Help!: Poster Collection 20

The poster as a vehicle for urgent ethical and ecological appeals to the public

Thanks to their social effectiveness, posters have always been an ideal vehicle for addressing global and urgent ethical appeals to the populace. This publication presents international posters since 1980 that urge us to take responsibility for humanity and the planet. While posters designed by artists to serve their own purposes tend to reflect a desire to enlighten and inform, posters for human rights and environmental organizations and relief agencies are direct attempts to stir individuals into action. In recent years, however, commercial enterprises have also discovered social and ecological engagement as a marketing tool with which to cultivate their image. This book illuminates the broad range of visual strategies and the rhetorical communication of social messages in posters. For posters are as varied in their content, form, and expression as are the motivations and intentions of the clients who commission them.