'Wake Up America, Civilization Calls' poster
The pattern
This still is filed under Iconic figure claim.
Define
A single figure, drawn, silhouetted, or posed, is the whole claim. You can read it across a street.
Mechanism
Compression into a body. The figure is not decoration. It is the sentence. Distance-legibility is the test.
Verdict
Poster scale, outdoor, packaging at a glance
Why it works
It personifies the nation's isolationist complacency as a woman peacefully sleeping while a storm gathers. The headline directly commands the viewer to wake up to the existential threat.
The big idea
America is painted as a woman asleep in the flag while dark clouds build behind her, and the poster shouts at her to wake up.
The offer
No terms or job. A call on every man, woman and child to join the effort, with the Mayor's Committee at 50 East 42nd St as the place to go.
Lines from the ad
WAKE UP, AMERICA!CIVILIZATION CALLS EVERY MAN WOMAN AND CHILD!MAYOR'S COMMITTEE 50 EAST 42nd STSteal this when
Your audience is ignoring a major, looming problem and you need to jar them out of their complacency.
The emotion
Written to Duty. It does neither clearly.
It calls every man, woman and child and gives the Mayor's Committee address, but names no act to do there, leaning on the sleeping woman and gathering storm instead.
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