The 100 best posters of 2025 are here! From 12 June to 5 July 2026, the winning designs from the 100 Best Posters 25 competition will be on display at the Kulturforum. They showcase the latest and most exciting developments in contemporary graphic design.

The 100 Best Posters 25G A S competition is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. It was relaunched in 2001 as a joint initiative involving Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Since 2008, the Kunstbibliothek (Art Library) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin has been the organising partner for the inaugural presentation of the annual winners’ exhibition in the German capital. Participation remained high in 2026, with 2,297 individual and series posters from the previous year submitted by 676 studios and designers. Cultural posters are well represented.

International Jury

As always, the selection of the 100 Best Posters was placed in the hands of an international jury. This time, it comprised the following designers: Enrico Bravi (Vienna), Malte Martin (Paris), Sascia Reibel (Berlin), Sven Tillack (Stuttgart) and Annik Troxler (Riehen near Basel).

The jury awarded prizes to 30 entries from Germany, 62 from Switzerland, and 8 from Austria, ranging from commissioned works to student projects. In terms of design, 2025 has proved to be a self-assured year, one that is just as compelling in minimalist typography and black-and-white as it is in large-scale imagery and expressive colour combinations.

Graphic Design with a Message

This year’s jury, however, did not focus solely on formal aesthetic qualities but also highlighted socially critical content.

In bold letters and vibrant colours, there are calls to rethink and to resist, protests demanding human dignity and queer rights, and encouragement to dare to be angry. For May Day, interlocking letters demonstrate for “Solidarity Instead of Hate Speech”; a “For All” made of lace illustrates social democratic goals; and a blossom formed of hands depicts the beauty of collective human touch. “Buy Buy Culture” and “Degrowth” advocate alternative models of capitalism, while the text of the climate-critical exhibition “keep cool” is squeezed into the tiniest of shaded spaces, and Greenpeace rings in the countdown.

The well-designed poster once again demonstrates its power as a vehicle for political messages.

Materials

The wealth of (analogue) materials and techniques incorporated into the (digital) poster design is fascinating. The range of experimental approaches is vast, from stroboscopic images created with olive oil, dirt and chalk to finger-drawn ink sketches and pen plotters. One poster series uses cress seeds to transform “Our Climate Goals” into a living image. Risography and silkscreen printing are used in the printing process, as are kraft paper and gloss varnishes. For “Salon d’Amour”, complex collages of photographs of textile performance masks served as poster images. Graphic design wholeheartedly embraces artistic practice.

Tour and Yearbook

From 12 June to 5 July 2026, the 100 Best Posters 25 will be on display at the Kulturforum, with free admission. Following this launch in Berlin, the exhibition will go on tour from July 2026, visiting Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Korea and other locations.

To accompany the exhibition, Slant Publishers is releasing the yearbook 100 Beste Plakate 25 D A CH (in German), which was produced and designed by Ira Ivanova and Lou Hillereau (Berlin).

100 Best Posters is presented by the Graphic Design Collection at the Kunstbibliothek – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, in collaboration with the competition organiser 100 Beste Plakate e. V.

An exhibition of the Kunstbibliothek – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in cooperation with the 100 Beste Plakate e. V.