Viewed at 130. Roads, graphics, regions. Tourism of motorway landscapes and sites in France, 1972-2022.

The first signs for tourist and cultural activities, or “brown signs”, designed by Jean Widmer and the Visuel Design workshop have for the most part disappeared from the sides of French motorways, replaced by new ones with diversified graphic styles. Beyond the aesthetic values attributed to them or the content they carry, these images intended to be seen at 130 km/h play an interface role between the regions that the motorist crosses and the highway which distances him from the real experience of the latter. Through the updating of various archives, texts and historical studies, and by a prospective approach, the team of the Genius loci research program of the Higher Institute of Arts and Design of Toulouse, shows how graphic design has accompanied the development of tourism in France since the 19th century, passing through the first drafts of signage for animation in 1972 and until the acquisition by the National Center for Plastic Arts of the archives of Jean Widmer.