Hong Tu — Propaganda Posters and New China's Striving Forward (虹图——宣传画与新中国的奋进)

A 304-page visual history of the People's Republic, told through seven decades of propaganda posters.
 
For three decades, the propaganda poster was China's most direct form of public address: one image, one slogan, meant to be understood at a glance. Hong Tu — Propaganda Posters and New China's Striving Forward traces the history of the People's Republic almost entirely through these images, from the optimism of its founding years through the turning points that followed.
 
The book organizes this history around a single "red line," a thread of color and ideology running through decades of visual change. Posters that once announced harvests, factories, and five-year plans are presented here side by side, read not only as propaganda but as design: brushwork, color logic, and the way a slogan was made to fit a single glance. Its fifth chapter works almost like a gallery inside the book itself, pairing full posters with close-up details of technique and color.
 
Written by Han Bingwa, a Hong Kong designer who has spent decades working at the intersection of art, design, and state image-making. He served as one of the judges overseeing the design of the Hong Kong SAR flag and emblem, designed the commemorative stamp marking twenty years since Hong Kong's handover, and in 2003 was selected by Phaidon as one of the world's hundred leading graphic designers.
 
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