DESIGN

BEST DESIGNS OF ALL TIME

POSTERS THAT CHANGED THE
WORLD
■ Poster designs have long influenced our lives – from anti-slavery messages and
sexual health awareness campaigns to political elections and film promotions. A
new book, published by Pavilion, 100 Posters That Changed The World, looks at
the stories behind 300 years of classic designs
Designed to shock, this poster of the British
slave ship, Brooks, packed with Africans
being shipped to North America, appeared in
1788. Designed by the Society for Effecting
the Abolition of the Slave Trade, England, it
raised awareness of this horrible trade and
helped sway public opinion.

Photograph: The Art Archive

Modern advertising techniques developed in
the late 1890s, with art used to sell products.
Typical of the genre is this poster designed
for the French magazine Le Frou Frou by
Leonetto Cappiello in 1899.

Photograph: Lordprice Collection/Alamy

The Women’s Suffrage Movement in the UK
used poster art for political purposes, with
this 1907 example, showing the forced
feeding of women in prison for demanding
the right to vote.

Photograph: Alamy
‘We Can Do It!’ Rosie the Riveter was
designed in 1943 by J Howard Miller, as part
of a campaign during the second world war
to encourage American women to go to work
for the war effort. It has since become a
symbol for female empowerment

Photograph: Donaldson Collection/Getty

Images
The relative affluence of the postwar period
in Australia saw a rise in the sales of cars,
their use for leisure, and road traffic
accidents. During the 1950s, the Australian
Road Safety Council launched a campaign to
promote road courtesy, and urged fathers to
bring their children ‘back alive’.

Photograph: QS Archive/Alamy
Officially titled The Heroic Guerrilla
Fighter, this 1967 Che Guevara poster
became ubiquitous – appearing worldwide
on bedroom walls, at protests and in
souvenir shops.

Photograph: Alamy
Forcing viewers to think about sex and
gender roles and to encourage men to take
responsibility for contraception, this poster,
designed by Cramer Saatchi for the Health
Education Council in 1970, was
groundbreaking.

Photograph: Alamy
A poster by an anonymous artist in the early
1970s channelled the anger at the war in
Vietnam. Subverting the Stars and Stripes,
the flag is turned upside down with the
stripes turned into rifles and the stars in to
planes, a reference to the millions of bombs
dropped on the country during the war.

Photograph: Alamy
The famous film poster design for Jaws in
1975 is widely considered to be one of the
most influential ever, instantly recognisable
and often copied and parodied.

Photograph: History
Archive/Rex/Shutterstock
In the mid-1980s, the HIV/Aids pandemic
was at its height, and the British government
mounted a multimedia campaign to promote
awareness of the disease, including this
poster with the message: ‘Aids: Don’t Die of
Ignorance’.

Photograph: Alamy
Shepard Fairey’s graphic poster from 2008,
with the slogan Progress changed to Hope
by the Barack Obama team, captured the
popular imagination and the mood of a
nation. Its popularity helped secure the
Democratic nomination for the senator from
Illinois.

Photograph: Alamy