The poster above is dealing with the concept of global warming and the need for people to act now, before we see further consequences. The designer creatively used an hour glass to convey the idea of urgency. By placing the melting icebergs on the top of the hourglass, the water is dripping down onto the Earth and slowly drowning it.
In case the viewer did not understand the message just through the visual aspect of the poster, the designer makes his/her message very clear through his use of typography. By adding “we are running out of time/act now before it’s too late,” the designer eliminates any possibility of the audience misinterpreting the message. The words work well with the visual images because the sans serif typface and using all lowercase letters is a modern approach to a modern problem.
The colors used are effective because the blue and green stand out against the grey background. It seems as though the water turns clear when it drips from the icebergs to emphasis the idea that once the icebergs melt, we can’t get them back.
The poster is effective and does achieve the marketing goals because it is simple, clear and does not confuse the reader with statistics, numbers and terms that the audience may not understand. The only change I may make with the poster design is the background. Although it is effective the way it is, a solid black background may also be affective to enunciate the impending doom that the poster is suggesting.
I also think that the use of blue and green works well, since those are the “colors of nature.” The hourglass design combined with the sans serif text gives the issue a sense of urgency. The surrealist design makes it look modern, which is definitely needed to attract an audience to an environmental problem. I think the black background could be a potentially interesting idea. It might give it a more ominous tone.