In the inveterate mess that is the public at large, a place filled with strangers, traffic, and noise, we are overcome by a glut of sensory stimulation that demands our attention. With the proliferation of advertising, there’s the added layer of ceaseless marketing. But there is one poster that never fails to draw the eye, and that is the Lost poster, for it’s powerful message. Here is a plea to the public, to those very strangers we alternately observe or disregard. It is here and now that they may be of help, for they have two eyes and two legs, all the better to traverse time and space with the knowledge that someone out there is seeking one who has been lost.
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by Ian Phillips (Princeton Architectural Press) has become one of the most enduring, endearing books of our time, a veritable a treasure trove of folk art. Composed by a world of people speaking from their hearts, these Xeroxed posters are charming and disarming designs sure enough to register an emotional response. Culled from a collection spanning a decade, Phillips selected those most notable for their cleverness, humor, sorrow, entreaties, rewards, and outlandishness.
Adding just the right touch of nonsense, Lost is a also a flip book; all the posters appear on the right, while an illustration of a dog, cat, and bird fleeing the scene appears on the left, and when flipped front to back you watch the pets hit the road post haste. Which leads one to wonder, are these pets truly lost, or have they actually run away?
We rarely consider our loved ones might like to escape, but do consider all those empowering stories of the dogs and cats that walked hundreds of miles to track down the family that tried to abandon them on a cross-country move, and you begin to think, maybe there is something to this. On the other hand, there are also those who wander off aimlessly, then get lost. There are also animals who are stolen, such being the demands of the black market. Truly, each story may be as individual as the pet and owner themselves, and, as these posters attest, the loss is palpable and something the owners hope to rectify with their public address.
What makes Lost so remarkable is the intuitive ways in which the creative process is used. Whether photography or illustration, typography or design, each poster has its own distinctive sense of style that is highly compelling. Where one poster for a lost cat is designed as the front page of the Neighborhood News, another is in scrawled by the hand of a toddler who is looking Piggy, an orange and white cat with two bumps on his ear, which is accompanied by a rendering of said feline in black crayon.
There is something endearing about people searching for these runaways, these creatures who have spurned the comforts of domestic life in search of adventure on two wings or four legs. They remind us that love is not enough, but we shall continue to believe and create posters to advertise our loss, offering rewards up to $1,000 for results. Lost is a treasury of public pleas for help, each one deeply personal and movingly felt.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
