Designs on Delivery: GPO Posters from 1930 to 1960

NIGHT MAIL

University of the Arts London Archives and Special Collections Centre, in collaboration with The British Postal Museum & Archive, presents Designs on Delivery: GPO Posters from 1930 to 1960. The exhibition at the Well Gallery – and online here on the Archives Hub – focuses on a period when the Post Office was at the cutting edge of poster design and mass communication. It explores how the PO translated, often complex, messages to the public in order to educate them about the services offered, by using text, image, and colour.

As part of the exhibition, the Well Gallery will be showing on loop Night Mail (1936) which the British Film Institute calls "one of the most popular and instantly recognised films in British film history … one of the most critically acclaimed films … [of the] documentary film movement".

Illustration: poster designed by Pat Keely (died 1970) for the film Night Mail, reference The Royal Mail Archive POST 109/377; copyright © Royal Mail Group Ltd and courtesy of The British Postal Museum & Archive.