The centenary of one of our most influential design and advertising studios is being celebrated in a very beautiful new book from Te Papa.
Railways Studios: How a Government Design Studio Helped Build New Zealand tells the story of the graphics which dominated outdoor advertising for over 65 years.
Advertising posters and painted billboards adorned cities, towns and highways up and down the country.
Tens of thousands of designs were produced for both the public- and private-sector.
Not only posters but pamphlets, maps and postage stamps promoting not just New Zealand Rail's - and others' services but an idealised image of New Zealand and a way of life.
Philippa Tolley speaks with lead author Peter Alsop, and Neill Atkinson, co-authors of the book (along with Katherine Milburn and Richard Wolfe).
Advertisements. The advertisement on the left is an example of one of several collaborative campaigns run by the Railways and Tourist departments, December 1929. On right, advertisement appeared on the back cover of the Christmas number of the Weekly News in 1940.
The Petone clothing brand was a key client of the Studios and the subject of many poster and billboard designs. (Images from Peter Alsop Collection, ATL and Archives NZ) part-coloured, are held in Archives NZ(ABIN W3806)
Maltexo Original design for billboard c.1940. (Peter Alsop Collection)
Railways Studios poster room, April 1967. (Image by John Le Cren, Archives NZ, AAVKW3493-B144453.)
Petone station around 1925. (Image by James Henry Daroux, ATL, 1/1-023371-G, extensive image restoration by Brendan Graham.)
The department tried to deflect complaints about hoardings. This article in Railways Magazine in July 1937 portrayed them as ‘beautifying’ the environment by using before-and-after photographs to argue a curated installation of hoardings was better than what was there before.
Lord Strathspey was quoted under the headline ‘Overseas appreciation of railways magazine’, in Railways Magazine in October 1935. The detail opposite is from the magazine’s February 1927 cover.
