Graphic Designer as Interventionist - Melanie Firebrace

I've taken a meandering research path from Joseph Churchward's career in advertising, via Aaron's propaganda post, to a podcast on the Graphic Designer as Interventionist.  The video, part of the School of Visual Arts MFA Designer as Author Paul Rand Lecture Series, explores propaganda from the turn of the century to the present.   It examine the use of graphic design to intervene in political, social and cultural arenas, illustrating how propaganda often uses signs and symbols familiar to everyone but manipulating them in an ironic or sardonic way to propagate a specific message.

The early section of the video looks at post WW1 propaganda by German artists, such as John Heartfield, protesting against the rise in militarism.  It also touches on Soviet propaganda and Social Realism and the Russian Avant-Garde.  I've seen images from El Lissitzky's A Tale of Two Squares but I didn't realise it uses abstract means to create a language in children' book form to propagate the soviet side of the Russian Civil War. 

The later part of the podcast (1950s onwards) has a strong American focus, but it gives an interesting overview of American propaganda regarding the Vietnam war, McCarthyism, the Free Speech Movement, Aids awareness, the Women's movement, the Iraq war and US politics from Nixon to Obama.  For example, this Esquire cover by George Lois in 1968.

 

The composite shot was a satirical comment on the 1960 when the Whittier whiz lost to John Kennedy by a five o'clock shadow because he looked evil in front of the cameras.  (George Lois - How I Taught Nixon To Use Makeup And Become President)

The following two posters are anti Vietnam propaganda.  Although it's difficult to see from the screenshot image, the creatures on the word LEFT are cockroaches - the only thing left after a nuclear war.

One other poster image that interested me was a controversial Benetton advertisement by photographer Oliviero Toscani, which features a deathbed scene of AIDS activist David Kirkby.

This 1991 advert prompted more than 800 complaints to the British Advertising Standards Authority during 1991 and was featured in the reference book Guinness World Records 2000 as 'Most Controversial Campaign'. Others included a black stallion covering a white mare, close-up pictures of tattoos reading "HIV Positive" on the bodies of men and women, a cemetery of many cross-like tombstones, a collage consisting of genitals of persons of various races, a priest and nun about to engage in a romantic kiss, pictures of inmates on death row, an electric chair, an advert showing a boy with hair shaped into the devil's horns, three different hearts with "black", "white" and "yellow" written onto them (from March 1996), and a picture of a bloodied t-shirt and pants riddled with bullet holes from a soldier killed in the Bosnian War (this one appeared in February 1994). Most of the advertisements, although not all, had a plain white background, and in most the company's logo served as the only text accompanying the image. (Benetton Group, Wikipedia)

I'm not sure how I feel about this campaign.  Is it social activism or does it exploit a cause to inform people to make the right choice - to buy Benetton's clothing?  I'd like to look into this issue further and see whether critical analyses of the campaign are available.

The podcast highlighted for me just how effective a single image can be in communicating a message.  The design examples presented varied in quality.  Some used extreme hyperbole which undermined its effectiveness e.g. political propaganda which aligned Barack Obama with the Nazis and Hitler.  However, those that worked were very effective, like the Choice Not Chance poster.


Website: School of Visual Arts
Podcast Title: Graphic Designer as Interventionist
Part of SVA MFA Designer as Author: Paul Rand Lecture Series
Presenter: Steven Heller
Accessed: 8 April 2013
http://design.sva.edu/site/episodes/show/147