The poster has been a medium for promotion, expression and statement since Jules Cheret’s and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s late nineteenth-century work. It is a powerful means of communication about an event or topic, combining eye-catching visuals, provocative metaphors and bold text to leave a lasting impression on its audience. Whether through Luba Lukova’s minimal graphics echoing the human condition or through Mark Randall’s unorthodox calls to action, generations of designers have used their skills and perspectives to push for social change. These qualities make posters one of the most powerful mediums for raising awareness and championing progress on a range of issues.
Join AIGA Miami and the Wolfsonian–FIU for the first ever PosterFest, a series of events celebrating the history and future of poster design. One aspect of PosterFest will be a Design for Good competition.
AIGA has a long commitment to Design for Good, and the Miami chapter seeks to uphold that tradition. AIGA Miami, The Wolfsonian and community partner Lotus House are hosting a poster design competition with the goal of challenging stigma and misunderstanding around homelessness.
There are over 6,000 individuals in South Florida with no place to call home. The issues surrounding homelessness are multi-faceted, making them complex to tackle, but designers have a carefully-honed ability to call attention to problems and give visual form to solutions.
We invite you to design a poster that helps educate the public in South Florida about the reality that homeless women face. Designers should strive to create compassion, challenge misconceptions, and motivate action around the issues of homelessness, particularly among women. The posters should be informative and evocative, bringing to light the reality and challenges homeless women and children face and breaking down the fallacies surrounding them.
Exhibition: All entries will be exhibited in an online gallery of submissions at miami.aiga.org following the close of the competition. Finalist designs will be displayed at the Wolfsonian–FIU on Miami Beach during PosterFest event (April 21, 2018). The winning designer will be required to provide either the source files for the design or a number of re-sizes of the artwork so that the poster can be modified into graphics for a full campaign (to be published by AIGA, The Wolfsonian and Lotus House through social media, email and print formats, and in other media).
The panel of judges will evaluate the designs based on the following criteria:
Design quality
Strength of message and communications
Originality
Effectiveness in addressing the issue of homelessness
Pricing and eligibility: The competition is open to both professional and student designers based anywhere in the United States. Pricing is as follows:
$25 for AIGA and Wolfsonian members
$40 for non-members
Grand prize (valued at $1,000.00 USD):
A year membership at to AIGA at the Supporting level
A year membership to the Wolfsonian at the Diplomat level
A year membership to Adobe Creative Cloud
Runner-up prize includes:
A year membership to the Wolfsonian at the Popular level
About Lotus House: Founded in 2006 by the Sundari Foundation, Inc, the Lotus House is a Women’s shelter located in the heart of Overtown, Miami serving poor, disadvantaged, homeless women. By utilizing an innovative, trauma-informed, holistic format, Lotus House provides shelter and comprehensive support services, including access to medical and mental health care, parenting education, counseling and therapy. Additionally, they help foster the life, job and educational skills as well as a host of enrichment activities needed to help these women and children grow into who they were truly meant to be.
The Lotus House houses over 250 women and children on a daily basis, where they are permitted to live for up to a year to give these fragile families the time and tools needed to heal and improve the quality of their lives to a point of greater self-sufficiency and transition into new homes. They are leaders in addressing the special needs of homeless women and youth with innovative, holistic, evidence-based solutions to break the cycles of abuse, domestic violence and homelessness in order to allow these individuals to realize their true potential.
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