1951 Unknown It's never happened before - six years of full employment

elements of failing, both as a unit and electorally, you can see elements of an understanding of visual style and the seeds to how we see political advertising and the largescale campaigns that come with it today. As we analyse 1955 for its design acumen we can acknowledge that the message was muddled and ineffective, focusing on Attlee as a leader is a visual that may have inspired confidence, but not aspiration, which I think is a key element of their design successes in 1945 and 1950. Outside of the Attlee poster however I think the ‘criticisms’ and ‘promises’ posters build on the foundations that have been established by Middleton, and although within a modern context they may not sit as glowing examples of Swiss Modernist style design, through their humanist typographic style, there friendly use of Matisse style cut-outs they represent an honest attempt to formulate a language and translate a message that is relatable to the people. It’s also important to look at these elections in terms of context, it’s said that by 1955 the poster and printed ephemera were becoming less and less important, increasingly elections were being fought on the TV and Radio,46 and so we can argue that plays a 46 Lewis Baston, large role in why they maybe aren’t the most ‘1955 – an Increased Conservative amazing pieces of design, it was more about Majority, Followed by Turbulent, Passionate constructing a whole message, both on paper Times’, Conservative Home <https://www. and on-air, much more as we see it now. But conservativehome.com/ thecolumnists/2015/08/ the physical existence of these pieces is a lewis-baston1955-an-increasedstimulating window into design theory and conservative-majorityfollowed-by-turbulentthe evolution of design within politics that is passionate-times.html> [accessed 28 June quite evident in this period. Yes, 1955 isn’t 2020]. the best collection in my opinion, but in being so far from 1945 it asks many questions of messaging and design trends that it possibly makes it one of the most thought-provoking sets of the period.