I found these amazing Japanese advertisements and vintage posters advertising Abilify, Zoloft, Ritalin, Serenase and other medications that are used for a variety of different mental health conditions.
Despite me not knowing how to read Japanese, the storytelling here through design is evocative, straight-forward to understand and incredibly imaginative. It brings to mind Dali and other surrealists, it’s just beautiful!
These ads encourage their audience in Japan towards a gentle understanding that help for their mental health issues can be found.
Although there is controversy about pervasive pharmaceutical advertising in our society, whether medication is even necessary in many cases or if it’s simply a commercial exercise at the expense of human health. Despite this ethical question- I can still appreciate these posters as beautiful, surreal and effective graphic design.
Graphic design, poster design and advertising is a mirror and a telescope to look deep into the past and understand the underlying narratives, priorities, politics and insecurities that people had in a given time or culture. This makes them fascinating to me!
Let me know what you think below…
Content Catnip 