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In early 1972, after many months of planning, Stuart Ash relocated back to Ontario to establish G+A, Toronto. With the onset of this move, an opportunity arose to work with the St. Lawrence Centre, through its then marketing manger, Anthony Alexander. Working from Stuarts apartment, Tiit Telmet was appointed as the studio’s first employee and together they successfully designed the first set of iconic St Lawrence Centre posters for a series of performances, all following a common graphic illustrative direction. Off the back of this success, more work followed for the centre, as well as two new designers joining the design team, Malcolm Waddell and Frank Bzdurreck. This poster was the first in a new series of five performances taking place in late 1972 / early 1973, each set on a common black background with bold Univers titles in red and photographic imagery unique to each event / story.

‘The Trial’ was written by Franz Kafka and tells the story of Josef K, a respectable bank officer who one day is inexplicably arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority. With the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor to the reader, he must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Although the story, on the surface, is quite abstract, it was intended to precisely describe the legal, bureaucratic and social forces controlling and limiting individual freedom in the modern world.

This set of posters was featured in an extensive feature on G+A Montreal / Toronto in Communication Arts Magazine in the March/April Issue 1973 shortly after they were completed.

To see more the full series click here

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