 pm)
Alex Banks need to learn how to render an apostrophe correctly… (’06)
Naranjito82 (June 13th, 2008, 4:07 am)
Thanks very much. A real font of inspiration for all of us who are trying to get through this world of design!!
Walter Walraven (June 17th, 2008, 7:09 pm)
I have been doing typography for 36 years. I really enjoyed looking at the exquisite posters on this page. Congratulations to all the exhibits.
Fabricio Faria (July 16th, 2008, 4:59 am)
basfemia….
maltin75 (August 12th, 2008, 2:04 pm)
Very nice posters… great
erhan baran (August 22nd, 2008, 2:05 am)
çok hoş posterler.Aslında bunlar arka fon olarakta kullanılabilirler.
chary (September 11th, 2008, 10:32 pm)
great works using type!!!
brahmandam!!!!
Nipuran (September 22nd, 2008, 10:36 pm)
They all really very good
sheyda (October 13th, 2008, 2:23 am)
i love typography, this posters was good & beautiful. thank you for the trouble.
amaya (October 29th, 2008, 8:23 am)
Awesome! these posters are so cool! ^–^
I love to one that says “Its just dead for me,is love so Technical?” It perfectly describes how im feeling right now…
(oklala) (November 4th, 2008, 5:25 am)
Awesome! these posters are so cool! ^–^
游商贸 (November 4th, 2008, 5:27 am)
Very nice posters… great
Tours.z (November 26th, 2008, 7:43 am)
Thanks so much ！
Norb (December 10th, 2008, 11:03 pm)
Help! I can’t breathe!
Rakhmat (December 19th, 2008, 7:03 pm)
wow… nice… good work
Hosni Rachmani (December 23rd, 2008, 11:08 pm)
omg… thats a hell of inspiration. nice job!