National Theatre Posters

de Rick Poynor

Across the decades, the National Theatre's poster designs have been the responsibility of just five individuals: Ken Briggs, the theatre's first graphic designer; Richard Bird; Michael Mayhew; Charlotte Wilkinson; and Ollie Winser. An enormous range of graphic approaches has been used - typographic, illustrative and photographic. This diversity of expression reflects the designers' temperaments and skills, the fashions of the time and changing conceptions of the most effective way to communicate graphically with the theatre's audiences. National Theatre posters, when viewed collectively, comprise both a history of design at an institution central to British cultural life, and a case study of the way the poster as a medium has evolved in Britain in the last half-century.