Prints versus posters, what’s the difference?
Posters were originally produced to be disposable. They were printed on thin, cheap paper. And they used cheap inks that would deteriorate with the action of air and moisture. So the posters didn’t last. Some posters are still printed that way, and are only expected to last a short while.
With modern pigment inks, prints and posters can stay fresh and vibrant for many decades. The technology is so good that you can’t distinguish between prints and posters based on the quality of the materials.
So if you can’t tell them apart on the quality of the materials, how can you tell them apart?
Prints Are More Expensive, But Why?
Prints are more expensive. The artwork is made artists and the prints are made in small runs to preserve their status and value. And yes, prints may be printed on thicker paper. But that’s only a maybe. For example, we have our posters printed on thick matte museum-quality paper.
To really understand why people think of prints and posters differently we need to go back to when posters appeared. And we need to understand why people made posters.
Posters Were Printed To Advertise
In the 19th century posters were printed to advertise. They advertised everything from shows, to cafes, to railway journeys. At the same time, artists like Toulouse Lautrec and Pierre Bonnard were happy to use their skill to design posters.
And when an advertising campaign was over, people would take the posters and put them on their walls at home. And that’s how the mass market for cheap art at home began.
Of course a cheap poster printed on thin, glossy paper is a cheap item. But who says posters have to be printed on paper like that? Nowadays we can print on museum-quality, thick matt paper with pigment inks that will last for decades.
But this is why people think of prints versus posters differently even today.
The Nineteenth Century Cult Of Celebrity
Let’s put things in perspective. We tend to think that things are different today. And it’s true that technology has changed a lot of things. The selfie has taken over the world. But the cult of celebrity is not as new as you think.
Photography took off in the second half of the nineteenth century. By the early 1860s, around 400 million photographic cards of celebrities were sold every year in Britain alone. The population of Britain in 1860 was around 20 million. So that’s 20 photo cards for every man, woman, and child in the country. And that was just thirty five years after photography was invented.