Coproduced by the Red Hot Organization and Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS (DIFFA), this poster presented an entirely new look within the cultural response to the virus. Featuring imagery by fashion photographer Steven Meisel (best known for his work for Vogue), the “Safe Sex is Hot Sex” poster series adapted the industry’s editorial and artistic vocabulary to promote condom use as sexy and fashionable—a striking alternative to the fear-based messaging that dominated the 1980s. The Red Hot Organization was a nonprofit founded in 1989 by John Carlin and Leigh Blake to raise awareness and funds for AIDS through music, fashion, and design. Carlin began his career as a curator, professor, and art writer, and his friendship with David Wojnarowicz and other prominent contemporary artists who had or were impacted by AIDS inspired him to help. His friend Leigh Blake, who was involved in the music and film world and had been instrumental in the early punk scene, convinced David Byrne to get involved, connecting it with some of the greatest musicians and filmmakers in the world. The organization’s first major fundraising project was Red Hot + Blue, a tribute album released in September 1990, that reimagined the music of Cole Porter, the famous gay, American composer, to honor those lost to AIDS. Posted across New York City subways, buses, and nightlife spaces, the poster series brought safer-sex messaging into everyday life while also targeting gay men and others at high risk of contracting AIDS.