South For Winter

South for Winter poster, by Edmond Vaughan, 1929, for Southern Railroad. The Southern Railroad was the predecessor of one hundred and fifty private lines combined in 1894. In 1990 it was renamed to Norfolk Southern Railway. The railroad suffered great damage during the Civil War, but it was quickly reconstructed, repaired and put to work again. Southern Railroad controlled a vast extension of territories including Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and parts of Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi.

Edmond Vaughan created some posters for Southern Railroad and the Southern Electric companies. The poster South for Winter depicts a Southern Railroad train going upwards to the right side of the frame. The frame is divided in triangles and quadrilateral geometric shapes. Vaughan alternates the colors grey, orange and blue for the background and dark green for the locomotive. The train in the poster is leaving the gray area, which represents winter and cold, moving towards the orange colored part, which is the South, richer in sun. The word winter is written on top of a light gray, in opposition to the word sunshine, which is written in bright orange. The poster has a lot of tension and movement. The message is subtle, there is no information about train hours, or even a specific route. The art work seems to be targeting the general public to ride the Southern Railroad. The poster has a very interesting look, and the message that Southern Railroad can transport people away from a cold winter is well transmitted.

The poster do not address a specific niche. Is that aimed for children and their parents during winter brake, or is the poster centered to the retired community? Those questions are not clear, which for nowadays standards would be very important to address. Given the 1929 culture, the poster seems non invasive and rather pleasant to look at. Nowadays, the same idea may need to bring some more information, being a little more explicit, grabbing the attention of the viewer but addressing more specific questions