Today’s Poster is a German Great War example entitled ‘Was England will’, or ‘What England wants.’ It’s a powerful poster, showing swarms of British bombers – giant Handley Pages – attacking German factories. The poster is by Egon Tschirch (1889-1948) made in 1918 in Berlin for Selmar Bayer. The background’s even more interesting. The text…
Tag: Roundels
Fashion Roundels
A magazine cover today, from Paris, 1916. In fact Saturday 25 November, where the Great War had been going for two years, and aircraft marking were well established. Magazine ‘La Vie Parisienne’ (‘Parisiene Life’) has an amusing looking cover. The woman, perhaps a ‘light skirt’ (a loose woman) given she’s showing her slip and stocking…
Rare Egyptian Camel
Yes, not the humped quadruped, but a Camel from Sopwith. Or in this case, from the sub contracted manufacturer Ruston. The ‘Scarf & Goggles’ blog says: “The completion of Ruston’s 1000th Camel was felt to warrant some celebration, with the result that this aircraft, serial number B7380, was delivered on 25 January 1918 wearing an…
Boat, Anchor 2
Today’s Poster, another post World War Two example from the French Aeronautique Navale following yesterday’s post. Here you can see how a different artist or designer can take what is evidently the same brief and develop a distinctly different design, again to use the naval aviation hardware as a recruitment tool. James Kightly, Vintage Aero…
Boat, Anchor
Today’s Poster, a post World War Two example from the French Aeronautique Navale. As well as one of the inimitable French flying boats (here a Bréguet 731) an indistinct aircraft carrier and other aircraft, we have the classic ‘fouled anchor’ over the roundel of French naval aviation. Tomorrow, another poster from the same era, with…
WAAF in Hebrew
Here’s a remarkable item, a 9 x 21 cm recruitment brochure for the British Woman’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) of the Second World War in Hebrew, aimed at a Jewish audience. Found on e-Bay, and passed onto me by Kiran Toor, the sales details give the background: “The Yishuv [Jewish community in the land of…
RAAF Roundel – Red Gone
In recognition of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) History & Heritage Symposium this week, let’s take a look at two aspects of the RAAF roundel. Originally the RAAF’s roundel design was based on the British Royal Air Force’s, itself a derivative of the French air arm’s roundel, featuring red white and blue. The red…
Posters of Interesting Times
Today’s Posters are a set of Chinese aviation instructional posters, an to western eyes, a very different mix of style, content and approach to anything we’ve seen here before. This one below of ‘Active Air Defences’, with the Smithsonian’s source detail here. Is it meant as a ‘how to behave?’, or ‘how you are being…
Canada Air
Two posters for Canada day today, centred on Canada’s contribution to World War Two’s air war – in men and machines. Above is an aircrew group being briefed ready to board their Douglas Boston medium bomber. The point, of course, is to demonstrate there are more flying jobs in the air force than the pilot….
Rolls Roundel to Sweep
Today’s Poster. A really strong monochrome graphic design from 1937 for a Rolls Royce engine, where the aircraft is led around the roundel. Interestingly, the Rolls Royce Merlin isn’t named, here, and the aircraft type – hard to identify – is, conversely named as the Fairey Battle. By the time actual combat was joined, in…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 