Canadiens-Francais! Le Prussien est encore sur le sol de France ... Enrolez-vous dans le 189e Bataillon, F.E.C.

French World War I Posters. Recruiting and Enlistment. War Bonds and Loans.

Canada Royalty Free Stock Photo

Prior to the introduction of lithography, primary poster printing techniques included the Wood Block technique and the Intaglio technique. Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder in Germany in 1796, but not utilized until the mid-to-late 1800s until the introduction of “Cheret’s three stone lithographic process.” Three stones were used to create vibrant posters with intense color and texture. The stones used were typically red, yellow or blue, which enabled the artist to produce a poster featuring both graphics and text using any color of the rainbow. The main challenge was to keep the images aligned. This method lent itself to images consisting of large areas of flat color and resulted in the characteristic poster designs of this period. The first “Art Nouveau” poster was made by Chezch artist Alphonse Mucha who worked in Paris. Art Nouveau and Belle Epoque dominated Paris until about 1901. In 1898, a new artist took Paris by storm, who would later be donned the father of modern advertising – Leonetto Cappiello.

During the First World War, Canadian war posters were using bold and short text copy, often along with simple, descriptive images to convey their messages. Heavily word based, they featured sentimental reminders of the need to support "the boys" at the front, viciously drawn attacks on "the Hun" (Germans). WWI period imagery often requires decoding in order to be understood by today's reader. During the Second World War, more picturesque "Buy Victory Bonds!", or "Don't Spread war- rumours" to avoid becoming "one of Hitler's Little Helpers" messages were everywhere. Canada created posters aimed at convincing citizens to join the military or help out on the home front.