BERLIN.- For the second time running the results of the annual "100 Best Posters" competition will be on display in the foyer of the Kulturforum. Posters are both widely collected by the Art Library's Graphic Design Collection and also feature heavily in its research activities. International posters have been collected by the Art Library since the end of the 19th century. The Graphic Design Collection keeps samples of the most diverse forms of advertising imaginable, as well as thousands of graphic sketches, closely related to the arts of book design and printing and samples of illustration and typography of what is termed in German as Gelegenheitsgrafik, or graphic designs to mark special occasions. Promotional book jackets, newspaper advertisements and posters are all given equal value in the collection. The earliest acquisitions of posters in the Art Library date as far back as 1893. The medium of the poster was afforded a special place even as early as 1895 in the exhibition on modern lithography held that year. And we have had a keen interest in collecting posters ever since. Today our poster collection has approx. 100,000 international posters in its ranks. Alongside purchases from the art trade we have also been lucky to receive donations from collectors, graphic artists, printers and publishers.

With the exhibition of the 100 best posters of 2007, which has been jointly organized with 100 Beste Plakate e.V., our attention in the Kulturforum will once again be turned to the contemporary poster creations from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The annual competition now has more than 30 years of experience behind it. It has contributed to setting standards of good design as well as to maintaining an ongoing discussion on the quality and role of the poster in society. The composition of the exhibition has been devised by students, just as it was last year, and is a result of an internal student competition at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, developed and implemented under the auspices of the product designer Prof. Oliver Vogt.