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Journal: Why Can't Modern Racing Posters Be This Cool?

Why Can’t Modern Racing Posters Be This Cool?

By Petrolicious
May 12, 2015

We love vintage racing posters here at Petrolicious, and with the Mille Miglia in full swing we thought we’d take a look back at some of the stunning designs that have been created in order to promote the world’s great races.

Posters are a unique art form to begin with, and we find that vehicles are often most interesting when viewed from a different perspective. When artists and graphic designers traditionally tackled racing posters, they were able to abstract and distort the imagery to best suit the intended message. Many artists are car enthusiasts, of course, but many are not—and sometimes, that new perspective is best displayed on a bright and colorful race poster.

What are your favorite posters, and where is your favorite place to get them? 

Image Sources: brianpaulnelson.com, collectorstudio.com, jalopyjournal.com, grandprixposters.com, channeladvisor.com, pinimg.com, pinimg.com 

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Vintage Race Posters
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Jim Medici
Jim Medici
8 years ago

I think the major promoters and sanctioning bodies are missing the boat by not even selling event posters. With lots of people decorating their garages and “man caves” I see a lot of pent up demand.

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zeb
zeb
9 years ago

Great posters Francisco

bravo !!

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Francisco Yantorno
Francisco Yantorno
9 years ago
Reply to  zeb

Thanks!

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Dan Picasso
Dan Picasso
9 years ago

I’d admire to see more illustrators shut the computers off and do the damn thing by hand.

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Christopher Gay
Christopher Gay
9 years ago
Reply to  Dan Picasso

Good luck with that! 😮

:p

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Johannes Roussel
Johannes Roussel
9 years ago

Poster I made las year. Introduced some vintage flavours.

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Johannes Roussel
Johannes Roussel
9 years ago
Reply to  Johannes Roussel

And this was my first proposition. Even more vintage flavour… Too much for the client

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Paul Ting
Paul Ting
9 years ago

This is a dying/dead art and it’s sad. Seriously, when was the last time you saw an eye-catching automotive themed event poster? Why has it happened? As an art director, here’s my take:

1. Everything these days is social media this and that. Everything is geared towards PR soundbites, less focus on using graphic arts to elicit a response.

2. No body pays for or appreciate the value of this kind of work. I’m talking about race promoters. I have friends who tried to do this kind of work back in the late 80s and early 90s. They practically had to do it for free because none of the event promoters had a budget for this sort of stuff. It’s even worse now with social media. Why pay for a poster to be designed when they could just throw up a photograph from last year on Facebook along with a sentence to promote the event?

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Christopher Gay
Christopher Gay
9 years ago

“Why can’t modern racing posters be this cool?”

Well, I don’t see any reason why they can’t be.

For the most part, however, I feel it is due to the tools and media that the artists deal with. More direct hand/eye contact and execution- less (no) computer.

Additionally, I don’t see many of the older posters littered with advertisements, sponsors, little buttons and tags that are much more prevalent and distracting in the newer posters.

In my opinion, if you give a room full of “artists” a laptop and a printer, you may end up with a stack of posters and ideas. Give a room full of the same “artists” more traditional tooling, and you will end up with a much, much, much smaller stack.

Your mileage may vary.

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Francisco Yantorno
Francisco Yantorno
9 years ago

Ups, posted the “Gran Premio Europa” twice, this one was the one missing.

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Francisco Yantorno
Francisco Yantorno
9 years ago

Here the some more posters I did 🙂

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Francisco Yantorno
Francisco Yantorno
9 years ago

Hi guys I’m a graphic designer and I always wondered the same thing. So, when I started to be a part of the Directive Board of the Alfa Romeo Club of Argentina I was really happy because It would let me change this and try to make a humble tribute to this amazing posters. At least in this first stage I’m being inspired by the European Poster Artists from the first half of the XX century, specifically the french and italian referents. These are the posters I’ve making since for every event held by the Alfa Club here in Argentina. Also tried some 70’s retro graphics for the Alfetta GTV’s anniversary. Hope you like them!

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Darin Russo
Darin Russo
9 years ago

I have almost all of these in my office, which in part probably leads to things like this:

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M Webb
M Webb
9 years ago

Many years ago there was a shop in Paris named “Vitesse”

I would plan trips to Paris every 3 months or so just to buy another vintage racing poster.

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Benjamin Shahrabani
Benjamin Shahrabani
9 years ago

I recently just finished restoring this one, a 1960’s Porsche racing poster. it had a tear and was missing a small chunk at the top – but I had to buy this one as I had been searching for it for a while.

A lot of posters didn’t survive. They were printed on essentially disposable paper, and were at the time simply regarded as advertisements for an event or feat. Only today are they collectable!;)

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