the five posters of the series in a row, light printed paper on a dark ground

What Is The Difference?

Class Special Topics: Publication & Distribution

Year 2026

Type

Overview

The brief was to make a publication for someone you disagree with and to take their side seriously. Five posters for people who would never call their coffee habit a dependency, shot the way 90s anti-drug campaigns shot drugs. The reference is DARE-era public service advertising: grainy halftone, one duotone wash, a blunt question in condensed type. Beans piled like pills. A spoon of sugar held the way a spoon gets held in a different kind of photograph.

The excuses on the quit poster are the ones people make for caffeine, and word for word the ones waved off as denial about a substance we have already decided is not okay. Run the comparison all the way and you are arguing to criminalize coffee, which is absurd. The line moves, and it has never tracked how addictive the thing actually is.

a hand holding a lit cigarette above a mug of coffee, under the line can you quit, with the excuses it feels good, it calms me, it's just social, everyone does it

a grinder open in two halves, coarse grounds on one side and fine powder on the other, under the line don't forget the grinder

a heap of coffee beans shot like a pile of pills, above the line do i look familiar

a heaping spoon of sugar held over a cup, under the line make life sweeter

coffee poured from a carafe into a mug beside a bare arm, under the line do you need a rush

all work