| Earlier this year, Grefé realized that the upcoming election provided a natural opportunity for an AIGA-organized initiative. Through a national public service campaign, the AIGA could promote the importance of voting and combat the low voter turnout of past decades, while speaking to its membership's interest in freedom of speech and community activism. With that idea in mind, the AIGA asked each of its 41 regional chapters to nominate one of its members to submit a poster. The only criteria were that the message should spur people to vote and the poster should include the logos of the AIGA and Yupo, the sponsoring paper company.
The response was enthusiastic, with 22 submissions coming from chapters around the country. With synthetic paper company Yupo's sponsorship and a printing honorarium from the AIGA, printers produced 1,000 copies of each poster. The idea resonated among some of the AIGA's better-known members, as Charles S. Anderson, Kit Hinrichs, Jennifer Sterling, and D.J. Stout all donated their time and creativity.
The art of the poster
The 22 posters, each 18 x 27 inches, range from the simple to the obscure, and from the jarring to the poetic. With nearly complete creative control over the project, the designers had only their own imaginations to limit them.
Sharon Werner, of Werner Design Werks in Minneapolis, combined strong graphic elements with a play on words to create one of the most compelling posters. With an image of a soldier's helmet rendered in thick strokes on a red background, the poster calls attention to itself with the hand-scrawled words, "Some Americans got it in their heads that voting was a right worth fighting for. Go vote." It's only when you see the die-cut hole in the helmet that you get the true message of the copy. Find out more about how Werner created her poster.
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