CAN POSTERS HELP?

This is a vexing title loaded question. I am going to try to answer it.

Posters have since the nineteenth century served many different social, political, and commercial functions. If you consider social messaging to include politics and health care, among other human rights and services then the answer to the question must be addressed in two parts. Posters are tools of commerce and society—sometimes the two intersect but not always. To the former is the answer: Yes! Posters continue to have a vital place in the consuming culture. They advertise everything from food and fashion to cars and computers— in fact, everything we consume can be introduced for the first time to the public, who as a rule are delighted to see the constantly changing posters on walls, hoardings, and billboards. These commercial posters inform and entertain on themes as broad as art shows, musical concerts, television programs, lifestyle products, and so on. The latter requires a more ambiguous answer.

Posters can also, just as importantly, advocate, protest, caution, and educate a viewer or audience on the such topics as glory or horror of war, the serenity and virtues of peace, the dangers of climate change, the necessity of safe space, the norms of community, the gift of hope, and the value of events that bring individuals together.

Taken as a whole and assuming the design and content of the posters in question meet certain qualifications—grab attention, elicit response, challenge perception and infiltrate the mind of the receiver, then and only then can posters help augment reality. In short, they do help in a variety of mnemonic ways.

Not all posters function at the same level of useful intensity. Self-indulgent design can be a liability. Over-stylized imagery can dilute a message. Yet legibility and readability (two different attributes sometimes linked together as one) are not, however, always the requisite for effective social posters. Often the surprising visual impact of an abstraction is more motivational than a simple realistic representation; chaos can be more relevant than a pristine work of fine design. The designer’s emotional response to an issue—whether it is the Ukraine war with Russia or containing the pandemic can, and are, designed in differently—sometimes counter intuitively—in unmodulated ways.

Can posters help? There is much that is positive to be said about static representation. As a culture there is a greater expectation of movement, of motion, of change. Time for contemplation has been reduced exponentially as our computers and devices become more powerful; and especially as artificial intelligence revs up the speed in which design can and is accomplished. Posters, even those that are designed on and for the screen, are essentially lasting. Sure, they can be animated if the designer so chooses, but they can also be printed out and hung on surfaces or sent through snail mail (just like it was done Before Computer [BC] era). The benefit of the semi-but-not-entirely-hybrid poster (those that are made for and reside on Internet sites or found on apps) is that how they are used is a choice—an agreement between the designer and the client (if there is one) and the viewer (or user). This makes posters helping more economical and efficacious.

The former means the latter is inescapable. Posters for social (including among other issues, gender, and sexuality), political (including issues rights, law, and freedom in general), and any personal concerns (whatever they may be at any given time and place) and most are represented in this publication, can be accomplished as quick as the creative (or polemic) mind can conceive them, produced and distributed in large numbers through a specific locale or countries around the world.

The golden age of the poster has long been considered the pioneering turn of the century, then the modern mid-twentieth century, then the psychedelic sixties, and so on through the decades, in Europe, the U.S., and Asia. Today is another golden age. It is the digital golden age. Can posters help? They still help? They will help issues, causes, and most important they help people be aware of the world in its present state.