The Designers Respond

As Elizabeth Guffey writes in  Posters: A Global History , posters helped “mute walls speak” and perhaps this is also true of digital screens. The social fabric of posters allows for people to speak without doing so, providing a means of asynchronous messaging. Posters not only share stories and information, but they prompt storytelling, debate, discussion, and other action. They help us to address things that might otherwise be left unsaid: “Posters have been born with commitments, responsibilities, dependents, and emotionalities; they leave marks on history.” At the same time, posters drawing awareness or action about disaster, motivate through emotion. The posters for Fukushima Daiichi were primarily intended to motivate viewers to purchase and/or donate to disaster funds. But, what did the designers intend for viewers to feel besides their pocketbooks? In her  Design Observer  essay, “ Can Graphic Design Make You Cry? ” Jessica Helfand explores the idea that visual design might pro