Philosophical Theories

I am completely fascinated by this poster series explaining complex philosophical theories through basic shapes. They’re designed by London based Genis Carreras.

(via coudal)

10 Comments leave a comment below

  1. This is indeed wonderful. Great find!
    Now onto refreshing all those theories..

  2. While this poster series is interesting, it concerns me that the poster for Hedonism is represented by a symbol commonly associated with the lgbt community. There’s no inherent correlation between the theory of hedonism and homosexual behavior, and it’s a best offensive that the designer chose to imply the connection.

  3. Alex, before you start whining about being offended, get your sensitive facts straight – a pink triangle is not the lgbt symbol.

    You may as well complain that the Nihilism poster says something negative about the band XX, that the atheist poster is offensive to Christians and that the Skepticism poster isn’t skeptical enough.

  4. Beautiful… Love the existentialism one.

  5. I loved the Aethism one. It’s really fascinating how our mind can quickly form the idea in our mind when all we see is just a shape. I’m really intrigued by that. I’m trying to explore the possibility of shapes in a similar project (not posters, though): imkarthik.com/index.php?/work/simble-twist/

  6. I’m actually pretty frustrated with the hedonism, marxist and atheist posters. They seem lazy to me. Some of these are so conceptual, and then we get commonly recognized and representative symbols and incorrect symbols that seem to misunderstand the movement.

    Roman, there’s a reason why people associate symbols to groups, and it’s certainly not because there’s /no correlation/. If there were /no correlation/ no one would be making the connection to begin with. Either way, if it’s truly the case that there’s no correlation between symbol and movement, then the Marxist poster literally /wouldn’t work at all/ because it utterly relies on commonly known symbols to work. If this series is consistent then the use of a pink triangle in the hedonism poster was undoubtedly intentional.

    The Marxist and Atheism posters bother me for that very reason. They’re commonly known symbols. While all the other posters are beautifully conceptual, these two rely on commonly known symbols. That’s not conceptual, it’s lazy. And furthermore, in the case of atheism, it’s incorrect. That symbol represents satanism and Christianity (Peter being crucified upside-down). If the incorrectness was intentionally showing a common misunderstanding, I find that odd. Isn’t the point of these posters to explain, to some extent?

    All in all, these really are beautiful, but these three specific ones bother me immensely.

    TL;DR: Hedonism, Atheism, and Marxist posters are lazy and either too offensive or not offensive enough.

  7. If you want to know more about Carreras and his work, have a look at my interview with him – http://www.london-student.net/play/arts/philosophy-of-a-graphic-designer/

    (full transcript: http://www.london-student.net/play/arts/genis-carreras-full-transcription/)

  8. Nic is right. I don’t think the designer was intentionally trying to be offensive but they clearly didn’t spend enough time exploring those three concepts as much as the other ones which is a shame because the rest is quite lovely.

  9. The representation of “Hedonism” is pretty offensive.

  10. I’m not “offended” but the Hedonism poster is indeed offensive in a variety of contexts. First of all, the pink triangle which a previous commenter said was the “LGBT” symbol is and it is not. The pink triangle was used to denote homosexuals during the Holocaust. The upside down triangle represents femininity. It is the “chalice” which contrasts to the “phallus” of the upright triangle. The color chosen was pink which in a purist context, is a masculine color because red is “active”. In our modern society it represents femininity. Associating hedonism with one or both of these things is false because hedonism seems to be more outright and accepted in heterosexual males while sexually active females and lgbt are looked down upon by puritanical society and the american media.