Day of the Heroic Guerilla

Untitled, 1969
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. This design adapts a photograph of Argentinian radical Ernesto (‘Che’) Guevara by Alberto Korda. The photograph was used as the basis of several OSPAAAL poster designs.

DAY OF THE HEROIC GUERRILLA - OCTOBER 8, 1968
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. From 1968, 9 October was designated as the ‘Day of the Heroic Guerilla’ to mark the anniversary of Che Guevara’s death. Helena Serrano was working at the Cuban government’s propaganda commission when she was asked to produce this poster, her only design for OSPAAAL.


