Where Have All the (U.S.) Posters Gone?

Legendre Rutter — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:58:25 +0000

We can argue all day and night about why the printed poster is disappearing from the visual landscape, but the truth is that posters are still being produced all over the world. Designers everywhere are creating posters that are well-conceived and beautifully crafted, but there is evidence that the poster is simply not taken as seriously in the U.S. as it is in almost every other part of the industrialized world. As evidence, look at the major International Council of Graphic Design Associations (ICOGRADA) endorsed poster competitions around the world over the past year. Very few US designers enter these competitions and, for the most part, even fewer win anything.

Two such competitions stand out: the prestigious Toyama International Poster Triennial in Japan and the China International Poster Biennial. At Toyama, of the 4,516 posters submitted for judging from 49 countries, only 52 were from the USA. And of those, only 7 were selected for exhibition at the Toyama Museum of Modern Art (out of 409 exhibited). In China, the numbers were even more stark: of the 178 posters selected from all entries, 106 came from Asia, 66 from Europe, and only 5 came from all of North and South America.

What can we say? We’re trying to do our part to keep the American poster alive on the international design scene. Legendre+Rutter had three finalists chosen for exhibition in Toyama and four of the five US posters selected in China.

Finalists in the Toyama International Poster Triennial: “Cet Obscur Objet du Désir” by Legendre+Rutter and "Imagination" by Yann Legendre

"Les Liaisons Dangereuses" by Lance Rutter, Toyama Poster Triennial

Finalists in the China International Poster Biennial: "Niki de Sant Phalle" and "Fantasmagoria Fukuda" by Yann Legendre

Finalists in the China International Poster Biennial: "Music Awards Dinner" and "Homage to Mucha" by Lance Rutter

Legendre+Rutter » finalist

Where Have All the (U.S.) Posters Gone?