44/67 Mandela 95 Posters at Open Design

really like the raw brushmarks here- it's remarkably difficult to make painterly marks look effortless, energetic and graphically "right" 

making type and image read simultaneously, and effortlessly - a challenge

Mandela - 95 . A Poster Exhibition at Cape Town City Hall, till tomorrow 31 August.  A small group of some of my favourites- which are very graphic and black and white- but there are some other more colourful and wonderful illustrational solutions, and from all over the world. I was drawn to the simple, typographic solutions. 
This exhibition of 95 posters is a small part of Open Design week, which is showcasing design in a fairly diverse way. Lots of product design, in the health , transport and furniture sectors, some communication design,   and service design, with an absence of fashion. Worth visiting. 

Marian Bantjies' Mandela Mandala - a meditation on the man

provocative statement teasing our assumptions about those who have served time 

understated, brilliant use of type, focal point, love how something so abstract can hold the emotion and promise of release, stepping out into freedom

visual movement, the eye follows the word perfectly logically, with a reversed twist in the final three letters

and the last one for designers talking to designers, who fetishise Pantone colors. We know how many possible Pantone colours there are, so suggesting a rainbow by inserting it into our memory- brilliant. Even though it's stormy in the Rainbow nation.