About Us

Travel Poster Co. Shop is the official UK shop of British illustrator Henry Rivers. Henry is on a mission to capture the world's best-loved places with cool colours, playful details and a distinctive minimalist style. The shop makes his ever growing collection of designs available to display in your home.

Henry

Henry Rivers is the designer and illustrator behind Travel Poster Co. Henry grew up on the Isle of Wight, off the South coast of the UK. Art has always been a big part of Henry’s life. As a boy his grandma would take him along to her watercolour group on the island, where he was the youngest attendee by a good 60 years! He would spend much of his time drawing birds, from chickens to eagles.

Before becoming an illustrator, Henry trained as an architect. His training taught him the technical art of drawing buildings in elevation and he studied the history of architectural styles, taking a particular interest in the Art Deco skyscrapers of New York. Henry’s background in architecture can been seen in many of his artworks. His early travel posters were focused on illustrating the architecture of cities like London, Paris, New York and San Francisco.

In 2015 Henry started Travel Poster Co., a collection of contemporary travel posters. The collection combined his architectural background, passion for design, and a love of travel. Whether in his studio, or exploring a new city, Henry can be found engrossed in his sketchbook, working on new designs in his distinctive minimalist style.

Style and Inspiration

As well as finding inspiration in his architectural roots, Henry is influenced by vintage advertising and posters. His designs are inspired by Art Deco artists such as A. M. Cassandre. He reduces scenes into clean geometric forms and lines, which makes for striking poster layouts. His colour palette is inspired by fifties poster artists like Alain Carrier, whose designs employed dozens of subtly different shades of two or three complementary colours.

With his eye for playful details and striking minimalist compositions, Henry’s designs are a modern interpretation of the Art Deco travel advert. His distinctive style often involves a contrast of scales, featuring huge landmarks set against the intimate characters that bring his posters to life.

Process

All of Henry’s posters start as a scribble, usually something that takes only a couple minutes. His early sketches are often small to experiment with layouts, followed by bigger ones to discover the details. It often takes a year or so to go from scribble to finished piece. This gives time to develop an idea in the back of his mind, revisiting it and re-sketching it every few weeks to tweak the layout, gradually building in more detail. Once Henry is happy with an idea, the final designs are created digitally, bringing in soft colours, textures and depth.

The experience of travelling is important to the process. When working on a design on location, Henry spends as much time soaking up the atmosphere of a place, as sketching it. When working in the studio, he’ll spend time researching, scrolling through photos of cities to get ideas for specific viewpoints, buildings, plants or characters to inhabit his illustrations.

Travel Poster Co. Shop

Since starting Travel Poster Co. in 2015, interest in Henry’s work has steadily grown. He has always enjoyed talking with anyone interested in discussing his designs. In 2020 Henry decided to establish Travel Poster Co. Shop. The shop allows Henry to share his artwork with those who enjoy it, and allows them to bring it into their homes. The shop gives Henry complete artistic control over the collection, working with suppliers who showcase the best of his designs.

To help establish and run the shop, Henry sought out the help of his brother Jack. Jack shares Henry’s creative passion, if not necessarily his artistic talent! Above anything else, working on the shop together meant that Jack would be able to write this About Us section. This saved Henry from the embarrassing task of talking about himself in the third person. Together they enjoy sharing a love of travel with anyone who chooses to bring Henry’s designs into their home.