From humorous advertising slogans to socially critical statements, the MAK exhibition 100 Best Posters 17: Germany Austria Switzerland offers a diverse spectrum of contemporary poster designs. On show from 27 June 2018 are the one hundred winning posters that this year’s international jury of experts chose from entries to the annual competition. The posters, all of which are considered equal winners, range from student projects to commissioned work by established graphic designers and advertising agents. In 2017, the selection manifests a pronounced trend towards serial poster combinations and unconventional graphic solutions.

The five-person jury for the graphic design competition, which is by now a well-established tradition, comprised communications designer Jens Müller (Düsseldorf, Chair), poster artist Peter Bankov (Prague), the graphic designers Albert Exergian (Vienna) and Michael Kryenbühl (Bern/Lucerne), as well as designer Daniel Wiesmann (Berlin). They received a record number of 2 293 posters from 657 different participants. During the two-stage selection process, 45 entries were chosen from Germany and 50 from Switzerland, along with one German-Swiss cooperation and four further entries from Austria.

The competition 100 Best Posters 17: Germany Austria Switzerland has been presented in the MAK since 2006, and is displayed this year for the first time in the MAK DESIGN LAB. As in previous years, the winning works are to be incorporated as new entries in the MAK Works on Paper Collection.

The exhibition is accompanied by the catalog 100 Beste Plakate 17. Deutschland Österreich Schweiz/100 Best Posters 17. Germany Austria Switzerland, Verlag Kettler, Dortmund 2018. Those responsible for the corporate-design of the catalog, web visuals, and printed materials are Jakob Mayr and Kilian Wittmann from the Class for Ideas at the Institute of Design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

This is the first year in which the exhibition 100 Best Posters 17 offers an app, developed with the support of Artivive (Vienna) for iOS and Android. With this augmented reality feature, visitors can delve even deeper into the visual world of the winning posters. The app opens up a new cognitive dimension to viewing certain winning motifs.