This paper investigates the poster media from a curatorial perspective, focusing on the shift that occurs when posters are torn loose of their original living context and exhibited in museums. The shift is of a general museological relevance, however, is reinforced by posters’ distinct communicative and “visual aggressive” kind (Sontag 1970) and strong dependence on its environments. Applying an ecological view to design, mainly the semiotic notion of ‘counterability’ (Krampen, 2002) and the reciprocal relationship of humans and their built and product-designed environments, I suggest counterability to be a viable option for curatorial work. The concept is unfolded in a case study of a recent exhibition on British posters of the interwar years, held in 2015/16 at the Danish Poster Museum in the open air museum Den Gamle By in Aarhus, which I curated in collaboration with graphic designer Michael Jensen.