Modern British Posters | Paul Rennie

Academic Practice, 2^nd February 2011

Paul Rennie is a collector who uses his posters to describe the history of British society from the beginning of twentieth century.

Posters first appeared in the end of the nineteenth century in Paris, which was at that time a culturally vibrant centre of Europe. The new urban planning of the city as well as some developments in printing processes contributed to the popularization of billboards and posters.
London also assisted to the development of this communication support at about the same time.

Besides presenting his finished work and sharing some views on the historical and social context of posters, Paul Rennie also presented part of his process.

In a very simple approach he showed how research is an iterative process, where new knowledge does not stack in layers but rather complements the existing one and helps clarifying the subject in study.
The several writings (films, experiments, etc) on a specific field establish an ever-growing “conversation” with each other. Digging into a subject discloses connections and influences between different authors and epochs apparently remote at the first sight.

Each work relates with the existing ones by opposing, reinforcing, adding points of view or presenting new perspectives that broaden the subject.
In this sense, our own work will lately be a small contribution to an ongoing conversation.

A research report is then a presentation of this dialog in a structured way. We should introduce our evidences and make it clear how they relate with each other and contribute to the subject. With this support, we should then make it tangible to others what our case is, what resources we have collected, where we are going from there and how we position ourselves and our work in the wider picture.

Rennie’s passion and continuous research is a contribution to the ongoing conversation of the history of design.