How the parents of Baby Boomers were enticed to cruise

A rare collection of vintage posters reflects an era when travel was a voyage into the unknown.

Josef Lebovic’s Sydney gallery has many vintage cruise posters among his more than 5000 works on paper dating from the 1500s. From left, an original vintage lithographic poster by Walter Jardine; a Jardine poster for Orient Line Tropic Cruises to Fiji, Rabaul, Noumea and Papua in the1930s; an original vintage lithographic poster by Dudley Hardy. Courtesy Josef Lebovic

Dan F StapletonWriter

Oct 4, 2024 – 5.00am

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Drone-shot footage of distant lands, ocean photography so crisp you can practically taste the salt air, celebrity social-media endorsements… In 2024, cruise-ship campaigns are ambitious, big-budget and multichannel.

A century ago, options were more limited. Cruise companies relied largely on quaint illustrated posters to convince prospective customers to visit places that were – for the vast majority – completely alien.