I was very interested by the Art On the Underground Project as posted previously, and took a look at the London Transport Museum's website. It contains an online collection of posters from the London underground that date back to 1900. However I was particularly interested by these below from the 1980's. The reason being that these posters are purely aesthetic, they are not advertising or selling anything. During the 1980's, due to increased fares, there became a drop in passenger numbers. That resulted in a decline in the demand for advertising space, and these empty spaces were covered with sheets of black paper. The idea came from this to fill the empty spaces with artwork, enriching passengers environment and their experience on the underground.
I particularly like the two posters below, due to their graphic appearance and symbolic representation of the underground. They are similar to many of the designs produced today.
Posters like these are still used today in projects such as Art On The Underground, and Platform for Art. They certainly grabbed my interest whilst traveling on the tube at the weekend and I think it is an interesting idea, making a dull journey a little more enjoyable. The London Underground must be one of the most effective spaces to showcase and exhibit artwork due to it's size and the volume of people traveling on it each day. A great way of getting new artists recognised and showing off Britain's modern art whilst making the underground more pleasing to the eye. Below are some of the more recent posters used.
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