Graphic designers: Back away from the computer and head to the Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. In the sixty displayed postered portraits, one can see an evolution of graphic design and advertising, with each era screaming its identity through fonts, colors and graphic techniques, as well as the obvious context of the featured face. Keeping true to the NPG’s mission, all 60 posters are about Americans or American films, however many of them were produced in Europe to promote overseas releases. In addition to the numerous film ads, the exhibit also highlights circus posters from the late 1800s, war propaganda, and the $100,000 reward poster for John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices (which, interestingly, screams "100,000 Reward! THE MURDERERS," only naming Lincoln and Booth in very small type beneath).

Curator Wendy Reaves urges viewers to “look beyond posters as propaganda and advertisements and ask biographical questions.” Thomas Alva Edison, pictured left, is a woodcut print promoting demonstrations of Edison’s phonograph. Despite Edison’s lack of presence at the demos, his portrait takes up 40 percent of the space, thus keeping Edison’s reputation in the public eye. The text on the poster recalls an era of excitable, eccentric advertising speak, reading “Edison’s phonograph or talking machine: It talks! It sings! It laughs! It plays cornet songs,” displayed in characteristically old fashioned fonts—a look that current designers often emulate to communicate an outdated feeling.

Thomas Alva Edison by Alfred S. Seer Engraver courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

In many of the other works, the type is much less styled. Charlie Chaplin’s 1918 color linocut, pictured right, emphasizes the playful, clown-like black-coated figure of the recognizable comedian, with head cocked and hands folded, holding a curved white cane. The stark design focuses the viewer’s eye on the silliness of the character, while pushing the text to the far corners. Similarly, many of the other film posters also rely heavily on celebrity image to advertise their product, often using painted stills from the actor’s previous films, emphasizing the actor over the plot of the upcoming film. This illustrates a time when the public images of the actor and film company were deemed the most important promotional tool.

What is most intriguing about Ballyhoo! are the similarities and differences one finds in poster design through the ages. Each transition—from painting to photography, from hand-rendered text to set type—speaks of more than just the change in technology.

Reaves notes that the 1960s changed posters completely. When people began collecting posters as a method of self identity, the poster’s primary function—advertising—was skewed. The exhibit contains several designs from this era, including many from Pushpin Studios in New York City. Co-founder Milton Glaser’s iconic Bob Dylan is on display, and demonstrates a return to the decorative roots of design—roots that were previously dismissed by the Bauhaus.

Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture runs through February 8. The National Portrait Gallery is located at 8th and F Streets NW, and is open from 11:30 a.m.to 7 p.m. daily.

Charlie Chaplin by Sven Brasch courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.