How Danish Poster Art Influenced My Illustration Style
- Liv Hansen
- Jul 6, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 9
How Danish poster art shaped my illustration style through family history, observation, and everyday life.
I don't remember anyone talking about Danish poster art when I was growing up.
The posters were simply there. Some hung on walls. Others appeared in old books or portfolios that seemed to have existed forever. I knew my great-granduncle Aage Rasmussen, had designed travel posters for DSB (Danish State Railways) in the mid-twentieth century, but as a child it didn't feel remarkable. Families have their own ordinary facts. Mine happened to include railway posters.
Years later I began drawing travel inspired illustrations.
Not because I was trying to recreate those posters. In fact, I wasn't thinking about them at all. I was interested in ordinary locations, waiting rooms, passengers arriving with bags, and the familiar rhythm of everyday travel. It was only afterwards, looking at my own work beside those older designs, that I began to notice certain similarities.
Not the subjects themselves.
The way the eye moves through the image.
The amount left unsaid.
What Makes Danish Poster Art Distinctive?
Mid-century travel posters once had a simple job; persuade people to go somewhere. Many relied on spectacle. Mountains became taller. Beaches became brighter. Cities looked busier than they really were.
The Danish tradition often took a different approach.
A station platform with only a handful of travelers.
A stretch of coastline or a country road, disapperaring between beech trees.
The compositions were carefully balanced, the palette restrained, and unnceesssary details quietly disapperead. Nothing demanded attention, yet everything seemed considered.
Perhaps that's why many of these mid-century posters still feel contemporary, relying on observation rather than decoration.
Growing Up Around Illustration
Drawing was not unusual in my family. My mother would bring home sketches from trips to Greenland. My grandmother studied illustration and, while she was a student, knew the Danish illustrator Ib Andersen. Creative work simply belonged to everyday life.
No one suggested I should become an illustrator.
There were no formal lessons around the kitchen table, and certainly no conversations about carrying on a family tradition.
Drawing existed alongside music, books, and conversation.
Looking back, I think that may have mattered more than I realised. You don't always notice the visual language you're surrounded by until years later, when it begins to appear in your own work.
Finding my Own Scandinavian Illustration Style
When I returned to drawing as an adult, I wasn't trying to recreate Danish vintage posters.
If anything, I was simply paying attention.
A kettle left on the stove.
Morning light across a kitchen floor.
People waiting for a train without looking at their phones.
The edge of a forest as spring arrives.
These are the subjects I find myself returning to because they feel familiar rather than extraordinary.
For me, illustration isn't about inventing remarkable places. It's about noticing the ones we pass every day.
Why Danish Poster Art Still Feels Relevant
We're surrounded by more images than ever before. Most compete for attention.
The Danish poster tradition reminds me that an image doesn't have to explain everything immediately.
It can leave room for curiosity. It can trust the viewer.
Danish Poster Art and My Illustration Practice
People occasionally ask whether I see my work as a continuation of that tradition.
I don't.
The illustrations belong to a different time and inevitably reflect my own experiences.
Years spent abroad changed the way I look at Denmark, while old films, travel, and everyday life continue to shape the places that find their way into my drawings.
What I recognize is a shared way of looking.
Perhaps that's the inheritance after all—not a style to imitate, but a way of paying attention.
I adore how this piece captures the subdued beauty and deliberate harmony of Danish billboard art; it truly demonstrates how atmosphere and simplicity can convey potent visual narratives. It makes me think of how effective poster design services, like the Danish tradition discussed here, may improve a brand's visual language by emphasizing composition, mood, and clarity.