Vintage Qantas Posters & Their History

Qantas Airways (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services) is the most popular airline in Australia, nicknamed The Flying Kangaroo. Founded in 1920, it is the third oldest airline in the world after KLM and Avianca. In 1935 Qantas operated its first overseas passenger flight from Brisbane to Singapore, a four-day trip. Today, Qantas flies to 20 domestic destinations and 21 international destinations in 14 countries across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe.

This series of posters was designed by Harry Rogers (1929-2012), an Australian poster artist and graphic designer who worked for Qantas from the early 1950s through to 1985. He moved to California in 1953 to study Animation at UCLA; his love of animation is reflected in his poster designs. As a freelance artist he worked for different companies, such as Coca Cola and Colgate, but Qantas became his main client. He created a different ‘look’ for each series by using different techniques: cut outs, collage and geometric shapes. Rogers also designed a font called cyclone, which Qantas used from 1970 to 1984 in all of their branding.

The posters we have in stock for Qantas by Harry Rogers feature destinations from well-known places such as Paris and England to more exotic locales such as New Zealand and the Philippines. They work well on their own as a memento of past trips or places lived, or as a series in the home or office.