Poster Collection – serie

The history of posters is rich in variations on the hand. In consumer posters, a hand presents desirable products. But the hand can also take the form of a symbolically charged gesture in the political poster. In cultural posters, the hand then becomes the emblem of the creative individual. Just as versatile as the rhetoric of the hand are its diverse uses as a design element. In this volume, photographic, illustrative and abstract graphic images add up to a small cultural history of the hand as an eloquent conveyor of messages.

The medium of the poster is distinguished by displaying messages combining images and text on a static, two-dimensional surface. Designers have, however, always toyed with extending the plane by adding a third dimension, whether spatial or temporal, in order to fool the eye. Stop Motion examines the myriad creative approaches to suggesting movement, recession into depth, dynamics, and rhythm. Perspectival narrowing and plastically rendered motifs are among the traditional stylistic means used in painterly and illustrative posters. Borrowings from Op Art or psychedelic art perplex the eye. In photographic posters, techniques such as blurring or time exposure are used to cause an image to vibrate. But sophisticated printing techniques can also broaden the possibilities of visual expression. In contemporary posters, it is the strictly graphic means of writing, abstract pictograms, or geometric forms that stretch out nested spaces, through which the gaze wanders restlessly.Stop Motion reveals that poster designers have in fact traditionally sought to incorporate the aspect of movement. Moreover, the works assembled in the publication show that—with the exception of the current animated poster trend—the simulation of movement and three dimensions is always the result of a conscious design decision motivated by the respective content.

Iranian graphic design looks back on a brief history. The first poster designers completed independent artistic training and created painterly-illustrative works in the 1960s. The simultaneous opening to the West under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi promoted global cultural exchange. With the proclamation of the Islamic Republic in 1979 and the First Gulf War (1980–1988), however, this was rapidly interrupted. At the end of the 1980s, a new generation of designers took up the graphic heritage of the pre-war period. At the turn of the millennium, the Iranian poster finally conquered international festivals and caused a great stir in the Western community. The volume Contemporary Iran brings together Iranian cultural posters from 1960 to the present. Despite the many different creative approaches, they always demonstrate the search for a fusion of history and contemporaneity, Iran’s own tradition and Western inspiration, art and everyday culture. An often unorthodox interpretation of Persian cultural heritage is combined with the confident use of computer-generated graphics. Thus, some posters confirm common Western notions of Islamic aesthetics, while others radically undermine them and irritate and surprise us.

Peace appeals, reminders of human rights, calls to protect nature – posters have proven an effective medium in accompanying social and political struggles worldwide since the 1920s. Through the poster, these universal and timeless topics are able to reach a broad public and encourage critical debate. While some posters are meant to shed light and are aimed at reflection, others appeal more strongly to the emotions of their audience. Some dismantle past and present autocrats cynically, ironically or humorously – while others construct idols that exemplify a different world. Dystopian images function as a provocation and warning, while utopian messages keep the belief in change alive. Symbols such as the raised fist or the dove of peace demonstrate their global and lasting power in ever new interpretations. Proven visual formulas and argumentation strategies are taken up in posters of the latest civil protest movements and are supplemented by new rhetoric. The designers, acting individually or collectively, are united by commitment and an emancipatory attitude as well as the conviction that resistance requires its own aesthetic in order to function. The publication brings together works from around one hundred years that demonstrate the tradition of the poster as a medium of protest and assert its validity and necessity in the present day.