If you’ve been here before, you probably know by now that I am a sucker for a classic travel poster. I recently spotted the poster above titled Der Kluge Reist Im Zuge (The wise travel in the train) which was created by the great Swiss graphic artist Hans Thöni. After I tracked the poster’s provenance, I realized that I’ve seen dozens of the artist’s posters over the years without knowing the creator. I particularly enjoy the poster of the map of Switzerland (below) that he made for the National Railway sytem in 1937.

Thöni studied at Kunstgewerbeschule in Zürich and trained for four years in Paris before opening his studio in Bern. As a freelance graphic designer, he worked as an illustrator, stamp and exhibition designer and a member of the Schweizer Grafiker Verband. His major contribution to poster art is a series of posters for the Swiss railway, in which he experimented with photomontage and collage.

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