Messages from a Pandemic: AIDS Graphic Communication

This poster, which features two nude and fit men draped in an American flag, positions sexual intimacy—practiced with a condom—as an extension of the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as promised in the Declaration of Independence. The men’s race and physical fitness reflect stereotypes and expectations about desirability within the San Francisco gay community at the time.

This pair of posters use the shape of the landlocked African nation Zambia to send different messages to its female and male populations. Though both visually connect personal behavior to national identity, the social expectations differ widely between genders: men are expected to avoid sexual promiscuity, while women must remain fully abstinent and rely on their friends to hold them accountable.

This poster figures the traditional family—which includes a mother, father, and daughter flying a kite emblazoned with the Venezuelan flag—as a key component in the nation’s fight against AIDS. This theme appears in other posters from Venezuela as well, often with the heterosexual parents positioned as primary protectors against the virus.

In refashioning India’s flag, this poster warns viewers that AIDS can lead to premature death. It invokes a message of urgency and responsibility to its citizens, noting how the fate of both the Indian nation and family depend on AIDS prevention.

Here a condom, which resembles a phallic missile, is emblazoned with the words: “Portuguese do it better.” Both a sexual joke and combative, competitive message, the poster’s militaristic imagery suggests the use of condoms as a patriotic duty that enhances the nation’s sexual reputation.

This Swedish poster presents a black-and-white portrait of a traditional family. Almost eerily normative, the image is upended by the text, which exhorts the father—who travels often for work—to resist sexual temptations and remain faithful while away for the health and safety of his family. It also empowers the mother to protect herself, mindful of the possibilities.

In this intergenerational design from Tanzania, two young people stand at the center of the poster with a caption that translates to: “if parents don’t talk with us about sex, who will?” The message here is that families, especially parents, should guide children through sexual education to counter possible negative influences or misinformation.

This New Zealand poster stresses the legitimacy of the “chosen family”—in this case, a multi-ethnic group sharing a house and making a home together. The timing of this poster was deliberate: the United Nations declared 1994 the International Year of the Family.

This ominous poster, the rare reference in the collection to the dangers of drug use, finds a heterosexual couple embracing inside an intravenous needle. A fetus emerges from the needle tip as a reminder of the reproductive impact of risky behaviors such as the sharing of needles.

This poster for a London-based support organization subtly reverses the expected narrative of loss due to AIDS-related illnesses. Here, rather than losing a loved one to the virus, “Derek’s” family seems to have abandoned him upon learning of his HIV status. The story is ultimately uplifting, however: Derek is able to find community in the local organization promoted on the poster.

This Austrian poster, which is reminiscent of Freedom from Want, Norman Rockwell’s painting of an American Thanksgiving dinner, combines text and image to suggest that AIDS can be intergenerational. The virus does not discriminate, the poster implies, and so neither should families.

This poster, created by the New York State Department of Health, focuses on HIV transmission through breastmilk. It urges women who are pregnant or planning to get pregnant to get tested for HIV to help them make informed decisions about future breastfeeding, a possible method of transmission.

This highly stylized poster, from the United Arab Emirates, defines the family as a united and necessary force in the fight against AIDS.

Many public health campaigns during the AIDS crisis focused on the condom as an erotic object. Here, the poster design places the condom at the center of a scene of sexual desire and anticipation. It is also notable for featuring a heterosexual couple—a nod to the fact that AIDS can affect any sexually active person regardless of orientation.

This design aestheticizes the condom while also emphasizing its circular form—a metaphor for safety, referencing a buoyant lifesaver thrown into the water when a person is drowning.

Illustrated in a style reminiscent of the popular novella Le Petit Prince, Europe Against AIDS presents a friendly, imaginative take on the condom. This cheerful design was created as part of a holiday-themed campaign that united European countries in their fight against AIDS.

Here, a yellow condom stands out against the HIV virus cells crowding it. Both circular, the forms—condom and virus—have oppositional functions.

Cartoonish and anthropomorphic, this personified condom reflects the more comical approach some designers took to the topic of safer sex. Other humorous approaches included the use of vegetables as a stand-in for genitalia.

A cartoonish take on the story of Adam and Eve, this poster features a dismayed snake watching as Eve insists that Adam wear a condom if they are to have sex. The poster is published in collaboration with CENESEX, Cuba’s government-controlled body for national sex education.

This design positions HIV and AIDS as a twentieth-century colonizer’s disease, with the ability to devastate Native communities in the same way that tuberculosis and smallpox initially had centuries before. Organizing against AIDS, the poster asserts, is anti-colonial activism.

A phrase that appears on multiple posters, “AIDS kills Indians too!,” attempts to correct a false belief that Native communities were somehow protected from or immune to HIV. The painterly, gestural strokes of a Native American man’s head in profile—a typical western art historical representation of Native people—capture the intensity of the call to “be aware.”

Published by the Alaska Native Health Board, this poster was inspired by traditional drum designs made by Native peoples in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Like other poster designs, it makes a direct connection between Native cultural heritage and community protection.

Reflecting intimacy and pride in traditional Indigenous practice and presentation, this poster invites gay Māori men to find support and information from a New Zealand AIDS hotline.

Aimed at gender-non-conforming people from the New Zealand Samoan, Cook Island, and Tongan communities—"the sistahood”—this poster celebrates a wide range of gender expressions and promotes safer sex practices and makes specific and actionable suggestions, including using condoms and water-based lubricant during sex.

Hand-illustrated, this poster is urgent in its simplicity. Published by and aimed at Native American women, it is an example of the direct communication that can take place within a community.

This poster from Trinidad & Tobago is one of many that aggressively pitched monogamy as a necessary tactic for avoiding AIDS.

One of the most straightforward and fearmongering of public health designs, this poster references tagging dead bodies to make clear that sex without a condom will lead to death.

Channeling Pop Art, this poster design humorously anthropomorphizes the established concept of “female” and “male” electrical plug components to suggest altering behavior around oral sex.

Catholics for a Free Choice—an organization committed to changing the Catholic position on abortion, sex before marriage, and same sex relationships—published this poster as part of a campaign to support the use of condoms in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. Here the behavior being changed is observance of religiously mandated abstinence, as the poster asserts: “people of faith use condoms.”