Palimpsest of posters
displayed in London in the 1890s.

Every poster is created to attract the viewer’s attention and retain it for a brief, yet intense, moment. In this short span, the viewers must be grabbed: they must be startled, made to laugh, think, protest, and, at any rate, react. Only then – by eliciting such reactions – will the poster convey its message successfully, turning into a medium through which a kind of information has been effectively transmitted.

In the short period of its existence as a tool of communication, the poster has been quick to prove its value. Communication is effected through the accessibility and the adaptability of the poster’s vocabulary, a crucial element that defines the medium’s identity and determines the success of its goal. Posters can incorporate complicated thoughts and messages in one comprehensive unity, through an almost poetic, pictorial assemblage. They can simultaneously create a general impression on the wider public and be registered as a piece of information directed at a specific target group – those able to decipher the deeper meaning of the message. This group is the final recipient of the advertisement venture, be it an organized campaign or an individual effort.

The interior landscape – that of fantasy – and the exterior one –of the environment–have become the fields on which novel images are projected, vying for the public’s attention. The poster alters our perception of the world by creating images that springbfrom, or are part of, the boldest human fantasy. A talented poster designer uses his dexterities to create a pictorial entity that lends an unexpected glow to city streets, creating an environment which could never be otherwise experienced (exoticism, extreme action, fantasy). At the same time, the poster’s very being is associated directly and exclusively with urban landscape: people living in urban centers have a need for color and fantasy, especially in public spaces. Street posters still exist to this day, but mass communication is almost exclusively undertaken by television advertising.

Posters soon became such an important element of the collective subconscious that they were transformed into allegories of memory itself: bright, clean, and brand new in their early days, they quickly rip, fade and disintegrate. Many city walls bearing layers of posters turn into palimpsests of the here and now.

Christos Ph. Margaritis, Irene Orati