From band posters stapled to telephone poles to the advertisements hanging at bus shelters to the inspirational prints that adorn office walls, posters surround us everywhere—but do we know how they began? Telling the story of this ephemeral art form, Elizabeth E. Guffey reexamines the poster’s roots in the nineteenth century and explores the relevance they still possess in the age of digital media. Even in our world of social media and electronic devices, she argues, few forms of graphic design can rival posters for sheer spatial presence, and they provide new opportunities to communicate across public spaces in cities around the globe.

Guffey charts the rise of the poster from the revolutionary lithographs that papered nineteenth-century London and Paris to twentieth-century works of propaganda, advertising, pop culture, and protest. Examining contemporary examples, she discusses Palestinian martyr posters and West African posters that describe voodoo activities or Internet con men, stopping along the way to uncover a rich variety of posters from the Soviet Union, China, the United States, and more. Featuring 150 stunning images, this illuminating book delivers a fresh look at the poster and offers revealing insights into the designs and practices of our twenty-first-century world.

从钉在电线杆上的乐队海报，到挂在公共汽车候车亭上的广告，再到装饰办公室墙壁的鼓舞人心的印刷品，海报在我们身边无处不在，但我们知道它们是如何开始的吗？伊丽莎白-E-古菲讲述了这种短暂的艺术形式的故事，重新审视了海报在19世纪的根源，并探索了它们在数字媒体时代仍然拥有的相关性。她认为，即使在我们这个充满社交媒体和电子设备的世界里，很少有平面设计的形式可以与海报的纯粹空间存在相媲美，它们为全球城市的公共空间提供了新的交流机会。

Guffey记录了海报的崛起，从19世纪伦敦和巴黎的革命石版画到20世纪的宣传、广告、流行文化和抗议作品。在考察当代案例时，她讨论了巴勒斯坦烈士海报和描述伏都教活动或互联网骗子的西非海报，并一路走来，发现了来自苏联、中国、美国等地的丰富多样的海报。这本富有启发性的书拥有150张令人惊叹的图片，对海报进行了全新的审视，并对我们21世纪世界的设计和实践提出了具有启发性的见解。