Swiss tourism poster design reached its classic period in the decades after the Second World War, when a generation of trained graphic artists were commissioned by the Swiss Federal Railways, cantonal tourism offices, and the Swiss Tourist Board to produce images that would draw visitors to the mountains, lakes, and cities of a country that had emerged from the war period largely intact. Hans Aeschbach was among the artists working in this tradition, and his 1951 poster — a composition in the bold, flat-colour idiom that Swiss graphic design had made internationally influential — promotes the Swiss Alps as a destination defined equally by natural grandeur and the culture of Alpine sport and adventure.
The image carries the characteristic qualities of the genre at its best: a strong silhouette, a limited colour palette handled with maximum contrast and clarity, a direct address to the viewer that reads instantly at the scale of a railway station or travel agency window. The phrase "Swiss Alps Calling" belongs to the postwar moment when travel was resuming, when the Alps were being reconceived as a destination for an expanding tourist market, and when graphic design was the primary medium through which that invitation was issued. The poster is now a historical document as well as a visual pleasure: a record of how Switzerland presented itself to the world at a specific moment in the twentieth century.
Fine Porcelain — 10 oz. Dishwasher and microwave safe.
Hans Aeschbach, Swiss Alps Calling, 1951, tourism poster. Public domain.
