International weeks against racism in Munich – I am trying to wrap up the last four years of doing the posters and program booklets in one post. It‘s also a bicycle post 😉
For 2020 we (Munich city’s ”Fachstelle für Demokratie” as the organizer and me doing the graphics) had a nice colorful design for the poster and printed booklet, a lot of events had been planned for March / April and after the posters got put up everything was set for some successful weeks. But things were to turn out differently …

About six weeks before the beginning of the event the first posters appeared in the streets and I enjoyed cycling around, taking pictures of my bikes in front of them. 

The first Corona-lockdown got declared, all events cancelled and the posters remained some of the last ones to hang in town for a very long time. Like a really very long time. It was an interesting experiment in what happens to printed objects exposed to the sun and elements for a while.

I can remember that I picked up that lady Kuwahara when it was not quite sure if it is okay to meet other people. Posters still in good condition.

Taking apart a bicycle, cleaning the frame and parts, cutting out a stuck seat post, putting it all together again and installing new brakes and tires later, signs of decay to the posters could be observed. The picture for the title of this post shows one in a very late stage.

For 2021 most of the events got planned as digital/online conferences. The other events were subject to strict Corona regulations. Since people got fed up with the poster design they had to see for about almost one year and to point out that it‘s going to be a new series of events, not those of one year ago, a completely new design had to be found.

To be honest this design didn’t turn out as good as expected, it was was kind of dull in comparison to the years before. Looked nice on screen but a bit of a disappointment when printed.

So for 2022 color had to come back!

The new design is based on the old color circle one but adds ”rays of light“ to it that create segments with a lot of different colors that represent the variety in human beings.

Everybody was so happy with the design that it was used again without a change in 2023.

Of course the dates had changed and a bigger QR-code was added.
On my way poster spotting in 2023 I suddenly stood in front of the following one and was shocked what nature can do to ink!

But a closer look revealed the truth: this is one of the 2018 posters that came in five different full-surface colors. Maybe it once was yellow?