6 Dec 2011

Glowing Tourism






Spotted these posters on the way to see a friend in Northern Tokyo - can't remember which station but I've since seen them in a few places since then. I liked them for their bold use of line, colour and mix of black and white half-tone images and initially thought the white parts were glow-in-the-dark so I was surprised to realise, after taking a closer look, that they are a series if tourism posters promoting the areas directly surrounding Fukushima (the site of the infamous nuclear plant meltdown). In the end I was wrong about the glow part and on second thoughts it would have been in pretty poor taste...

So how do you promote an area that is so damaged and now synonymously linked with the scary 'nuclear' word? Is it possible that posters can have an effect on convincing people to visit these areas to see what's on offer when health scares are still a serious worry for many?

Bygone is the era of powerful propoganda posters (although they do have a slight communist feel don't you think?) and with such serious questions raised about safety, I'm not sure how these posters will help improve the situation of the people in the effected prefectures.

Would you visit these areas?

2 Dec 2011

The good, bad and the ugly - The 2012 London Olympic posters


Earlier this month the 2012 Olympic artists' posters were released - a series by contemporary artists from different fields which continues a concept that began with the 1972 Munich games intended to 'represent the intertwining of arts and sports worldwide'. I think it's a great idea that this tradition has been revived for the 2012 games but it's a huge shame that the context wasn't communicated better as the artists have gained a lot of criticism in terms of the posters not being effective visual messages for promoting the games (which they were not intended to be). The artist's were given the brief which "encouraged them to celebrate the Games coming to London and to look at the values of the Olympic or Paralympic Games". Their responses were therefore works of art that show the artist's emotional response towards the games rather than promotional material with communication objectives. Viewed from this perspective I think it is perfectly valid to criticise the work based on artistic merit and subjective choice, rather than as a piece of advertising. As you would probably expect with an fairly open brief given to a group of diverse artists, the responses are erratic, but then you could argue that that is the beauty of the project.

If you're unimpressed with the official versions, there are some other nice alternatives from students at Kingston University on Creative Review.

And here's my own take...


Can you guess my emotional response?