The Chemung County Historical
Society is sponsoring a COVID19 Awareness Poster Contest for area students. Posters
are due online by June 1st and more details can be found on our
Facebook page or this link at Poster
Contest.
Our contest is open to all Chemung
County students enrolled in public, private or homeschooled classes ranging
from Kindergarten through 12th grade. We’ve lined up a committee of local
celebrities to judge the entries, and the posters they select will be put
together as part of a CCHS online exhibit everyone can see. The overall winning
poster will be professionally printed and distributed to schools and public
buildings for display, and to remind us of good health practices. Our project
is supported by a grant from the Arts Council and we thank them. Please share this
contest information with any students you know.
Why Posters? Throughout history,
posters have been an effective and eye-catching way for people to get their messages
out. Early posters in America can be traced back to the late 18th century
and were mainly used for advertising. Most were lithographic prints created
with a printing technique that uses a flat treated surface, often a stone. To
make a print, the surface is treated to attract or repel ink in order to create
the desired image. The word Lithography is derived from two ancient Greek words
- stone or lithos and writing or graphy. This process was a big improvement
over earlier printing practices, however it remained slow and labor-intensive
because each image color required a new surface. By the end of the 19th
century printers had improved the process and could now create a rainbow of
colors by only using three printing surfaces. Large-format printing became easier,
cheaper, and more reliable.
Artists quickly adopted the process
to create memorable posters. Design became more important and artists like Henri
de Toulouse Lautrec used lithography to create distinctive posters we still
recognize today.
His poster of dancer Jane Avril
plays up her dramatic flair using that great swooping hat and ribbon snaking
down her dress.
Posters were often bold, colorful
and used image as much as text to get their message across. Not only used in
advertising, they were often used to influence public opinion. As life moved
faster and the 20th century world headed towards war, posters advertised
or promoted specific issues like this example from our collection.
Dressed in an American flag, this
farmer spreads victory across the land. While some posters promoted greater
public knowledge and were based on facts, others were biased sharing very
narrow viewpoints. These functioned as propaganda attempting to push false
information or ideas. Either way, posters were an effective way using both
image and text to spread messages to as many people as possible.
Poster contests don't span the same history. Locally, they show up in the Star-Gazette mid-20th century. In 1949 the Montour Falls School advertised a contest for 5th through 8th grade students to create posters on the Bill of Rights. Other contests and topics over the years were sponsored by the Civil Defense auxiliary guild, Family Doctors Preventative Health, Muscular Dystrophy, Red Cross preparedness, an anniversary of women's voting, fire safety, and racial equity.
Posters can be serious, clever,
funny, subtle or bold. Humor has made its inevitable dent in the COVID19
situation, with posters from the so-named ‘Coronavirus Tourism Bureau’ a clever
hack by talented California graphic designer Jennifer Baer. She's made staying at home look exotic.
The world as we knew it before
COVID19 has changed. The lives of our students have been changed forever. We want
to see what Chemung County students have to say, we believe their voices are
important for us to hear.
Encourage any students you know
to participate and spread the word!
(For another blog on posters, see our blog Selling the War )
(For another blog on posters, see our blog Selling the War )
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