T he term "poster" might seem to be somethng that we all know what it means and when it pops up in the conversation no one asks what it means, we all seem to know, but through history it has changed. Early posters were advertisements posted on walls, trees or fences. They usuallly consisted of words and later as printing technology developed, an image. Increaslingly the images became more visually exciting as their function became to attract the eye. Sometimes the words are considered completely unimportant and the poster is just a large image.

Personally I think a poster is a large image piece on a medium with words and if there is no image then the type is designed as an image. The poster is not fine art but a graphic design that is concerned with a specific communication using words and image.

Like an illustration or an advertisement and unlike a painting, a poster must be superficial—what is to be communicated should be on the surface, easily understood. On the other hand a poster is not like an advertisement which has a very specific purpose and a specific call to action. Even if a poster has a call to action it is not unusual to see a movie poster or a poster for an event or play to be hanging on someone’s wall for years, often framed—it is not unreasonable to think that a poster is more than a superficial message and we can expect there to be something in the design which requires the viewer to bring something to it, like we expect in a painting.

There is a page of thumbnails (see link on left) with links to a specific image and you can navigate from one poster to another .

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