Mate Act Now unites the world's designers with over 130 posters created in celebration of Earth Day

April 22 marked the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, an annual event protesting the greatest long term risk to humanity: climate change. After seeing the devastation caused in Australia by the bush fires, New Zealander Chris Flack felt compelled to create something that would bring together the design industry for 2020’s Earth Day.

“Being a designer, I didn’t know what else to do than to grab pen and paper,” Flack explains. The result was a poster, which with the help of Flack’s 2-year-old son Leo, turned the words ‘CLIMATE ACTION NOW’ into ‘MATE ACT NOW’: a rallying cry for everyone to get behind. This small piece of father-son time triggered a global poster protest. The project, itself titled Mate Act Now, went on to receive over 130 submissions, contributed by studios from all over the world including Build, Christopher Doyle, DIA, Dinamo, Manual, Mucho, Pentagram and Think Work Observe.

“In these uncertain and unprecedented times, it’s powerful to know that the advertising and design community can come together to effect change,” Flack says. “We don’t want to take away from the enormous toll COVID-19 is taking on human health and the global economy, but the greatest long term threat to everything we hold dear is climate change. It’s important we don’t lose perspective of that and continue to do what we all can, with the skills we each possess.”

The posters have been collated into a limited edition publication, designed by Studio South’s Liam Ooi and printed using eco-friendly papers. It is available to purchase via mateactnow.com, with all proceeds going to Red Cross Disaster Relief and Recovery Australia. The website is also home to the entire collection of posters, which can be downloaded for free in the hope that they’ll be shared across social media, strengthening our collective fight against climate change.