WORLD CONSUMER RIGHTS DAY is observed every 15 March, a global awareness event birthed in Penang when it became the Headquarters of the World Consumers Movement.

Then, I was heading the movement, and wanted postcards highlighting equity and ecology, local and global issues, and the challenges of violence and waste manipulation, to be made. One of my greatest breakthroughs for the consumer movement was getting a young artist on board. He immersed himself in all the global issues and unleashed his creativity through posters and postcards, which were very popular means of creative communication in the 1970s and 80s.

24 colourful posters and postcards were created on good quality paper and were sent out globally to over 80 countries. They appeared in a multiverse of places—journals, books, exhibition walls, people’s desks, and materials used for public speeches and classes. People shared photographs of them. Their power was that they carried strong messages about what was wrong in the marketplace, and they demonstrated ways of challenging these wrongs.

The wonder of these materials is that they have a universality and a currency still relevant today. The issues covered include consumers' rights and responsibilities, nutrition, water, health, deceptive labelling of products, abuse of pesticides, hunger, malnutrition and junk foods. The posters also shared five critical areas of action: critical awareness, active involvement, social responsibility, ecological responsibility and the power of solidarity. A Panchasila (five principles) framework for empowerment.

The struggles continue. Here, we present seven of those postcards as attributes for those creative change-makers. We hope also that it will inspire a new generation of artistic people to combine their creativity with new technologies to make more and more relevant posters/postcards available on the internet, and in more traditional terms, to make a better, healthier and more just world.