What would the world be like without culture?

Recently I bumped into two quite old advertising campaigns created by Fondation Cultura that make me laugh and reflect at the same time. With those campaigns, the foundation aimed to remind everyone how important “knowledge” is for each individual and to reach the goal they have chosen using language and words with irony and sharpness.

In its awareness campaign, Fondation Cultura avoided inserting images that, however appealing, could hide or downplay the message that it is intended to convey. The visuals that make up the campaigns were entirely typographical and proposed a different sentence for each subject.

In the first campaign, the chosen layout was coloured with pale nuances and the headlines were, in each case, single phrases divided into two distinct parts, the second of which – thanks to the irony – completely transformed the delivered messages as food for thought for the reader.

In the second advertising campign, the layout become gray, losing impact in favour of more explicit contents. This time, in fact, the sentences were more direct, sharper – if it is possible – but the irony seemed to have left the room to give space to cynicism.

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It appears as if at first the atmosphere was the one connected to a funny joke, a happy – even if sharp and ironic – discovery, but then the mood lost its candour and started to be affected by sadness. In any case, the smile is assured, even if it is a bitter one, don’t you think?