DIA, Dinamo, Collins and Pentagram among poster designers for Mate Act Now

In a normal world, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day would see countless projects and initiatives launching to promote us all to make a change in our lives to impact the environment for the better. The current crisis, however, has changed the context – yes there are urgent issues at hand, but we are united as a globe against them, as we are in the fight to save our planet, and many of us are already considering how we might not simply return to normality afterwards. So this Earth Day takes a different tone, and a different format online, with one of the largest and most globally unifying projects of the day borne out of New Zealand, titled Mate Act Now.

The poster campaign launched by Chris Flack enlists the skills of creatives across the world, including designers from DesignStudio, Pentagram, DIA, Hey, Character, Build, Dinamo, Collins and the likes of Brighton’s Vince Frost and Sydney’s Paul Garbett. With its broad range of international design perspective, the collection is an interesting visual cross-section of the industry as it stands, spanning dramatic type, detailed illustration, digital manipulation and more abstract imagery. The 130 posters are also being collated into a book to mark the anniversary of Earth Day, which first started in 1970.

"We don’t want to take away from the enormous toll COVID-19 is taking on human health and the global economy,” Flack says, “but the greatest long term threat to everything we hold dear is climate change. It’s important we don’t lose perspective of that and continue to do what we all can, with the skills we each possess, to tackle the climate crisis with the same willpower and global collaboration being displayed in the fight against COVID-19.”

Flack has invited the global pool of designers to share their posters on social media as a “collective protest for the digital generation”. The project and book aim to raise awareness and funds for charities Red Cross Disaster Relief and Recovery Australia.