What one found so remarkable about the poster exhibit at the Goethe Institut was the dramatic effect despite the stark simplicity of the forms and colours. With the hint of the names of the plays at the side one could trace down the meanings and impact of the posters by Pierre Mendell and Klaus Oberer, displayed in two parts due to lack of space. Black and white hands brought up the image of jealousy and the murder of Desdemona that followed in Othello, the play within a play was depicted in a huge Falstaff holding out a smaller version of himself in the historical comedy's representation, while enormous splashes of scarlet blood laced with black told the gruesome tale of multiple murder of royal family members in Macbeth.

Two simple stars, one white and the other black placed on a pink rectangle stand for Venus and Adonis. A singles white flower with pastel pink dots for the centre, seen with three hearts on a muted gray rectangle, framed with a gray-green frame brings in subject of La Traviata. The yellow ochre in the poster brings in sand in the focus while the white pyramid with its striped side and two geometrical forms on top in pink and black tells the romantic tale of Aida. A lacy outline of a dress against black represents the story of Figaro. The silhouette of a man in beige with a hint of a scarlet tie to offset the female figure, seen standing on its head on a pool of blood, has another stirring tale of The Threatened Murder. The pale yellow ochre is continued on to the frame which holds together the inner black background.

A silhouette of a woman is placed against a cut up one dollar note and this is seen against a backdrop of black in The Bartered Bride while Simon Boccanegra has a single hat and a crown placed on a red background, and Slaughterhouse-5 has a airplane with a broken wing and a swastika on its front for another set of wings. Again black and gray form the setting for the dramatic poster. An oval form with suggestion of neat piled up hair with centre parting and floating bits of gray for the Anna Bolena poster in gray-blue, gray and black. A heart with a pink outline and trailing strings set on red and purple rectangles is the notice for Cosi Fan Tutte. A white rectangle with a red triangle on top and a small yellow crescent moon at the side seen on a indigo background is the notice for SOS children's home while ten illustrations of eyes, ranging from a woman's seen behind a lacy black veil, a sketched eye, that of a Far Eastern form Art Opens the Eyes.

The graphic image used nowadays in advertising or to express an idea in the form of a trademark, has accompanied us since the first cave drawings of primitive man, since our habituation to concrete symbols, since the origin of the myths.

Graphic design that deals with communication requires attention and induces contemplation on a subject. The product has to be sold, the play seen, so that a subject is thrust upon the graphic designer. Pierre Mendell's posters are often superb having no pretensions. They are not illustrative; they are simply posters for cultural institutions. The remarkable part of the posters is that they are so interesting and informative and yet so simple. As he goes about exploiting the forms he uses strong bold colours such as red and black and simplifies the forms such as human figures.

These posters are esthetic manifestos and reflect with intensity the scope of visual communication. They reflect cultural understanding of a society and deal with it codes and signs. They are an expression of a personal programme of the designer and provide indications of his artistic working methods. His posters are remarkable as they fulfill the requirements of the medium. Despite the simplicity the message goes home. The posters stand out for their patterns which are a result of an artistic and intellectual analytic research. The sign for closed has a cross formed on white with a dash of white and paintbrush forming the other line of the cross against the black.

Mendell sticks to a traditionally artistic method of design by making the poster in its original size without being tied down by images or reproductions. The emphasis is on the centre, expansion to the edge and flowing empty spaces. In typographic posters the readable message becomes the pattern, the characters form the area covering structures. Although up to date Mendell's posters are timeless.

Pierre Mendell was born in 1929 in Essen. He emigrated to France in 1934. He lived and went to school there until 1947 when he emigrated to the USA where he became an American citizen. From 1958 to 1960 he studied Graphic Design with Armin Hofmann in Basel. While working there he met Klaus Oberer and founded the studio Mendell and Oberer. Pierre Mendell is responsible for concept and design, Klaus Oberer for organisation and implementation.