Today’s poster features a generic thirties airliner promoting the airline KLM by notable poster designer Munetsugu Satomi, dated 1933. This version shows the main routes around the border, a design Satomi used in other posters and seen elsewhere in the period. (It also relies on the poster being displayed complete, of course.)

Details and some of the other fascinating posters here, the Official Site of Munetsugu Satomi (里見宗次) run by grandson Pierre Satomi, who kindly agreed to sharing the main image, with a credit, above. Another interesting variation on the design below.

This 1934 version shows a single route, and more of a ‘speed shadow’ to the aircraft’s white surround, and the map design, centred on the English Channel, fits the route between Amsterdam and Paris. Here, that’s given as a two hour twenty minute flight in the delightfully minimal text.

While the aircraft aren’t accurate, KLM was heavily invested in the Douglas DC-2 in 1934, a technology leap in the era.

James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer.