TPT 2009 text: Pavel Choma

Pavel Choma
TPT 2009 Organizing Committee Chairman

Source: Catalogue TPT 2009

 

The Poster Is Not Only a Format; the Poster Is an Idea

I have expressed my attitude to poster creation several times in different ways. Mostly by its very creation and by publishing.

Today, I have to use other means than those creatively interesting, witty, double or even multiple in meaning; typographic, photographic or drawing means serving the unpredictable and well-utilized intelligence of creative expression.

Browsing now through all the catalogues issued in previous years, I find that together with this newest issue, they total up to 1000 pages comprised of posters by authors from almost the entire the world. I am aware of the connections accompanying the life of poster and I realized that what they have in common, and what is so important to me, is the positive energy, bar none.

It is the true quality of this type of medium that bears witness to our world. It helps humanize, makes healthier and improves life. Through communication and emotion, the poster will do its utmost to address us and not to bore us.

I am convinced that the poster, on its way to eternal glory, will express the author’s personal message to the endless topics of this world.

We can, however, sense that the poster tired and we renamed it, the banner, the billboard, the city light or the megaboard. From my point of view, it is all the same. A good idea, after all, is not and cannot be fixed in a format. It is the substance of this medium. The poster is not only a format, the poster is an idea. Therefore, not even this year’s new competitive category – Web Design – is remote from the substance of graphic designer activity.

I would like to thank all “affiche-ists” for their valuable contribution to world culture that they also disseminated via the Trnava Poster Triennial.