Propaganda Posters
The government used propaganda art and iconography during the first and second world war and were used to try persuade and influence people's opinions and actions. These posters were important at the time as although they mislead people with false information it was necessary in order to try persuade men to join the army and for women to support this decision and help with other jobs while the men were at war.
Leonard Doob "propaganda - control of individuals".
In these posters they have a clear message; it was about getting the message across quickly rather than the focus being on the design. The main focus was the use of text to create an emotional appeal. In Britain they took more of a positive approach in their posters; on the other hand they had posters of atrocity propaganda to shock the viewer and justify our fight back on Germany ( some information may have even been false). Humour was also used in propaganda posters to make light of a bad period the world was going through and boost moral.
In many posters they play on the figure of a woman; they treat feminism as passive and needing to be protected. You can also see the divide of opinion seeing a woman as a worker and housewife (worker Vs domestic).
Fists were a common motif in propaganda poster, they were a symbol of authority and power. They also represented the sense of staying together and showing that we are strong as a whole. Later on in more recent times it was used in the 'Help Japan Rise Up Red Cross Appeal'.
“See the world”, 1919, Alfred Leete
The title of the poster is important as without looking at the poster you would think it’s just about travelling the world and how it is a good opportunity which in actual fact it is far from the truth in terms of what it is about. Alfred Leete has done many posters promoting the war; in this case it is my considered opinion that the poster is trying draw light on the war and is trying to promote the benefits of being part of the army rather than showing the tragic events that actually occur during battleThe poster uses bright tones of colour which tend to be quite block colours rather than having lots ofgradients; this could be to make the poster look simplified which in turn may suggest that it is an easy choice to make. As well as that if the poster is too complex, then the audience may not want to read it let alone want to join the armed forces. The bright colours make the opportunity to join the armed forces look appealing and it makes it seem like its just a travelling holiday when in it actual fact it is far from itI like the work of Alfred Leete as I’m interested in poster art and in this particular poster I like the opposite effect and how he’s trying to portray joining the army in a good light when actually you could potentially die.
I'm interested in propaganda posters as they were successful in terms of their purpose, also it was the real start of design as after the world war modernism started to form which was huge progress in the design industry. Although I think they pushed the boundaries too far with some of the false information they were putting out to the public. Posters and advertisements have improved so much since these were produced, however some of the techniques used in them are still used today.
