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Happy World Graphics Day 2009!
Celebrated since 1995, World Graphics Day is held on April 27, the date that ICOGRADA (the international graphic design association) was founded in 1963.
This year, ICOGRADA exhorts: "To mark World Graphics Day 2009, we want to know how you use design to effect change in the world around you."
It had been awhile since I had read it, so I dusted off a link to the First Things First 2000 manifesto.
Good graphic design is incredibly powerful: it can be the difference between a product succeeding or failing, between candidate X or candidate Y winning, between thousands of people showing up for a rally or just staying home. So let's take today to reflect on what we design, who we design for, and how we design - and if we don't like the answers we find, to pledge to change that.
But perhaps more importantly, let's remember that graphic design alone won't save the world: while it's important for our social movements to look good, what's needed most now is good old fashioned person-to-person organizing - and with May Day coming up, maybe it's high time we got our workplaces unionized?
"Not One Drop!" - New Russian Kvass Calendar Takes Aim at Coke
This 2009 anti-Coca Cola calendar was designed by the Russian ad agency Great for its client Deka, a purveyor of fine Russian beverages. It's main brand of kvass (which is a fermented, mildly alcoholic beverage made from bread) is "Nikola," which is a play on words: "Nikola" is a common Russian name, but also sounds a lot like "ne cola," which means "not cola." The slogan to the right of the month on each page reads "Kvass- Don't Drink Cola, Drink Nikola!"
To best understand this campaign, we need to turn the clock back almost twenty years - to the fall of the Soviet bloc. As previously state-owned businesses were either shuttered or bought up by a combination of well-connected former bureaucrats and Western multinationals, soda brands like Coca Cola and Pepsi flourished. The portable and easily stored bottled sodas did much better in such an apocalyptic economic climate - kvass had been traditionally served by street vendors directly out of their large fermenting tanks.
A resurgence of sorts came about in the late 1990s, when kvass started being bottled en masse and several kvass companies started aggressive marketing campaigns - kvass was not only much cheaper than Coke or Pepsi, it was also a native drink (though it technically has alcohol in it, the percentage is so low that it's an accepted kid's beverage). In particular, Deka has been pushing the anti-U.S. sentiment hardest of all the Russian kvass manufacturers - an earlier slogan was based around "anti cola-nisation." While it's always fun to take swipes at large multinationals, it's worth noting the political environment in which these ad campaigns' pro-Russia sentiments reside: the increasing tide of right-wing nationalism being pushed by Vladimir Putin.
The designs themselves are on the whole pretty clever - though most of them are close copies of old Soviet anti-alcohol ads (ironic for a fermented beverage ad!). For the ones I know are copies I've placed the original below it. I really hope I see these on posters at the next anti-Coke action.
Further assistance on translating the slogans is greatly appreciated - some of them seem a little suspect to me.
Bigotry in CMYK: It's Everyone's Fault
So apparently the editors at CMYK published a faux Nike ad submitted by a design student — an idiotic, homophobic ad:
The first reaction (from people who aren't familiar with the magazine) was that it was an actual Nike ad. Understandably there was quite an uproar — though it was soon established that it was not a real ad but a student submission. CMYK's President, Curtis Clarkson, quickly issued a "I'm really sorry... that you're offended" apology:
Adbusting with Photoshop Palettes
(via brainstorm9 and Gizmodo)
Some clever political designers in Berlin have emphasized the shallow and plastic nature of a subway ad campaign for Britney Spears, Leona Lewis, and Christina Aguilera by the addition of Photoshop palettes - often themselves tweaked for further effect. We see a History palette, showing nothing but instances of the "Clone" tool; the Layers palette offers gems like layers named "Nose -20%" and "Fat -20%" and a top layer named "****Consume****".
Check out Epoxy's flickr set to get a closer look. Kudos to these German Adbusters! As Photoshop becomes more and more familiar to average folks, creative détournement like this becomes more powerful. I'm sure we all see ads on a regular basis we'd love to add our own menus and palettes to. So what's stopping you? Get a printer and some sticker paper and go for it!
Some of the Best Designs for Gaza
There have been some wonderfully-designed posters and images surrounding the current catastrophe in Gaza. Here are some that I found particularly well done or interesting. I tried to stick with the most recently made images, as it would be a much, much larger project to sift through many decades worth of political art. Another reason for posting this is to give credit to the designers whose works have proliferated so widely, often losing attribution in the process. If you have suggestions for others, leave them in the comments!
Shepard Fairey Gives Sellouts A Bad Name
Shepard Fairey, darling of the hipster class and those who prefer personality cults to actual politics, has somehow managed to defecate on political art and design even more than he has already. He's designing a Saks Fifth Avenue campaign on the backs of the radical designers of the Russian Revolution.
Quoth the New York Times:
Saks Fifth Avenue, which has surely felt the recession’s sting, is taking just such a fist-raising stand with its spring marketing. The campaign is inspired by the bold graphic designs and propaganda spirit of Constructivist art — although it is intended to be tongue-in-cheek.
The store hired Shepard Fairey, the artist who created the stylized Hope poster of Barack Obama that became one of the most highly visible, though unofficial, images of the presidential campaign, to design its catalog covers and shopping bags. They bear a rather unsubtle allusion to advertisements made in the 1920s for state-run department stores in the Soviet Union.
Fairey has always taken the radical/revolutionary art of others, decontextualized it, and repackaged it as his own. There is very little reason I can find to not consider him an apolitical hack. Mark Vallen's "Art for a Change" site has a nice rundown of some of his more infamous examples (definitely check it out).And it's not like it's actually really-well-known bits of art, which people would "get" that he's riffing off (e.g. the Che face, or even Lissitzky's "Red Wedge"). His design fodder is mainly the more obscure stuff, which smacks of wanting people to assume the work is entirely his.
It'd be some consolation if he actually shared a shred of the political ideals and courage found in those he swipes from, but as I've looked closer at Shepard Fairey, this Saks contract is just par for the course. Any "intentions" (which, some apologists will claim, are actually very clever and subversive) behind his designs are utterly irrelevant to what he's actually doing; like the child who does his homework "because I want to, not because you told me to," the effect is the same. In this case it is moving products on behalf of the super-rich.
In the end, the best indictment is provided by Fairey himself (emphasis mine):
“Some people might think it could be making fun of what’s going on right now,” Mr. Fairey said. “But I think most people are sophisticated enough to realize it’s a way of grabbing attention. It’s commerce. I don’t think there is really any political statement embedded in this.”
Sorry Mr. Shepard, it is a political statement. You are what the Situationists would call a "recuperator" — someone who takes the radical and puts it in the service of reaction.
Greek designers join the fray
Nassos K. over at Crazymonkey has a whole slew of posters created by Greek designers about the current rebellion in Greece. Though the Paris '68 posters played a more central, visceral, and social* role to that revolt, designers are still voicing their outrage and ideals through the same medium; and as the current crisis has not yet played out, political poster design may yet have a larger role before all is said and done.
Not all the posters are particularly good from a design perspective (some are simply interestingly laid out lyrics to Rage Against the Machine songs, and others are great conceptually but have horrible follow through, like the "disarm police now" poster), but there are some real gems in this collection.
*Cutting out linoleum in a big room full of other revolutionaries, with a hundred hands feverishly cranking on the presses is a lot different from being hunched over a copy of Photoshop or Illustrator. As the social, communal aspect of design production is no longer a necessity, I wonder how this is affecting political designs -- and the politics of designers. Sounds like a good idea for a book!
Spread some hope.
I just got emailed these pictures from someone who wheatpasted blown-up versions of the Emma and Zapata posters near a standard Obama mural in DC by the Convention Center. I think it turned out very well! This is a good reminder that not just the well-funded can produce compelling visual rhetoric - we have the tools and skill to compete on the political landscape as equals, if we simply deign to stand up.
In a sense, it's also a reminder of the conclusion that many left of center artists and activists have come to: Shepard Fairey hasn't truly contributed to the scene in a very long time. These days we see simple repackaging of graffiti and stencil culture, without the meaning, immediacy, or intelligence of his source material.
So we've taken Fairey's illustration and injected some actually interesting and provocative politics into it. You're welcome, Shepard!
Pics after the jump!
In an Economic Downturn, Redesigning the Design Firm from the Bottom-Up
As the flow of money in the business and non-profit worlds slow to a trickle, often the first things to be cut are advertising, PR, and other design-related budgets. Our clients call less. We have trouble picking up new leads. Potential clients start off conversations with "We don't have money now, but...", trying to wring every last drop of upbeatness into the phone. If we're in-house, many of us don't know if that's a good or bad thing yet - we could get canned, or booted into "independent contractor" status (replete with higher taxes and no more health coverage).
It's easy to take a mercenary look at the economic landscape in front of us: tactics like undercutting other designers by aggressively reducing our hourly rates (in the hopes of more hours to balance it out). More often than not we then get stuck in a downward spiral of wages and an upward spiral of our hours/week. And when we're overworked, our quality takes a hit, which makes everything harder to do. Some are even publicly anticipating the failure of their fellow designers and firms, to succeed at our expense: "[all the] more work for us to pick up."
But what if we rejected such a selfish route? Is there another way?
Enter the cooperative. Specifically, a worker-owned cooperative: run democratically and equally among all of the members.
There are many examples of firms succeeding under democratic organizational principles, with concomitant increases in productivity, efficiency, and employee heath and happiness - Gore-Tex, Semco, and Mondragon are just a few. There are also many examples of design firms run as coops too: the coop model combines the freedom and creative control of freelancing with the collaboration, social support, and economies of scale of the traditional firm. (And let's be honest, it helps stem the emergence of superinflated egos so sadly common among design management.)
Coops can also weather economic turbulence more nimbly than their hierarchical counterparts: because every worker has a say, if necessary they can all agree to, for example, temporarily reduce their wages instead of lay people off. Engaging everyone in the act of ownership has been shown to increase the financial (and social & mental) well-being of those involved, and has shown increased productivity as a result of everyone feeling truly invested in the outcome (instead of just putting in enough hours to collect a check). So while there wouldn't be a handful of people making gobs of money, there also wouldn't be people at the bottom barely scraping by.
Democratically-run firms have also opened up all sorts of possibilities when it comes to compensation and overall workload. I remember reading a few years back about a cooperative plant in France that had just invested in equipment that effectively doubled their output. The worker-owners decided to cut their workweek by 30%, preferring an extra day of weekend to a bigger paycheck. (I've yet to see a traditional firm do that!)
Through concepts like balanced job complexes, you can become a more well-rounded person by learning different skillsets while at the same time making sure that the menial or disempowering work doesn't always fall on the same one or two people (receptionist, janitor, etc.).
Perhaps most importantly, the experience of democracy in our productive lives enriches us and makes us better civic participants outside of work. If we believe in democratic principles, then it's time we insisted that the majority of our waking lives -- work -- is not a top-down dictatorship, but a participatory democracy.
John Emerson wrote a great article for Communication Arts a few years back about worker-owned design firms, going in-depth with concrete examples. CA has since deleted that page from their site, so here it is for your reading pleasure, and more timely than ever:
No Designer is an Island
HOW has a new book out, focusing on women designers: Women Of Design: Influence And Inspiration From The Original Trailblazers To The New Groundbreakers. From the blurb:
More than half of the graphic designers in the U.S. are women, yet they are less likely to be invited to speak at conferences or to offer expert opinions to the media. Their award-winning work is seen everywhere, but with few exceptions, they are not celebrated in the same way as their male counterparts. Women of Design explores this contradiction while at the same time shining a light on the work of women designers, both industry veterans and influential newcomers. By asking the handful of female design stars to identify other talented women, then asking those women to suggest more still, Women of Design creates a web of influence and excellence that proves these women are worthy of attention.
Talk about a productive book! It takes a swing at the "great man" mythos in the design (and larger art) world - both the "great" and the "man" aspects.
In design school too often we're shown designs and designers removed from their social and historical contexts: legendary men (and the occasional reference to Paula Scher) floating out in space, creating these distinct designs. When we look at the IBM logo, we don't see it as the culmination of thousands of previous collaborations, conversations, back-and-forths and critiques, all of which Paul Rand drew from when creating it. All we see is the final logo, and (forgive the pun) a Randian Rand.
The authors (both involved in the superlative UnderConsideration) have a page up about the book, which includes sample spreads and this gem:
It's a chart showing the women profiled in the book running along the middle, with lines connecting each with three women they have been influenced or inspired by. It's a testament to women designers seeking each other out for support in a male-dominated field, and a tribute to the ultimately social nature of the work we produce.
