Photo by Garrett Mynatt
On a Friday night, people gather inside the University Center for the Arts building to catch a glimpse of something not viewed every day. After the doors open, the crowd spills in from three directions and they stop. The scene is overwhelming. There are so many posters catching someone’s eye here and intriguing someone else there, where the movement of people becomes a trickle. Posters carrying social themes and other messages are tacked on every wall, and the viewers have discussions, each of them shuffling from poster to poster at their own pace.
The posters make a social, cultural or commercial statement that crosses international borders and bodies of water. One poster has the tip of a red heart upside down that transforms into an iceberg as a ship comes closer to the iceberg heart. This was a German poster made for a musical based on “Titanic” grabbed a lot of attention.
This is just one of the many posters that come together to make the 16th biennial Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition.
“The sheer brilliance of some of these posters are shocking because [they’re] so good,” says Linny Frickman, curator of the show and University Art Museum director. “Some of the [posters] take my breath away because they’re so smart in terms of being able to solve a [problem visually].”
Phil Risbeck, a co-founder of CIIPE in 1979, emphasizes the accessibility of the posters, saying that an audience doesn’t have to reach a certain education level to understand the messages being communicated.
Not all the posters are designed to solve a problem to be able to catch the audience’s attention. Some of the posters are there for commercial aid, moving a message about a product, while other posters spark curiosity about its themes.
This year’s honor laureate and CIIPE judge Majid Abbasi, pronounced ob-see, focuses on the cultural aspects of Iran, his native country. His posters are mainly built around tributes to Iranian icons like contemporary authors and photographers.
Photo by Garrett Mynatt
The night before the CIIPE unveiling, Abbasi shyly looks around the room at the grand opening of his poster exhibit, displayed in the Curfman Gallery in the Lory Student Center. Abbasi converses with students and graphic designers alike, while everyone takes in the wide variety of posters and book jackets occupying the space under spotlights and glass panes.
For Abbasi, it’s not easy to pick a favorite poster out of his entire collection of work.
“It’s very difficult to say,” he admits. Because he knows what it took to make the poster and the context behind the meaning, he can’t pick any one piece as being his favorite. He is proud of them all, he says.
Since Abbasi designs his posters for an Iranian audience, an international audience may not grasp the complete message. After 15 years of designing, Abbasi, 44, says the hardest thing to accomplish is to keep the original concept intact.
“Many people don’t know [my] language or my alphabet,” Abbasi says. Whether he is explaining things to his students in Tehran, where he teaches at a private university, or when working with a client, he is constantly striving to create an effective message for the appropriate audience.
One word in one language can carry a completely different meaning in another. Thus whenever Abbasi travels to another country, he is always equipped with a translator and holds a lecture to explain his work.
“I try to explain every unclear concept,” he says. “If I know that our language and our text is not readable for an international audience, I’ll try to design a very clear poster. If I design any unclear concepts, I’m not a successful designer. I think the best poster should not [need] any explanation.”
In addition to that, Abbasi says graphic designers should be aware of the issues in their own culture, and respect the limitations set by the government or society.
“I try to design my works in adaptation with the rules of society and government,” he says. “Many times, my work has been refused, so I try other ways to express myself.”
Because of his discipline as a graphic designer, Abbasi has gained respect from John Gravdahl, a CSU art professor and CIIPE co-coordinator.
“He’s very well known in the graphic design community,” Gravdahl says. “[Iranian society] has a fantastic design history and contemporary works. It’s the top ranking [in graphic design] right now and it has been for a long time, and it‘s been increasingly recognized so [Abbasi’s] a perfect candidate [for the CIIPE judge].”
For some artists, the poster is used as a communication tool to disclose all kinds of repression that often spurs debate, different from Abbasi’s purpose.
“[The CIIPE provides an] international window that open up so people can look at a social issue that they didn’t think was that important [in other countries],” Gravdahl says. “It’s not something you’ll find in a newspaper ad.”
Over a century ago, posters as advertisements actually were the case, according to Frickman.
“The medium of the poster was founded as an advertising tool,” she says. “They were used to get people to buy things or to do things. I think, while it still has the impact, there are obviously other means to make us do that now. When we look at the examples [now] we are able to understand what kind of visual strategies the artist is using and we become more perceptive viewers.”
After the purpose of the poster started to evolve, Risbeck got the idea to start a show at CSU after he went to an international poster show in Poland. The CIIPE is the first and longest running poster show in the United States, he says.
“It’s more important now from when it was founded in 1979 because our world is increasingly visual,” Frickman says. “By the way we function and manipulate the world through the Internet, we’re taking visual clues from things constantly.”
There’s a lot of preparation that goes into CIIPE, especially keeping up the worldwide trends of graphic design, according to Risbeck. Gravdahl along with fellow designers always keeps an eye in the world of graphic design.
Photo by Garrett Mynatt
“We keep our eyes open for new talent,” he says. “We’re also interested in bringing newer visions in. We look at other exhibitions, and once in awhile someone will send us examples of their work, asking to be in the show. We’ll review it but basically it depends on a track record and quality of work. We have few American designers, but we [also] have a good representation of all over the world.”
Whether cultural or commercial themes, posters are distributed in large quantities, and audiences are asked to get a message out of them, Gravdahl says.
“We want [audiences] to be aware of what’s going on around them,” he says. “You can’t just sit in a room with a lamp and come up with a piece that means very much. You have to keep your ears and eyes open to society. This provides a glimpse of what’s going on around the world.”
Tags: Volume 5 Issue 1
