Bold graphics from the golden age of poster design

Jules Chéret established the modern advertising poster in 1860s–1890s Paris through his mastery of chromolithography. Toulouse-Lautrec brought fine art sensibility to the medium with his Moulin Rouge posters. Alphonse Mucha defined Art Nouveau poster style. In the 20th century, A.M. Cassandre revolutionized poster design with Art Deco geometry, Lucian Bernhard pioneered the "Sachplakat" (object poster) approach in Germany, and the Soviet Constructivists created some of the most powerful political poster art in history.

Early posters used chromolithography, where each color required a separate stone, naturally limiting palettes to 3–6 colors. Screen printing (serigraphy), adopted widely in the mid-20th century, similarly uses separate screens for each color. Both processes produce flat, solid color areas with halftone dots for tonal variation and occasional misregistration (slight color misalignment) that has become a cherished aesthetic element of the retro poster style.

The poster was arguably the birthplace of modern graphic design as a discipline. Principles developed for poster art — visual hierarchy, the integration of type and image, communication through simplified form, and the use of limited color for maximum impact — became foundational to the field. The Bauhaus poster workshops directly informed mid-century graphic design education, and contemporary digital designers still draw on the compositional strategies and aesthetic vocabulary established by poster artists.