project10 newspaper (may) 'design in politics
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Dear Reader,It’s late, I know. Lost in the post? Printers screwed up? Dog ate it? No. None of the above. Since the last ‘All-ladies’ issue hit your doormat/desk/keyboard I’ve been going through something of a personal crisis. I won’t go into more detail, just to say that I will endeavour to be on track with the next edition: The Graduate issue.
Project10 was put on hold. That is not, I repeat, NOT to say that this is over. Oh no! I am still involved, I’ve just been taking a backseat. A very far back backseat. But far enough back not to be reporting on any project work this month.
Nonetheless this current ‘Design in Politics’ issue has been lovingly produced. As ever it’s the result of some brilliant people giving me some of their time, for free. Which is both amazing and brilliant.
This month celebrates the subject of ‘Design in Politics’ given that we’re still all talking about the LibDemConCrats-Hung(!)-Parliament-Coalition.
There is a brilliant piece by Andy Barefoot the mastermind behind mydavidcameron.com, a rather striking piece about heads of state, or rather the obeying of a head by DaBitch of Adland.tv plus Jo Murphy gets all ‘hung up on design’, Paula Benson typesets a fantastic poem by Hollie McNish and Alice Ross bigs up the Conservative logo, well, sort of. With illustration by Jack Richardson, Aaron Easterbrook and a cover illustration by Sam Gilbey makes this issue just as moving as its predecessors.
As for Project10; onwards and upwards.
Yours,
Steve Price
Andy Barefoot: mydavidcameron.comJo Murphy: jomurphyeditorial.comSander Hermsen: sander-hermsen.nlPaula Benson: form.uk.comAlice Ross: alicerosswrites.comDaBitch: Adland.tvJack Richardson: www.flickr.com/photos/jackrichardson AaronEasterbrook: [email protected]
Would you like to contribute to next month’s instalment, or perhaps you want to discuss a project, or a feature in your lovely magazine? Use any of the following: email: [email protected]: @planbstudiophone: +44 (0)7971 207 276 - Steve Price
Design&Art direction: Steve Price (www.plan-bstudio.com)Editing: Claire Selby, Sarah Waterfall and Simon White
10 years / 10 projects / 10 projects
contributors, thank-you:
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produced by:
www.plan-bstudio.com
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Barefoot lies
I created the “Make your own David Cameron poster” page in January after being inspired by the MyDavidCameron site. Clifford Singer’s site collected photoshopped versions of the newly released “We can’t go on like this” Conservative election poster and I thought it would be easy to create an online generator for people without photoshop.
You wouldn’t be able to change the photo but you would be able to add whatever words you liked for the slogan, logo and tagline. Surely at least a few people would take the opportunity to create their own biting political satire? Clifford put a link to the generator on MyDavidCameron and immediately the visits started to roll in.
Did the people of Britain seize this opportunity to show their sharp satirical wit? Well, some of them did but many others went for a more “blunt” approach. From the versions of the poster I’ve seen they generally break down into the following groups:
A decent percentage of the posters generated mocked the policies of the Tories. Some with political accuracy, others less so. New Tory policies trumpeted by the posters included selling off the BBC, closing the NHS, “screwing the poor” and “free cravats for all”.
Others mocked the original poster itself: the airbrushed photo, the patronizing message, the lack of a tie. Mr. Cameron’s large, shiny forehead seems to get a lot of attention as does his hypnotic gaze and the possibility that below where the poster ends he is wearing no trousers/masturbating furiously/illegally pleasuring someone/thing.
Quite a large number took the opportunity to unleash their inner Malcolm Tucker with approximately 8% of all posters generated featuring the f-word and almost 4% featuring the sweariest of all swear words. Some were taking the opportunity to colourfully call David Cameron something derogatory, others just found it amusing to have the leader of the Conservative Party apparently using blue language when addressing the electorate.
A lot of the generated posters had nothing to do with David Cameron, the election or politics at all. These were generated by users who just found the juxtaposition of a serious public figure with an inane message amusing.
The message might just have been a personal joke between friends, some song lyrics (apparently his milkshake brings all the girls to the yard), an advert (he is offering cash for gold in several posters) or something relevant to the chat board or forum the poster was displayed on. On the Rugby message boards DC is particularly rude about the fans of Bath whereas on the Wrexham message board he is threatening to buy and pawn Chester City.
Did any of this mischief have an effect on the election result? I guess we’ll never know. The stats are reasonably impressive. The site itself has had over 430,000 visits, over 1,435,000 page views and 450,000 posters generated. And this doesn’t include the views of the posters when they have been imbedded in other sites (another 1.5 million views) or those users who saved their poster and published it themselves to Facebook, Twitpic, Flickr or similar.
Will seeing a vandalised version of an official poster actually affect the way people vote? I’d hope the average voter is a little more intelligent than this. It does highlight just how many people dislike Cameron and his party but who is to know whether a similar poster of Brown would have garnered the same reaction? Labour cleverly haven’t released any easily mock-able posters however they did try to jump on the band wagon by revealing their “Ashes to Ashes” poster that had been “crowd sourced” from Labour supporters by Saatchi and Saatchi. Showing David Cameron as Gene Hunt it backfired (as Gene is actually a very popular character) and the Conservatives released their own spoof of it. If anything it shows that a bit of humorous photoshopping is all very amusing when your friend has done it and it gets emailed to you on a Friday afternoon. It’s not quite as funny when it is the best an ad agency paid millions can come up with.
Overall I think the popularity of the poster reflected on the campaign as a whole. Following the links to the posters I have read a lot of political debate on web forums and very little of it has been positive. The majority of voters seem much keener not to vote for a particular party than to support their opponents. The parties own campaigning reflects this, it is easier to disparage your opponent than to promote your own party. In a two party system the net result of losing your opponent a vote is the same as gaining one for yourself.
words: andy barefoot / MydavidcaMeron.coM / [email protected]
Below, an example of the user generated posters created by people visiting Andy’s web site: mydavidcameron.com
Confidence, aspiration, and all that good stuff comes with a sharp suit, a trim waistline and a snazzy brand. Step up design, a regular political bedfellow. We give an awful lot of weight to the way things look – political manifestos, for example – because of what good presentation represents.
We want our future leader to have it all, an elegant wife and a modern brand, yet sometimes I wonder if we are putting style before substance. The second the tabloids start comparing Sam and Sarah – sorry, Miriam, you were a latecomer – I think we’ve gone a step too far. Really, is that handbag going to swing your vote? Admittedly, I’m inclined to agree that behind every great man, there’s a great woman. But I’d also like to think accessories are not a great decider on the voting front. Theoretically, you’d rather hope that our future leader focuses his energy on more important issues than the benefits of 100 per cotton versus nylon mix.
I’m not pointing the finger and casting aspersions about anyone’s superficial tendencies (that would make me one helluva hypocrite) because I believe we’re programmed to gravitate towards pretty things. We want design, we want branding, we want fashion and a nice living room arrangement. So I would assume we’re applying the same principles to political manifestos. If the latter are all wrapped up in a nice package, how many of us are going to question them?
When we argue the toss over yellow versus blue or red, surely we’re not just discussing Pantone. Switch to the televised debate that has helped put the three frontrunners on an almost equal footing. Three ties stand before a carefully selected audience (one that ticks all boxes), and exercise their media training with that annoying Blairite hand action nonsense. Yet, contrived as this may be, the once apathetic are indeed taking note.
I’m not massively informed when it comes to politics. But I have been known to get a little cross when people bemoan the state of the country, yet fail to exercise their democratic right. Moaning does not beget change. Voting does not necessarily guarantee change, but it’s a step in the right direction. Depending on how you use your vote, of course.
As I step off my soapbox, I have to admit that to whatever extent media, design and snazzy logos have played in creating this politically historical scenario, it’s yet more proof that we want, need, and crave that things look good, sound good, and make us feel good. Design has got a lot to answer for, a lot of good stuff, so long as we know what lies beneath. I fear that, even if it is all Clegg’s fault, we might end up a little disappointed that underneath the glossy sheen, we won’t get a fancy new NHS, even if it does have a fancy new logo.
words: jo [email protected]
Hung up on design
From the 1960s onward, designers have played an active role in political debates. Contemporary designers appear a lot less interested in engagement. Postmodernism has replaced the modernist ‘grand narratives’ and their clear imagery of stars, fists and Che Guevara. Designs are more personal, on a smaller scale, more about every day life. On the other hand, the new practice of designers being their own commissioners comes with many new chances.
The direct cause for this online workshop is the rise of the extreme right wing movement in the Netherlands around Geert Wilders. Obviously, someone that extreme gives rise to protest campaigns. But, seen from the perspective of a communication professional, these are ‘harmless’ and ineffective affairs, not rising above the common left-wing visual idiome of fists and stars, giving Wilders the opportunity to position himself as a scapegoat. These campaigns only seem to deepen the divide between pro and against, and keep the focus on the man’s discourse. Definitely an area that would seriously benefit from the help of professional designers and their talent and skills...
I am very interested in how today’s designers can take part in politics and what today’s counterparts think of the expressions of engagement from the 1970s. These were defined by the boundaries of the most easily accessible
technical means: silk screen and stencil printing meant few, strong colours, and strong lines, and modernist ideologies supplied easily decipherable symbols. Today, the most accessible technology is obviously the computer connected to the internet. Facebook groups are replacing posters, ‘tweets’ replace newsletters and no debate or political action is complete without coverage by blogs and youtube.
(de)signs of change is an online workshop with myself and everybody who wants to contribute as participants. It runs from May 17th until the night of the Dutch general elections on June 9th and is meant to be a statement, a platform and a resource for design and political engagement. A chance for designers to show how they are taking part in opinion forming and debate and a chance for me to analyse, look for common denominators, research and describe the current political design practice.
I would really appreciate your thoughts on these issues. I would welcome pointers, names and websites, good texts, essays, theories on the subject. Of course, even more welcome are any designs, campaigns, concepts – old, new, seen everywhere already, unpublished, unfinished, not beyond a conceptual stage... Your submissions are very welcome. All copyrights and special wishes will of course be respected.
words: sander herMsen / [email protected]
(de)signs of change
call for entries for an online workshop on conteMporary political design initiatives, May 17th – june 9th
This poem about voting by Hollie McNish really caught my attention. She’s a young poet I saw win a poetry slam at Cheltenham Literary Festival last year, and her words are always powerful and intelligent.
Paula Benson, Partner, Form(www.form.uk.com)With thanks to Lucy Purling for design assistance.
Cameron makes His markwhat the conservative logo tells us about what they want you to think
It’s the kind of thing that happens all the time: a floundering company realises its brand has become toxic, and picks itself a youthful, dynamic new CEO, who in turn embarks on a massive rebranding exercise, starting with a funky new logo.
When David Cameron became the leader of the Conservative Party, the party’s logo featured a fist clenched around a burning torch. Within a year, he’d overhauled it completely, commissioning agency Perfect Day to create an altogether cuddlier image – one that he hoped would help him convince the electorate that his party had shed its ‘nasty party’ history and Thatcherite tendencies for a more modern, right-on (and, hopefully, electable) future.
In politics, nothing is quite that simple: the right-wing press promptly had conniptions over the cost of the new logo – although at a reported £40,000, it wasn’t off the charts for a rebranding exercise on this scale. Meanwhile, the Tory old guard lined up to slag it off: Norman Tebbit said that the logo looked like “a bunch of broccoli”, while Lord Saatchi dismissed it as “nicey-nicey”.
Still, here we are, and David Cameron is Prime Minister. Not with the crushing majority he might have hoped for, but he’s in No 10 nonetheless. That’s not purely down to the sparky new logo, obviously. But at the risk of dragging you back to an election campaign that seemed to last forever, the logo itself is worth looking at: what does it tell us about how the Tories want to be seen? And is it any good?
Needless to say, the logo is the result of intensive focus-grouping. Would it be mean to suggest that this shows? For a start, there’s the icon itself: picking a tree to show that you care about the environment is such
In political posters we’ve seen the disembodied head for every political party that you can imagine, from the 27th President of the United States, Bill Taft, to Chairman Mao.
In literature and cinema, we’ve seen The Wizard of Oz float bodiless above his chair, while Hitchcock employed disembodied heads in several movies, including Psycho and Vertigo. In what might be the worst movie of all time, Zardoz, Sean Connery prays to a giant disembodied floating stone head.
Street art brings us more bodiless heads, most recently you can find General Patton screaming at passers-by, and the well established world famous “Obey the giant” image is bluntly asking us to obey without the need to spell the word out any more.
The strange thing is, we obey disembodied heads. The Church of Sub genius knows this. Their god is Bob, the disembodied pipe-smoking head.
And so does the tobacco industry, recall Reg on Smoking? He never had a body that would wither and die from the effects of tobacco.
You know who else understood the power of the disembodied head? P.T.O
a well-worn cliché that it almost deserves its own category (although the Liberal Democrats’ use of a bird to symbolise hope isn’t all that far off ).
At the time it was suggested that the tree was intended to communicate “strength, endurance, renewal and growth,” and it does all of those things. The problem is, that brief seems designed to lead to, well, a tree.
Then there’s the kind of tree. Conservative Eurosceptics would have loathed a Dutch elm, while the left-leaning press would have enjoyed a weeping willow too much. No, it could only be an oak, with its tones of Britishness, strength and history (and monarchy – think of all those pubs called The Royal Oak).
The oak is moss-green, with a blue trunk that seems solely designed to shoehorn the Conservative Party colour in. It’s rendered in mock brush strokes, with a rather dated scribbling motion presumably aimed at communicating energy, spontaneousness, and enthusiasm. If you wanted to put clear water between your new-look Tories and the old school, with its stern vector logo looking like something from a Russian poster, you couldn’t do it more emphatically than this.
At the end of the day, your view of a logo is inextricable from your feelings about what that logo stands for. The old logo would certainly have scared the bejesus out of many potential voters, so as a reassuring gesture Cameron’s oak may well have served its purpose. But to me, it instantly recalls the 1980s – surely the last thing our new overlords want us to be remembering.
words: alice rossalicerosswrites.coM
words: dabitchadland.tv
poster: jack richardsonwww.flickr.coM/photos/jackrichardson
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illustration: aaron easterbrook07779 032699 / [email protected]