​The German Department at Dartmouth College asked CGD to design a reusable poster format for its annual Walter Picard Lecture Series. The initial offset edition consisted of all design and typographic elements except the lecture-specific information. For each lecture, small editions of “blanks” were imprinted with event-specific information and posted around the campus.

Because the Picard Lecture Series often features German speakers and focuses on German affairs and German-American relations, CGD developed a visual structure that would not only accommodate the typographic variations of future lecture texts, but would also strongly suggest “Germany” on more that one level. The repetitive bar elements and abstract composition reflect the spatial innovations of the Bauhaus, while the color palette draws upon the black, red and yellow of the German flag.

For the 16th Annual Lecture, the Client requested a different, photograph-based approach. To communicate the dynamics of global warming, CGD layered the type on white “cut-outs” with color accents against an image of a melting glacier.