t’s impressive how inspirational some writing on the wall can be, or how an illustration of a half-full soy sauce fish makes you smile. These come by way of Positive Posters, a Melbourne-based poster designer competition. Started by local designer Nick Hallam last year, this poster concept is a non-profit project open to designers around the world. Positive Posters asks entrants to submit poster designs that respond to a theme. Inspired by Benjamin Franklin, this year’s theme is ‘A Glass Half Full’.

Over the last two years, Positive Posters has received entries from countries including The Public of Macedonia, Poland, Iran, Indian, Serbia, Egypt, Jamaica, Bolivia, Switzerland, China, Ukraine, Slovakia, Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, USA, UK and Australia. Last year’s winner came from Slovakia, and his poster ‘Smile’ was pasted all over Melbourne street, and was seen as far as the North and South Pole.

The top 30 finalists for this year’s competition were chosen last week and the exhibition of these posters will be held at No Vacancy for a week - the winner will be announced at the opening on the 14th of October. The winning poster will be printed, 3500 times over, and then posted in the streets across the city and beyond, starting that night.

The Positive Posters exhibition will run from October 13 to 19 at No Vacancy.

www.positive-posters.com