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The Voter Seduced?

Politics and Visual Communication

How do politic parties present themselves to the public? In historical perspective it is interesting to see what the role of the designer has been in the communication of the party programme and think about how the design of the poster relates to the content of the various political parties. Were designers or illustrators involved? How does form fit with content? And how is the perception on the images by the voters? To answer those questions we have collected election posters from 1918 till now.

With election posters we quickly think of party leaders looking at us seductively, election list numbers that don’t say anything and sentimental slogans like ‘Fighting for the vulnerable’. Much less often we see still interesting images full of symbolism, such as artist Albert Hahn’s warriors from the 1920s, or the daringly naked woman in a field as featured by the PSP in 1971.

Partly due to the introduction of television in the 1950s and the Internet in the 1990s, the role of the election poster has shifted from that of the main means of communication for the party programme and the party’s identity, to that of a sign showing that you’re there. This exhibition shows which images Dutch and German politics have put out on the streets since 1918. Which poster seduced you? Vote yourself!
 

For now we have focused on The Netherlands and Germany; in the future the collection will be complemented with posters from Sweden (2012), France (2014), England (2016) and Italy (2018).