I Take One Everywhere I Take My Penis — USA, 1993
Design: Art Chantry
Art Chantry designed this AIDS awareness poster as a pro bono project, which was commissioned by the Washington State Department of Health and Social Services, U.S. Aimed at gay men, the poster employs what Chantry describes as "satirical and pompous authoritative information to create an otherwise false sense of community." Chantry's design work has become synonymous with the use of vernacular pictorial references that are drawn from technical and instruction manuals and cheap illustrations from the 1950s and 1960s. The poster depicts the image of a policeman from a public information poster and reworks the message into a humorous instruction on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of sexual disease. The title line, "I take one everywhere I take my penis," implies a direct voice of authority, and is specifically designed to relay a very serious message in an amusing and ironic manner. This use of visual and textual language is targeted to a specific audience, in particular young people who may feel disaffected by official government warnings on the subject. The poster was hung in public restrooms, saunas, and corporate offices — in Chantry's words, "those locations where sexual activity might take place."
