Against the musealization
Guest commentary Poster design means contemporaneity and effective oscillation between art and commerce, says graphic designer K. Domenic Geissbühler.
Guest commentary Poster design means contemporaneity and effective oscillation between art and commerce, says graphic designer K. Domenic Geissbühler.
For the younger among us, let's start with an attempt at a definition: poster [das; French, Dutch], publicly displayed, usually large-format poster with a communicative or advertising character, often artistically designed. A distinction is made between the textless picture poster, the text-only poster and, as a mixture of these two types of poster, the picture-text poster and the text-picture poster.the poster has always been a child of the street, made for the people on the streets of this world. But what is its communicative uniqueness, its aesthetic appeal, its artistic fascination? Is the poster even a pioneer of contemporary art? Absolutely. More precisely: it is a forerunner of serial art.
It is also a medium with a high historical significance. Whether film, theater, drinks, insurance or cars: everyone uses it to illustrate their uniqueness and contemporaneity. Accordingly, the poster designer has increasingly mutated into a communicator who is supposed to lead this or that product to success.
In the past, commercial posters were often qualitatively superior to cultural posters; today it is the other way around. The laws according to which posters function have not changed - or not. Brassieres, liverwurst and gold jewelry have one thing in common: they need a certain size in order to be shown to advantage in this medium. Enlarged advertisements from the advertising campaign are therefore not enough.
The majority of the posters had no artistic value at any time. But some have stuck in the collective memory, have challenged and touched viewers. These figureheads of our craft achieve astonishing auction prices and are hoarded in collections. As gratifying as this form of appreciation is, it is also dangerous. Because musealization is the death of contemporaneity. And this is precisely what characterizes the poster as a street medium.
The artistic recognition inherent in the term "musealization" is also pleasing. The advertising pillar as an open-air museum: in fact, the achievements in the field of posters are in no way inferior to the masterpieces of graphic design. Conversely, for graphic designers, the poster is and remains the medium with which they can say the most about themselves.
PS: As a long-standing recipient of commissions from Zurich Opera House and other cultural institutions, I greatly appreciate sponsorship, because it gives us the opportunity to create without compromise.
> Karl Domenic Geissbühler is a member of ADC and an independent
Graphic designer in Zurich.
For the younger among us, let's start with an attempt at a definition: poster [das; French, Dutch], publicly displayed, usually large-format poster with a communicative or advertising character, often artistically designed. A distinction is made between the textless picture poster, the text-only poster and, as a mixture of these two types of poster, the picture-text poster and the text-picture poster.the poster has always been a child of the street, made for the people on the streets of this world. But what is its communicative uniqueness, its aesthetic appeal, its artistic fascination? Is the poster even a pioneer of contemporary art? Absolutely. More precisely: it is a forerunner of serial art.
It is also a medium with a high historical significance. Whether film, theater, drinks, insurance or cars: everyone uses it to illustrate their uniqueness and contemporaneity. Accordingly, the poster designer has increasingly mutated into a communicator who is supposed to lead this or that product to success.
In the past, commercial posters were often qualitatively superior to cultural posters; today it is the other way around. The laws according to which posters function have not changed - or not. Brassieres, liverwurst and gold jewelry have one thing in common: they need a certain size in order to be shown to advantage in this medium. Enlarged advertisements from the advertising campaign are therefore not enough.
The majority of the posters had no artistic value at any time. But some have stuck in the collective memory, have challenged and touched viewers. These figureheads of our craft achieve astonishing auction prices and are hoarded in collections. As gratifying as this form of appreciation is, it is also dangerous. Because musealization is the death of contemporaneity. And this is precisely what characterizes the poster as a street medium.
The artistic recognition inherent in the term "musealization" is also pleasing. The advertising pillar as an open-air museum: in fact, the achievements in the field of posters are in no way inferior to the masterpieces of graphic design. Conversely, for graphic designers, the poster is and remains the medium with which they can say the most about themselves.
PS: As a long-standing recipient of commissions from Zurich Opera House and other cultural institutions, I greatly appreciate sponsorship, because it gives us the opportunity to create without compromise.
> Karl Domenic Geissbühler is a member of ADC and an independent
Graphic designer in Zurich.
