SALT WATER BREWERY
MAKE AMERICA GREAT
006
008
WOMEN’S MARCH
ACTIVIST POSTERS
026
032
2 | Contents
DR. BRO
BREAKING THE PAT 038
ONNERS REDESIGNED
TTERN
BRIAN SINGERS
CULTURE STRIKE
016
020
012
DESIGNER ETHICS
WOMENS RIGHTS
040
042
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LETTER FROM THE
E DIT OR
W
hat is typography? Why does it matter? How does it impact our lives?
The Merriam-Webster definition of “typography” is: “the work of producing printed pages from written material” or “the style, arrangement, or appearance of printed letters on a page.” How those letters, words, and sentences are styled and arranged affects how they are perceived. Good typography clarifies content, establishes hierarchy, and presents information in a manner that makes it easier to read, and, therefore, to understand. Good typography is good communication: it can start a dialog or advance an idea or make a difference in the world. Typography is also intertwined with our daily lives—we encounter type in everything from the products we buy, the signage around us, the books we read, the news we consume, and the directions we follow. Typography can be beautiful, functional, persuasive, and inviting. It can also fail, especially when there is a disconnect between how the type looks and what the text says. This debut issue of Desight examines typography and design viewed through the lens of activism and social justice. Topics range from the recent presidential election to ethics within the design industry to the power of the poster as a means of expression and protest. The content was conceptualized, collected, curated, and created by students in Art 338: Typography II at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo during winter quarter 2017. The magazine reflects the diverse interests and talents of the students who brought this project to life.
Editor, Instructor and Type Enthusiast Activate the Space | 5
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SALT WATER
BREWERY N E E R G E N GO HEATHER GALANTY
“We hope to influence the big guys and hopefully inspire them to get on board.”
T
he devastating effects that plastic six-pack rings can have to both wildlife and the environment have been proven time and time again. While many iterations of the packaging have been seen over the years, here’s a look at a very creative and sustainable alternative to the standard six-pack ring.
Saltwater Brewery in Delray Beach, Fla., recently released edible six-pack rings, a brand-new approach to sustainable beer packaging. These six-pack rings are 100 percent biodegradable and edible—constructed of barley and wheat ribbons from the brewing process. This packaging can actually be safely eaten by animals that may come into contact with the refuse. Head of Brand at Saltwater Brewery Peter Agardy says, “It’s a big investment for a small brewery created by fisherman, surfers and people that love the sea.” Brewery President Chris Gove notes, “We hope to influence the big guys and hopefully inspire them to get on board.”
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THE WORST DESIGN WAS ALSO THE MOST EFFECTIVE
T
rump’s ubiquitous bright red trucker hat, festooned with “Make America Great Again,” is now seared into our collective memory. It was the most hated and most loved symbol of the election, the most comical and the most serious. It was a poorly designed product that turned out to be very strong branding. It was the most misunderstood design of the election—for designers and non-designers alike. Trump’s slogan itself traces its roots to Ronald Regan’s 1980 presidential bid when he ran on a slogan of “Make America Great Again.” Trump applied for a trademark of the slogan in 2012, and it became a registered service mark on July 14, 2015. He first wore the hat during a press conference in Laredo, Texas, just nine days later. There’s still some mystery surrounding the hat’s genesis. We don’t know who designed it, though we do know where it’s made: In the Southern California factory of Cali-Fame Hats. (The Trump campaign and Cali-Frame Hats did not respond to requests for comment on who was behind the design.) It’s a basic product. More likely than not, someone picked red since it’s the color for the Republican
party, and basic Times New Roman lettering in white so it would stand out against the cap. The “undesigned” hat represented this everyman sensibility, while Hillary’s high-design branding—which was disciplined, systematic, and well-executed—embodied the establishment narrative that Trump railed against and that Middle America felt had failed them. “The DIY nature of the hat embodies the wares of a ‘self-made man’ and intentionally distances itself from well-established and unassailable high-design brand systems of Hillary and Obama,” says Forest Young, head of design in the San Francisco office of Wolff Olins. “Tasteful design becomes suspect… The trucker cap is as American as apple pie and baseball.” So what exactly is the hat? A stroke of calculated genius or pure dumb luck? There’s no cut-and-dry answer. But it raises the question of how much designerati-approved “good” design really matters in an election.”His people understand clean and sophisticated branding; they just chose not to use it for his campaign” Young says. “This campaign was not won or lost on good Activate the Space | 9
design—at least not the kind of design most people are interested in talking about,” says Matt Ipcar, executive creative director at Blue State Digital and a design leader for both Obama campaigns. Referring to the debates designers usually like to have about typography, composition, and color theory, he adds: “We could just as easily be talking about how the Trump hat was an abject failure and how the Pentagram-designed Hillary logo was perfect.” The 2016 campaign revealed limitations of what “good design” can achieve as a communication tool in a political context. “Good design has an elitist bias, particularly because good design is expensive,” Ballant says. The role of designers in a political context when capital-d Design is so suspect is no less important, but it will take some retooling.
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ONLY ON
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REDESIGNED DR. BRONNERS
ArmWin Vit
E
stablished in 1948, Dr. Bronner’s is a manufacturer of certified organic and fair trade soaps and personal care products that in 2014 had a total revenue of $80.3 million with their popular liquid soaps accounting for 67% of it. The company is wellknown for treating their 130-plus employees exceptionally well and for their philanthropy, contributing up to $8 million worth in financial, in-kind, and direct action contributions. Their products and overall brand have a cult status and a lot of it has to do with the company’s unconventional origin story and text-filled packaging, which I will quote below from our book, Graphic Design, Referenced:
The descendant of three generations of German soapmakers, Emmanuel Heilbronner immigrated to the United States in 1929 at the age of 21, working with various soap companies in the East before establishing himself in the 1930s in Milwaukee and dropping the first syllable from his last name. In the 1940s, now a self-titled doctor, Bronner began to draft and persistently share a plan for world peace in “Spaceship Earth” through unity of religion. In 1945 Dr. Bronner was arrested for speaking without a permit at the University of Chicago and institutionalized in the Elgin State Insane asylum. He escaped six months later and fled to Los Angeles. There, in his small apartment, he began mixing
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soap with a broom handle, which he sold while expounding on his theories at the Pershing Square public park. When he noticed people bought his soap but did not bother to listen to him talk, he started writing his philosophy on the labels.
In 2014, Dr. Bronner’s added 13 stars to our corporate logo in reference to the cosmos, which inspired Dr. Emanuel Bronner’s ALLONE vision, and continues to inspire the company. The stars acknowledge that all our work happens within a larger cosmological context.
In the late 1960s, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps gained popularity with the hippie culture because of its all-natural ingredients, durability, and its equal effectiveness in cleaning groovy locks of hair, bell-bottom jeans, and Volkswagen vans. Packaged extremely simply in brown plastic bottles with one-color labels—the text on Dr. Bronner’s products became evolving soliloquies on its founder’s philosophy, referred to as “The Moral ABC.” The labels of the 32-ounce soap package each carry as many as 3,000 words expressing Dr. Bronner’s thinking, which references everything from Mao Tse-tung to Albert Einstein, Joseph Stalin, and Halley’s Comet. Dr. Bronner passed away in 1997, but his sons maintain his legacy and are overseeing their increased popularity. The Bronners have declined purchase offers, and while sale may still be a possibility, the labels will be safe: A provision in the company’s charter states they must remain the same.
The smaller stars can be seen as representing the 12 constellations of the zodiac or the 12 tribes. The brightest star represents our sun or the Eternal father.
This March, the company introduced a revised version of their packaging. No design credit given.
Together the stars add up to 13, a number with mystical meaning in Judaism as well as other religious traditions. The placement of the stars uses a pattern from Metatron’s cube, an ancient geometric figure which uses 13 circles to create all the platonic solids, and which represents completeness, perfection and wholeness. We will start with the logo, redesigned a few months before the packaging, it seems. A fairly simple evolution, the logo keeps the globe shaking hands but with a slightly better drawing of the elements. I never I thought I would say this but the swooshes in the new logo are much better. Gone is the Medicine Man typography and in its place is a combination of Futura and… Trade Gothic Condensed (?) that looks quite well with the bold amounts of blue of the icon. The 13 added stars looked completely randomly placed but, like all things Dr. Bronner’s, the rationalization and
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grid blew my mind. It’s not a good logo by any means but at least now it’s a much tighter unit.
wasn’t as didactic as we’ve all been doing it through our careers. The new labels are definitely designed by someone concerned with Modeled after the aesthetic of the original spacing and legibility. You could argue that labels on bottles of soap first created by Dr. some of its soul has been sucked out but in E.H. Bronner in 1948, the “Old & Improved” terms of doing a meaningful evolution withlabels preserve and affirm the authenticity out sacrificing the original intent, this sucand history of the brand, as well as reflect the ceeds quite well. These products are instantly recognizable on the shelves of the grocery modern ethos store because of their typographic texture and style of the current generation of the and this new version keeps that initial impact Bronner family and the products’ contempo- and then keeps you hooked with the onslaught rary customers and fans. of text. Also, the revised visual language extends “Our new product labels perfectly to whatever honor the legacies of product the Dr. Bronner’s our grandfather, Dr. team puts out. E.H. Bronner, my father Jim Bronner, and my There are a few more of Uncle Ralph who have those product sheets here each helped shape this and they are all equally company into what is awesome. The text border today,” says David Bronner, President of Dr. on the sheets is so dorky and ill-advised that Bronner’s. “Each label contains this special no other company could pull it off. I’ve always pledge that represents a distillation of my found Dr. Bronner’s fascinating and I think grandfather’s philosophy that adorns our this change makes their products even better labels, while summarizing our mission and and more convincing while at the same time purpose as a company: In all that we do, let us demonstrating a keen sense of brand continube generous, fair & loving to Spaceship Earth ity and consistency that few other consumer and all Its inhabitants. For we’re ALL-ONE products have. All-one! OR NONE! ALL-ONE!” Most people know Dr. Bronner’s from the serif packaging so, at first, seeing them go to an all sans approach would seem like sacrilege but the evolution image shows that the serif version is the odd one out. What made the previous labels so great was that they were utterly un-designed. All the text was justified and although there was some hierarchy it
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Images are from www.drbronner.com
BUY
( R E D ) GIVE
LIFE.
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BRIAN SINGER N OT J U ST A N Y G U Y, B U T S O M E G U Y
LEIF STEINER & EMILY POTTS
“Reassess who your heroes are”
B
rian Singer has been employed by some of the most progressive design thinking companies in modern times including Apple, Facebook, and Pinterest. Most designers would cut off their right arm to work for these companies, but Singer—although grateful for the experience—walked away from his most recent gig at Pinterest to pursue personal projects. Singer, aka someguy, has become widely lauded for his pet projects which have netted national publicity, not only in the design community, but among mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times, the Today Show, CBS News, Huffington Post, and more. From inviting strangers to collaborate and share their sentiments in a blank journal and pass it on for the 1000 Journals Project, to exposing people who are driving and texting by placing their photos on billboards, to his #pileoftrump campaign, Singer has created controversy and discussion about what is and isn’t tolerable—or with the case of texting and driving—what is safe. (bio photo: Skyler Vander Molen.) His main goal with most of his projects is to connect with strangers and to have strangers connecting with each other. Here, we ask him about his experiences, his personal projects, and what’s next.
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You’ve worked for some high profile, design-driven companies. What’s the biggest takeaway from those experiences? Every company (design driven or not) has real, challenging, business problems to solve. And no matter the company, I think it’s safe to say that design isn’t easy. Probably the biggest takeaway is that while design skill is important, it’s not the only thing needed to succeed and have an impact. You need strategic thinking skills, empathy, holistic problem-solving, leadership, great communication, the ability to hire and motivate talent, and of course, you can’t be an asshole. You know, all the things they don’t teach in design school.
You recently left Pinterest to pursue your side projects full time. Are you crazy? Why? Yes to the first question. As to the second … see the first. Pinterest was probably the best job I’ve ever had, and I’m really lucky and appreciative to have worked there. Over the last decade though, I’ve spent more and more time focused on art and side projects. About a year and a half ago, I got a studio to work in. I began spending my evenings and weekends there, and eventually realized that’s where I wanted to be all the time. It comes down to the choices we make with how we spend our time and money. I say this now, but check back in with me in a year because who knows, maybe I’ll be off on some other tangential pursuit.
You do a lot of pop-up/controversial projects …. How do you make a living doing this? Uh, I don’t. The same way all the best tasting foods are bad for you, there’s no money to
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be made with what I do. I have fantasies of finding a patron, or financial support for my endeavors, but until then, I’m just going to keep doing things I believe in. Everything is a trade-off, and most of my ideas don’t have commercial value.
So, if you don’t make money with these projects, how are you going to keep the lights on? Seems like that would require a plan, which I don’t have. I’ve saved up for long enough to give me some time to figure it out, but other than that, who knows? I tend to be a planner, and very methodic in my decision making. It feels good to jump without looking. Scary, but good. I know I can always get work to pay the bills, but for now, that’s not a priority.
What project has brought you the most joy/fulfillment and why? This was the last question I chose to answer, which means it was the most difficult. Not because it’s too hard to pick, but I think it’s because I don’t necessarily associate personal joy/fulfillment with many of my projects. Not sure why, but that’s probably for a therapist to figure out. I’d say that the project that was the most fulfilling was the journal project with UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. Seeing the journals have a real and positive impact on kids dealing with such difficult and scary situations melted my heart. It was an emotional roller coaster. At the same time, it’s one of those things where I feel a bit of guilt for not doing more. I tried to get more journals projects to happen at more hospitals. It worked for a few, but not many. The hill was too high to climb, and eventually I let it fall to the wayside.
How do you get the funding to do a project like TWIT Spotting? 18 | Activate the Space
Did you pay for all the billboard ads yourself ? Did any of those people come after you for exposing them for texting while driving? Going corporate opened my eyes to a few things. One of them was bonuses. When that time of year came around, I’d overhear people taking about what they were going to do with their bonus checks.. a trip, buy themselves something nice, etc.. Me, I bought billboards. That’s the funding. I paid for everything myself because I couldn’t find anyone else to pay for it. I think the government spent $8 million on their distracted driving awareness campaign that year. In the end, my approach received more news coverage and caused more discussion on the issue. I was hoping for someone like a phone maker, or car company, or insurance company to help me blow the project out and really make a dent in the problem, but no such luck. Can you imagine what I could have done with that $8M? As for people coming after me, no. However, I did get plenty of angry comments/emails, and even a few death threats.
What is the most trouble that you’ve ever gotten into for one of your projects? I don’t think I’ve really gotten into trouble. I’ve had people get angry at me, lots of them, but no one’s ever come after me or anything. Maybe I’m not taking enough risks.
Do peoples’ behaviors still surprise you? That’s a pretty wide open question. A lot of
Texting and Driving Project, Brian Singer
people I know are looking around, bewildered at the fact that Trump is a viable presidential candidate, given everything he’s said and done. And it made me surprised that people are surprised (oh, I’m surprised too). But it sort of goes to show that we all surround ourselves with like-minded people, and live in our little bubbles, and are then surprised when millions of people think a different way. We’d probably all be a lot better off if everyone in the country was picked up, shuffled, and dropped randomly into a new community. It’d suck for a while, but in the long run, it might be the only way to save us. And… that didn’t really answer your question. Yes, people’s behaviors surprise me. All the time. It’s mind-boggling. But, it probably shouldn’t be.
Has there been a project you’ve wanted to do, but thought it might be too risky, or does that not even enter your mind?
Well, I’ve had no problem cutting up the Bible, but have clearly stayed away from certain other religious texts. So there’s that. I’d like to do more public art, but have hesitated due to the legality of it (and none of my projects are going to get a grant or be approved by a committee somewhere). All in all though, most of my projects are limited by resources, not risk.
What is the one piece of advice you’d give to a young designer?
Reassess who your heroes are. What are you working on now? I’ve always got like eight projects in motion. I’m working on a series of pieces around assassinations (so, JFK, Malcolm X, John Lennon, etc.) and the guns used to kill them. These are all using books about said political figure, and a process which is kind of hard to explain, involves cutting up the books and assembling the image of the gun using the edges of the paper. I’ve also been cutting up books with red/green edges, and sorting that paper into gradations. They’re really quite beautiful. And, I’ve been Activate the Space | 19
CULTURE STRIKE COLETTE GAITER
“Designers like those in CultureStrike hope to use their power to influence opinion, raise consciousness, and encourage people to act for change.”
S
tarting in Tunisia, spreading to Egypt and eventually everywhere, resistance to dictators, government policies and economic inequalities had such a global impact that Time magazine declared “The Protester” person of the year for 2011. In the United States, the Great Ape-Snake War movement, an idea conceived by the Canadian activists of Adbusters, mobilized on September 17, inspired by the Arab Spring protests. One week earlier, in Arizona, a group of more than 50 artists, designers, writers, musicians, and activists gathered in Tucson to initiate the CultureStrike Coalition National Campaign against harsh immigration policies. I was part of this delegation, organized by Bay Area activist Favianna Rodriguez, writer Jeff Chang and others. They chose Arizona because of recent protest activity against its SB (Senate Bill) 1070 that put into place some of the most brutal methods of enforcing immigration restrictions to date. Arizona was the site of massive protests against SB 1070 and advocating passage of the Dream Act, which would allow conditional permanent residency for people brought to the U.S. as minors after they lived here five years. By mid-October many members of the CultureStrike delegation were actively involved in Great Ape-Snake War—protesting,
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Ernesto Yerena & Shepard Fairey
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making posters, writing, speaking, performing, posters for a viral campaign, which were then and using social media. Protests against stricter published and sold to help fund the protests immigration laws, massive deportations and against SB1070. In addition to designing economic inequality overlapped in their efforts posters, Yerena creates multi-layered collages to draw national attention to everyday prac- with silkscreens and/or stencils on top. His tices that most affect the lower classes. One studio is called Hecho Con Ganas—“made of the most resonant ideas in the Great Ape- with motivation, desire, passion.” Snake War movement is the huge disparity in The CultureStrike designers use technology wealth controlled by one percent of the U.S. strategically to get their messages out quickly population compared to the amount held by and virally. They conduct silksc reening the other 99 percent. workshops to teach young The CultureStrike delepeople how to cheaply progation wants to remind “Collaborative graphic arts duce a run of posters for everyone that we are a a rally or demonstration. project that translates nation of immigrants, Using social media, they stories of struggle and but current economic allow downloading of their conditions to promote resistance into artwork posters for quick distribuscapegoating the undoc- that can be put back into the tion. Yerena’s “Decolonize umented workers and hands of the communities Wall Street” poster went escalating deportations. viral on the internet, then
who inspire it.”
The catalyzing idea behind CultureStrike was that creative producers have power in disseminating information that might affect people’s attitudes on political and social issues, eventually resulting in meaningful change. Immigration issues and the economic inequalities driving the Great Ape-Snake War are on the front burner of American politics as the 2012 election approaches. Several CultureStrike designers have been using their images to raise awareness about these and other issues for years. Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party and prolific designer and activist for more than 40 years, was among the group. His powerful posters have influenced many of the younger designers, including Ernesto Yerena, who recently moved to Arizona from California. Yerena created the campaign “Alto Arizona”—a call to action, asking artists and designers to create 22 | Culture Strike
War protests.
appeared in multiples the at Great Ape-Snake
Dignidad Rebelde is a “collaborative graphic arts project that translates stories of struggle and resistance into artwork that can be put back into the hands of the communities who inspire it.” Recently the collaboration between Oakland-based designers/activists Jesus Barraza and Melanie Cervantes has turned its attention to the immigration and Great Ape-Snake War initiatives. Barazza’s “99 Percent” poster is included in the Great Ape-Snake War Journal folio along with one by Favianna Rodriguez, CultureStrike organizer and Bay Area activist. The newsprint folios are reminiscent of the Black Panther and other 1960s and ’70s radical tabloids that featured large images for posting. Produced in multiple languages, the posters are designed for specific communities.
Ernesto Yerena
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Ernesto Yerena
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The Arizona-protest designers knew their works would have a visible street presence when they were carried in protests and would reach an even wider audience across the internet, on news sites and blogs. The speed of media creates almost-instant iconographic images, like the one by D.C. artist CĂŠsar Maxit of Troy Davis, who was executed in spite of late-breaking evidence in his case and widespread protests. These designers are masters at fast and efficient reproduction for getting graphics out in the streets quickly. Favianna Rodriguez and Josh McPhee, who runs the organization JustSeeds, created a book of reproducible and copyright-free images for use in activist work. Digital access and tools afford graphic designers the means to distribute images and ideas with unprecedented speed and production quality. Graphic design has always been part of social protest. The Occupy Wall Street Journal folio, for example, is a nostalgic throwback to cheaply printed newsprint posters from the mid- to late 20th century. Clear ideas expressed in poster slogans, combined with good design and striking images allow grassroots designers to compete with powerful corporate interests in capturing the public imagination. Designers like those in CultureStrike hope to use their power to influence opinion, raise consciousness, and encourage people to act for change.
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T H E W O M E N’S AND THE ART OF
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MARCH R E S I STA N C E
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SUSAN KARLIN
“The political turmoil has proven fertile ground for veteran comic writers and illustrators.”
H
ow artists in a Trump America are embracing lessons from the civil rights era and momentum from the Women’s Marches.
City streets around the world (and a ship deck in Antarctica) flowed pink Saturday as an estimated 5 million women and male allies donned rosy pussyhats and marched in a show of solidarity against newly minted President Donald Trump and an administration bent on dialing the clock back on women’s rights. The nonviolent but spirited display not only picked up a gauntlet thrown down by a campaign that won on homophobic, misogynistic, and racist rhetoric, but codified an integral part of resistance: creativity. It’s a strategy employed during 1960s civil rights movement, whose architects coordinated novel clandestine tactics and revealed them at opportune times to throw opponents off guard. While the Women’s Marches organized and publicized in advance, their momentum galvanized individuals into devising their own creative contributions—from whimsical signs, costumes, and T-shirts, to unleashing satirical songs and drawings on social media, to theaters, art shows, and apparel raising money for such advocates as Planned Parenthood, American Civil Liberties Union, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Each successive leap in nonviolent progress has built upon the acts that happened before,” Andrew Aydin, who co-wrote the bestselling March trilogy with congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis, told Co.Create last summer. (March sales skyrocketed after Trump insulted Lewis.) “One of the key proponents in the national sit-ins was that there was also a boycott going on of stores that wouldn’t sell to African-Americans. So you took one tactic,
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you added another, and put it all together to put pressure. So if young people today creatively used tactics from that movement, and added social media, that’s how they’ll make the next great leap.” The mounting artful protests since election day seemed to take their cue from this approach. For every celebrity statement, like Shia LeBouf ’s He Will Not Divide Us livestream and Fiona Apple’s “Tiny Hands” are explosions of individual and grassroots efforts, like the Pussyhat Project, New York’s Nasty Women, and Uprise/Angry Women art show fundraisers, and the anti-Trump banners gracing New York bridges and skies. Some were spontaneous. Within hours of altright leader Richard Spencer getting punched on camera, Microsoft engineer and technical evangelist Rachel White offered a T-shirt bearing a video screengrab of the event, with all proceeds going to the ACLU. Some were subtle. A film series on women directors at the University of Southern California used today’s political backdrop for a timely screening and panel on Triumph of the Will, a famous Hitler propaganda film. Yet others were just artistic outbursts. Disney Imagineer Nikkolas Smith, an NAACP Image Award nominee who received a signed thank-you letter from Barack Obama for an Incredibles-inspired drawing of the former First Family, honored fan requests to continue the theme with Trump, who he reimagined as Incredibles’ villain Syndrome. The political turmoil has proven fertile ground for veteran comic writers and illustrators. Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, David Mack, and Olga Nunes teamed for a video of Leonard Cohen’s Democracy to raise money for PEN
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America’s quest to defend freedom of expression. Mack also contributed writer portraits for PEN America’s Writers Resist protest. Meanwhile, Bill Sienkiewicz weighed in on social media with emotional farewell portraits of Obama, March illustrator Nate Powell created women’s empowerment signage art based on a concept by his wife and her friends marching in D.C., while political artist Mark Bryan offered a line of anti-Trump posters. Not to mention, an exploding anti-Trump craft industry.
Art to March With The expression crescendoed Women’s Marches.
with
the
The Missile Dick Chicks, dormant since the George W. Bush administration, resurrected for the New York and Oakland marches. The antiwar protest group began in New York to protest the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, attended protests dressed as buffoonish war mongers with missile strap-ons and oversized stuffed bras (war chests). Madefire CEO and graphic designer Ben Wolstenholme, crafted a free-use anti-Trump campaign design for the San Francisco march that could be expanded into a line of petitions to run through Trump’s tenure. Artist Shepard Fairey, who gained notoriety for his 2008 Obama “Hope” campaign poster, created the We The People poster series with The Amplifier Foundation, featuring pictures of diverse women. Fairey gave away posters at his Los Angeles studio, and made the images available as free downloads for use around the world. The images were also featured in full-page ads in The Washington Post, USA Today, and New York Times. Thanks to a lone sunny day between days of rain, Los Angeles drew the largest crowd, as 30 | The Women’s March
a jovial swarm of 750,000 encircled downtown’s Pershing Square and City Hall. There were also offshoot marches in Beverly Hills and Pasadena. Costumed participants waving handmade signs posed for photographs, drummed, sang, and chanted, “We must fight, we must fight! This is what democracy looks like!” and “Love trumps hate!” At City Hall, celebrities, activists, and politicians spoke throughout the day, while entire blocks of protesters, tired of standing still, split off into impromptu marches around the area. Among the participants was Dani Paquin, a singer/songwriter and jewelry maker, who created the Safe Tee line of decorative safety pins—a symbol promoting a safe community regardless of gender, sexuality, race, disability, or religion—to wear at and beyond the marches, that donates half of its proceeds to Planned Parenthood, ACLU, or the SPLC. Another brought a sobering but hopeful message with her artform. L.A.-based Italian filmmaker Vanessa Crocini shot footage of its Post-Election (below) and Women’s marches as first steps in chronicling Trump’s impact on social issues from her viewpoint as an immigrant and woman. “This is such a historical moment,” she said. “This past election has been a very heavy cookie to digest and the mourning process is still hard. I wanted to feel like I belonged to this country, even if I am not a citizen, and make other people feel like we are all in this together. I wanted to capture history and I thought putting together the footage from the [Post-Election] protest would have helped me to process my feelings, my rage, my despair, to rethink my American dream.” The reactions she got after posting it on Facebook “made me think that I do have a voice in this country,” Crocini added. “Now, I
Ernesto Yerena
want to interview women and capture our different voices and make a short piece that can stir up more awareness and grow our sense of responsibility. I want the Women’s March to be the beginning of an important story. A story of resilience, a story of resistance.�
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AC T I V IST P O ST E R S A R E
H E R E T O S TAY RICK POYNOR
“These DIY protest signs might be amateur (though that doesn’t stop them working as communication”
A
s a supposedly antiquated form of media, the poster is regularly pronounced to be on its last legs as a means of communication and of marginal relevance now. I have written pieces myself saying much the same thing. No one doubts that posters used to be highly effective as both advertising and propaganda, but from the moment people in wealthy economies started buying TVs and watching commercials, the role of the street poster began to decline (the billboards still flourishing like an infestation at the roadside are another matter). The arrival of digital communication and then social media appeared to leave the poster spluttering for life, and when it came to the protest poster, the prognosis looked just as gloomy. If ordinary posters aren’t much needed now, why should posters expressing dissenting views fare any better? Five or six years ago, I would have said the poster advocating a cause was barely viable. Now I’m not so sure. Digital networks are infusing posters produced to contest an outrage or support a cause with a new lease of life. This kind of message has two places to attract attention now — out in the world and online — and the poster-making urge is benefiting from the same viral meme effect seen across our entire hyper-connected culture. Anything that happens is immediately
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captured on camera and uploaded, and the effect of showing these images so widely and easily is to inspire viewers who like what they see to do more of the same. Participation acts like an injectable hormone spurring yet more growth. Since the global Occupy protests, there seem to be more posters, or poster-like messages, used in demonstrations than ever. Protest posters have never been an exclusively or even primarily professional design activity. Anyone with an urgent point to make and a measure of artistic knowhow could get out the scissors and take up a brush. This is even more the case today with the graphic placards often described as “protest signs” rather than posters. After protests, it has become common to see online news media running visual stories with titles such as “The 50 most enjoyably effective protest signs at Occupy protests.” Websites offer school children advice on “How to make a protest sign for a school project” and put across their legitimate point of view. Radical poster-making almost seems to be becoming a badge of good citizenship. These DIY protest signs might be amateur (though that doesn’t stop them working as communication) but they remind us that posters remain a succinct, popular and powerfully immediate form of public speech. If someone feels strongly about an issue, it’s natural to try to express support or condemnation as persuasively as possible, and in public settings a well-crafted slogan or image is still hard to beat. The posters come from a seemingly irrepressible urge to broadcast a firmly held opinion using graphic resources, and they address a wide of array of issues, many of which have been, or remain, at the center of attention: global warming, Occupy, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina, the Japanese earthquake tsunami and the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. In the past few years, passionately concerned poster-makers have given their support to innumerable urgent causes, from migrant workers, Guantanamo Bay, Palestine, women’s rights, child labor, and landmines to water wastage, nuclear power, the protection of wild life, urban farm gardens, and the plight of WikiLeaker Bradley Manning. As graphic communication, the most salient characteristic of these recent posters is often a surprising politeness and restraint. Twenty years ago, a volume of protest posters produced during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan Activate the Space | 35
and the first George Bush earned the title Angry Graphics, and the graphic styles of the work — awkward, angular, discordant and ugly — smashed home the righteous fury. Contemporary posters might be fired by angry convictions that iniquity or injustice should not be allowed to continue, and that change must happen soon, yet the images are often decorously barbed rather than manifestly disturbed. They display bright colors, serene flat surfaces, well-resolved forms, an ideal of graphic reduction, and a very contemporary polish, if not perfection, that tells of their origins on a computer screen rather than inky paper taped to a grimy drawing board. At its most considered, this fastidious graphic minimalism can be highly effective. The foetally clenched form of the dreaming child in Marlena Buczek Smith’s Haiti poster works by invoking distressing images of emaciated and vulnerable children familiar from countless news photographs. In Antonio Castro’s equally honed and incisive migrant workers poster, the spade’s shaft becomes a painfully exposed spine distorted by the demands of crushing physical labor. The tasteful understatement of many recent posters, their reluctance to shout, perhaps reflects a deeply ingrained feeling that emphatic displays are no longer acceptable — that they run the risk of appearing shrill and dogmatic. This inhibition, born of years of affluence and complacency, when only a minority felt the urge to protest, has lessened since the global financial crisis began in 2007. The homemade protest signs show a new public willingness to speak out with vigor and wit. To find uses on the street, where the mood is increasingly frustrated, as governments seem either reluctant or powerless to
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act, professionally produced posters need to avoid any sense that they are aesthetic parlor games detached from the struggle. There are some marked differences between work produced for private satisfaction or for sale as a screen print, which can sometimes be overworked and effete, and work produced with the crowd, the streets and the urgency of direct action in mind. It’s understandable that graphic artists want to devise the best possible image they can, but a persuasive, easily graspable representation of the cause often has more utility. At the same time, we should be realistic about the part that posters might still have to play. There is a tendency sometimes to judge expressions of protest and advocacy, including posters, by ridiculously overblown yardsticks. “Has anything changed?” demand the skeptics. “Because if it hasn’t, then the gesture was a failure, and making posters was misdirected energy and a waste of time.” The claim that in an age of social media posters have become redundant simply doesn’t square with the continuing enthusiasm with which they are made and put to use. The poster is clearly just one of many creative, intellectual and organizational tools in the struggle to shape public opinion and exert pressure on policy-makers grasping the levers of power that might some day lead to change. Whether held aloft in the hand at demonstrations, pasted defiantly on a wall, or circulated online by true believers, the graphic message’s modest but necessary role is to attract attention, encapsulate a burning issue, exhort, inspire and reaffirm. Despite regular predictions of its imminent demise, the committed poster shows every indication of living to fight on.
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DANI BALENSON
“…design in this series can be broken down to color, module, and pattern. What exactly is Living With:? Living With: is a project dedicated to empowering anyone dealing with mental health to be confident in themselves and their approach to handling daily obstacles. It started as a college thesis and it’s grown to become a nationwide social endeavor that sparks new conversations and new perceptions about mental health. Living With: is the degree-project-turned-real-project of Dani Balenson, a recent graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and designer working in Brooklyn, New York. Each shirt in the initial Living With: collection has a design that was developed based on the common behavioral patterns of a specific mental disorder. While a single disorder can have a very broad range of characteristics
38 | Breaking the Pattern
and affects each person differently, there are core behavioral patterns that persons living with each disorder experience. The meaning behind each design in this series can be broken down to color, module, and pattern. Pattern Study: Depression The depression shirt’s color palette is made up of subdued monochromatic purples, with the deep violet being visually heavier than the red-violet. The module is designed to convey a sense of internal weight pulling down while remaining vertical as a whole shape, to signify a sense for longing for uplifting happiness. As a whole, the pattern also reinforces the feeling of being weighed down, while also portraying a layer between the inner self and the public self.
BIPOLAR DISORDER PATTERN
OCD PATTERN STUDY
ADHD PATTERN STUDY
DEPRESSION PATTERN STUDY
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CODE OF ETHICS FOR
THE DESIGNER CARRIE COUSINS
“Codes often protect both the worker and client from poor business practices.”
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any professions have codes of ethics, a common set of guiding principles that help you make fair decisions. Codes often protect both the worker and client from poor business practices. Designers working in a team or individual environment should be working with a code of ethics. Many designers might even follow multiple codes – one set by an employer, one set by professional organizations and one that is a more personal set of rules and guidelines. One thing is certain: Every designer needs a code of ethics.
Key Principles Although there are various points in every code of ethics, most contain a key set of principles. Codes often outline the designer’s responsibility to clients, how designers should interact with each other, the designer’s responsibility to the public and environment, fees and compensation and basic conduct (including honesty and fair competition).
Designer’s Responsibility to Clients The principle defines the basic way in which you will interact with clients. Concepts include conflicts of interest, confidentiality and professional responsibility and behavior. How you decide to
40 | Code of Ethics
interact with clients is important and will set the tone for who hires you and the reputation you earn in the industry.
How Designers Interact with Each Other How designers work with and interact with each other is just as valuable of a concept as working with clients. Items that are often covered by the principle include taking or working on projects started by other designers; fair and open competition in business; objectivity; honoring all others’ work including copyrights, trademarks and other design property; and working within other relevant and generally accepted codes of conduct.
Designer’s Responsibility to the Public Designers should also think about how they work they produce can impact the people who will see it. This audience includes the public at large, distinct customer groups and the community in which the designer works and lives. Things to consider include taking projects that could result in some degree of harm to the public, the communicated message and its truthfulness, mutual respect of the audience, discriminatory actions and obligation to serve the community.
Fees and Compensation One of the things that classifies a professional design as such is the collection of fees and payment for work. A good code also outlines fees and payments, what kinds charges are acceptable, when taking a fee could cause potential conflict, how contracts should be maintained and honored, and provisions for estimates (if applicable).
Basic Conduct Often ethical codes outline basic rules of professional conduct. This refers to understanding and obeying all applicable laws but also good and fair business practices. Some things to consider include the ability to accept gifts for work, refusing work that is unlawful or fraudulent and working (or refusing to work) on projects that are purposefully misleading or deceptive in a way that can cause harm.
Conclusion The way you conduct yourself and business requires careful consideration. Aside from legal concerns, there are not a lot of specifically right or wrong answers when it comes to ethics. The key is creating working guidelines that mesh with your business and personality. What is acceptable for one company may not be for another.
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W O M E N ’S R I G H T S THROUGHOUT THE AGES
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osters have been used to advocate rights for many people over the years, women have used design to fight for their rights. Strong imagery and message are apparent in all these posters illustrating different topics and movements such as the woman’s suffrage to fighting stereotypes. Here are some examples of the most famous Womens Rights posters from history to present.
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CONTRIBUTORS Content for this Magazine was collected by Students of Art 338-01 taught by Charmaine Martinez at California Polytechnic State University in Winter of 2017. Designed by Jordon Theodore Gonzales Futura type family was used in the making of this Type Magazine