Month: February 2021

Title: The Power of Political Graphic Design on Elections

Author: Nadja Sayej

The Author: Nadja Sayej is a culture journalist who writes for countless websites, magazines, and news stations that cover entertainment, film., TV, contemporary art, music, comedy and more. She has also published five books.

Summary: This article explains the “Do’s and Don’ts” of political design through the eyes of the Three Creative Communications political design firm. There is no question that political design is very influential on swaying voters and either helping or hurting a campaign or candidate. The firm’s content director, Domenica Ghanem, believes that their political design is not actually swaying voters but rather “effectively informing voters.” It stresses the importance of correctly informing the voters about the issues they care about and using messages that will get to the middle of the issue being addressed. This helps with connecting to the voters by connecting to the values they hold.

Domenica Ghanem also said, “It’s about building a relationship between the people and who they want representing them and, we’re reaching them everywhere they actually are—through print, web and mobile.”

Using print, web and mobile ways of advertising a political campaign is important because the more people see your message the more, they will begin to connect with it. There are some rules in political design, however. The colors red and blue will always mean and separate the two national parties. This is something that has always been used in design and will continue to be. However, there has been a shift in design in order to be less about the party but about the candidate themselves. Along with this, certain typefaces, fonts and colors have associations to certain parties or ideals that political graphic designers need to be aware about.

Lastly, this article stressed the importance of election day publicity. Election day should be the day that most advertising is getting out and in the face of the voters. This is important because it reminds them at the last minute who they should be voting for.

Overall, this article covered a lot on how political designers decide to take action and what options they have to do so.

Citation: Sayej, Nadja. “The Power of Political Graphic Design on Elections.” PRINT, PRINT, 16 Sept. 2020, www.printmag.com/post/the-power-of-political-graphic-design-on-elections.

Title: How Democrats Designed Branding for the First Virtual National Convention

Author: Hunter Schwarz

The Author: Hunter Schwarz is a writer who covers the intersection of politics and pop culture. He has worked for numerous major news outlets such as The Washington Post, CNN, BuzzFeed and AIGA.

Summary: This article covered the differences between having a normal in person National Convention compared to having one completely virtual online. The normal National Convention was full of billboards, posters, signage, and other visual graphics that made the event so powerful. It was where a group of similar thinking people get to meet and celebrate their party and everything that it stands for. Because of COVID, this was no longer an option for the 2020 election, and it was forced online. Although being forced to go all online seemed unfortunate and devastating at first, it quickly became the beginning of many new opportunities for political graphics.

There are certain visuals that go along with and represent the different parties very well. The Democrats have the Donkey, and the Republicans have the Elephant. Now that everything was moved to online, the opportunity to create new visuals and graphics for the Democratic party exploded.

One huge thing that designers did for this National Convention was allow supporters to customize and personalize social graphics for their social media pages, avatars, smartphone wallpapers, zoom backgrounds and more. This was a very smart move because it continued to get the visuals and the message of their party out in the world and create advertising.

Because of COVID, the world of political graphic design changed, and it opened a door for a new world of possibilities.

Citation: Schwarz, Hunter. “How Democrats Designed Branding for the First Virtual National Convention.” Eye on Design, 18 Aug. 2020, eyeondesign.aiga.org/how-democrats-designed-branding-for-the-first-virtual-national-convention/.

Title: Politics, Politics

Author: Steven Heller

The Author: Steven Heller (design writer) is many things. He was the art director at New York Times for 33 years and is currently the MFA Designer as Author Department, Special Consultant to the President of SVA for New Programs and writes the Visuals column for the New York Times Book Review.

Summary: This article covers the changes that were being made in political magazines with The Nation and George (both magazine titles). The article starts by explaining how the American political graphic design magazine has always been about inspiring national politics and always having a distinct look that did not vary all that much. This began to change with two political magazines The Nation and George.

The Nation is Americas older publication of the left side and visually reinvented itself in order to attract a new audience without scaring away the loyal long-time readers that they have had for many years. They did this by continuing to be very well informed and educated and giving only the facts while now creating a new visually attractive cover and illustrations that help intrigue the newer readers.

One thing the author points out is that there was never a clear distinct style between the left and the right in political magazines until both began to target younger audiences and move towards full-color covers for their issues.

Overall, the most important thing this article covered was how graphic design politics was re-invented in order to not only better represent the party’s better but also make them more distinct from one another. It points out that while this is a great tactic to personalize a party and separate the two, it is dangerous in that it causes more divide than it unites.

Citation: Heller, Steven. “Politics, politics.” Print, vol. 50, no. 4, July-Aug. 1996, p. 20+. Gale Academic.OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A18668874/AONE?u=s8405248&sid=AONE&xid=928adbfc. Accessed 11 Feb. 2021

Title: The Influence of Graphic Design on Politics, Protest, and Power

Author: Charlotte Jansen

The Author: Charlotte Jansen is a talented researcher, writer and editor-at-large for the Elephant, the Guardian, Artsy, Vice, Wallpaper and more. Along with this, she has written two books and works primarily on contemporary art and culture and its social purpose and impact.

Summary: This article explains the effects that graphic design has on politics and how graphic design by itself will always be political once it is open to the public.

The ‘Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics’ museum was created to illustrate a deep dive into the graphic design of the last decade. There have been so many changes in the world politically, culturally and physically that have greatly impacted the way that graphic design is interpreted and released into the public. One of the main goals of the ‘Hope to Nope’ museum was to demonstrate how graphic design “informs, educates, entertains and provokes” the general public. New technologies have now democratized graphic design and made it political. Because of this new technology, everyone is able to have a clear political voice online and illustrate it in a way that speaks the most truth to them using hashtags, posts, or even memes.

Along with this, there are moments in graphic design that have propelled action and changed the course of history. Lucienne Roberts, the graphic designer behind the Hope to Nope museum said, “Whether effective or not, graphic design, especially once out in the public space, is always political.”

Now more than ever this statement rings true and holds power over the future of politics.

Citation: Jansen, Charlotte. “The Influence of Graphic Design on Politics, Protest and Power.” Wallpaper*, Wallpaper*, 24 Apr. 2018, www.wallpaper.com/art/hope-to-nope-graphics-politics-design-museum-london.

How can you begin to work environmental good into your personal design process?

A long time before I was born, the Earth began to die. As a society, we fought to grow, explore, create, expand and build while all along damaging the one constant we need to continue on. Now more than ever a change needs to be made in this world. A change to stop harming our planet but to start healing it. This is no easy task and there is no one answer, but one thing is for sure, it is going to take all of us collectively to do it.

As designers, we are given a unique opportunity to help combat the damage that is being done to our planet. We are in a position of power when it comes to the values we represent and how we will express them. I think that we all have a huge responsibility to begin working together in order to inspire environmental good in this world. A quote from one of the readings stuck out to me today. “Our first green products must be ourselves.” I think this quote is powerful because of how true it is. We can create green products, promote environmentally friendly messages and have core values that align with those messages but that won’t make a difference. What will make a difference is the changing of all of us at our core to want to become green and help the environment.

There are a lot of ways that businesses could and should implement design for good into day-to-day work. For instance, companies should respect nature and create safe objects of long-term value. This means not creating something that will end up being damaging to future generations or require severe maintenance in the future. Another thing that we can do to help is eliminate the concept of waste and use natural systems where there is no waste. As designers these are things that can be illustrated and pushed for within a company or corporation.

Personally, I feel a big responsibility to use good within my design process. I want to make change in this world for the better and not contribute to the downfall of our planet. There is not a lot of time left to make a substantial change and it has never been so important that we as designers and we as a society make that change. I look forward to working for the benefit of the environment and using my design process to its full capabilities.

Do you feel included, ignored, galvanized, patronized, disillusioned, or something else entirely?

When it comes to political design work, it is safe to assume that every angle and method is strategical. There are many ways that political design can be viewed but, in the end, its primary purpose is to influence the way you feel about a party, candidate, or side of an issue. This can make people feel used and disillusioned or it can make you feel galvanized and patronized. For myself, I feel lucky to know the difference. Political design can almost be compared to working the strings of a puppet (the puppet being the political figure or party). There are different methods the puppet master (political designer) can use to influence the audience (the voters). He can use fear and anger to belittle the other party or candidate in order to create divide. He can use praise for his political candidate and choose one side. Or he can offer peace to the audience or voters as a whole. Because there are so many different ways that political design can be used to influence and sway votes of people, I personally feel a few emotions.

In some cases, like Trump’s red MAGA hat, I feel belittled and disrespected because the design has chosen to be simplified so much that it feels as if they did not care. They had a message they wanted to get out there as quickly and cheaply as they could, and they did just that. This form of design work feels rude to the people who did not side with him politically and creates a barrier between people who support him and do not. I personally felt that the Trump organizations political design work, and his misogynistic, ignorant and revolting personality, hurt his campaign enough to have a sway in the 2020 election which he did not win.

The Biden organization political design work made me feel a completely different way. Throughout his campaign, he stressed his want and goal for uniting the people of America. This was clear and evident with his choices and communication of design. His campaigns political design work offered me a sense of peace instead of hostility. A sense of unity instead of division. And a sense of pride instead of disgust and embarrassment. In my opinion, Biden had a great campaign that tried to help bring together the people and that is how political design should be used.

Political design holds great power in this world and should be used to unify and not divide. It is important that political designers work for what they believe in so that they communicate a message that is not only true to them but true to the political party or candidate that they are working for. If political design is done correctly, it makes me feel safer knowing that there is a hope for peace, and a truly United States.