The Print: The font used for the lettering looks as if it was typed on an old-fashioned typewriter with dirty keys...Lots of smudginess & dropouts. I'm puzzling over why this was used. Folksiness? Warmth? Casualness? Since the sizes of the letters vary, I'm reminded--at worst--of a ransom note or a thieve's note to a bank teller, not something representing high-tech, just--at best--something fast & sloppy.
The Figures: The person to the left rear is a standard-issue long haired blond. (This blond woman needs to be included so that you know that at least one of the people you are being encouraged to network with will be someone actually datable & pretty.) The slightly younger male to the right rear is slim & bearded & looks....maybe gay, maybe not. The person in the foreground, dead center at the bottom of the poster is my aquaintance, the 40-something brunette woman, wearing one of her many thrift-store quality washed out robin's-egg blue silk shirts, gapping at the neck over a cheap necklace (The bag-lady-in-the-making look.)
The Position & Expressions: Each person stands in exactly the same position, leaning rather aggressively forward into the viewer's personal space. You cannot see the eyes of anyone behind the highway-patrol glasses. Their hands are clasped behind their backs, and their lips are pressed into a grin. In other words: Here are some people at "our" company. We want you to email them, network with them, date them & have fun with them, but they won't show you their teeth, eyes or even extend a hand. It's like the "Shades Gang" out for a rumble.
Every time I see this poster I wonder if anyone sees it as I do, or if it had the desired effect, because the message it conveys seems to me to express the opposite of its purported purpose. The eyes are the "windows of the soul." You are not allowed to see them. The lips, which open to take nourishment, laugh & talk, are pressed into a grinning, false line. Hands which might reach to pat a shoulder, clasp in a handshake, or reach to hug are behind our backs (in handcuffs? protected from germs? hiding weapons?) We are hiding everything from you....We will give you nothing. But..... let's be friends!