As far as images go, Earth Day turns out to be quite a yawn. I was hoping to uncover and post all the fabulous posters of the last four decades, but alas, mediocrity is mostly what I found.
I did find one winner—this 1992 poster by Swiss designer Niklaus Troxler. Simple to the point of abstraction, it needs no type to to remind us of the violence we inflict upon our environment. Now, I might not get away with this anywhere else, but since this is my blog, I’ve decided that instead of boring you with Earth Day posters (which you are welcome to see here and here), I’ll show more of Troxler’s work.
Discovering jazz as a teenager, Troxler organized his first concert in 1966 at age 19. While passionate about music, he pursued his other passion, graphic design, as a career. In 1975, he united the two by producing the first annual ‘Jazz in Willisau’ festival and creating all the related visual material. Over the course of the ensuing 35 years, Troxler has designed an astonishing number of posters in a wide range of styles for the festival and for the performances of the participating artists. You can see them all on his website. Michael Beirut was quoted in a NY Times article about Troxler, "I love the poster series because it so neatly recapitulates the design history of the last few decades. You see the influence of Push Pin eclecticism, California new wave, Swiss post-modernism and post- punk grunge, all passed through the unique prism of a guy working in a really small town in Switzerland."
Below are posters on a variety of subjects, followed by jazz-related posters.
Happy Earth Day!
