A poster from 1970 by Milton Glaser. via Poster House

If you happen to be in New York City and enjoy graphic design related to conservation you might enjoy this:

Told Ya So: The Prescient Posters of the Environmental Movement

Graphic artists have been helping call attention to climate change for decades, and a new exhibition charts the evolution of their pleas.

Last year was the warmest in recorded history. The graphic artists of the environmental movement tried to warn us. Their posters aimed to scare people straight with pictures of ecological ruin, or glorified nature, clean air and water, sunshine and verdure. Some offered earworm-y slogans and haunting visuals. Whatever their approach — bright, witty, somber, blunt, even sexy — they sought an image, a phrase, that could change enough minds to literally save the world.

Through Feb. 25, an exhibition at Poster House in Manhattan demonstrates these visual and rhetorical styles, and how they reflect the evolving movement’s shifting strategies. There are 33 posters on view, along with dozens of postage stamps and a pair of socks by Vivienne Westwood.

Environmentalism began honing its voice in the 1970s, with roots in the counterculture and protests against the Vietnam War. Robert Rauschenberg designed the official poster for the first Earth Day, in 1970. In a deadpan appeal to patriotism, grim scenes of spoiled ecologies frame a bald eagle. The earliest work in the show, a call for clean water from 1961 by Hans Erni, features a ghastly skull in a drinking glass. The choice, the artists argued, was between peace and poison.

Read the whole article here.