Graphic Design 2.1: Professional Practice, Project 9: ‘Your Choice/Your Voice’ Research points
Research Task 1: Symbols of Social Change
Identify a designer, studio, or collective that is now or has historically participated in design for social impact.
Find examples done well, as well as examples with room for improvement. Comment in your learning log how these might be improved.
Ask questions such as:
What is the design aiming to achieve?
Is the design truly for the public good?
Is it critical?
Is the intention to help or aid a cause?
What is the intention behind the work? For example: Is it purely unbiased information? Is it pushing an agenda or promoting propaganda?
Foka Wolf:
FIGURE 1:
Foka Wolf, is primarily a social media satirical/social change page, focusing on creating and installing ‘art’ made to make people think. Often, their work is rallying for social change and helping the lesser heard voices be heard, in a clever and funny way, which in turn gains more views and has a larger impact than a more ‘serious’ method, such as a speech or blog post.
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Despite them not being specifically a designer, design is at the core of ‘@fokawolf’’s social commentary/activist work.
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They do not seem to create these works for personal gain (their face, real name and personal information is unknown) and seem morally conscious, promoting the wrong and bad elements within UK society.
Considering ways that they can improve, for this style I cannot see any better ways for improvement. For example they take real advertisements, copy the design style but add their message to the designs. Often, these appear ‘real’ until fully read and absorbed. This is a very clever and funny way to get a point across in a method that does not harm, attack or endanger anybody. In my opinion, work like this has the largest social impact, by making the true inequalities obvious or by having some more light hearted fun, poking at issues within society in general.
Abram Games:
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When considering how to improve the designs from a design perspective, despite Games’ work being great at emotionally appealing to the British people whilst being persuasive and visually interesting, some of the background colours are quite dark. This is obviously a deliberate design choice due to the severity of the cause it promotes, but perhaps a lighter colour may work/feel more positive? The darker colour design choice is most likely the better choice and had clearly had the largest effect emotionally on the British public, which is why it was used.
Abram Games was a British graphic designer known for his work during World War II, commissioned by the British Government.
When considering Games’ designs solely from a design perspective, they are visually brilliant and really interesting. Each design is dynamic and looks ahead of it’s time.
The issue ethically with his work is that it is pro-war propaganda directly from the British Government. Games’ role was to create posters that would motivate the British public/ military personnel to contribute to the war effort. Despite the fact that at this time Britain needed war effort support, partaking in anything remotely related to war is having a hand in promoting violence and death, no matter whether it was considered ‘necessary’ or not, or whether it was done from a ‘good’ place.
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Corita Kent:
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Corita Kent, known as Sister Mary Corita, was an American artist and nun who became known for her socially conscious screen print centred artwork in the 1960s/70s.
Kent’s work moved from religious imagery to more social/political themes in the 1960s. She created works about issues such as civil rights, poverty, war, and social justice.
Kent’s work is visually interesting and vibrant and highlighted social issues/injustices. Her work was clearly not propaganda and feels genuine, without ulterior motives. Kent was a nun and therefore had a personal moral alignment, which was reflected within her work, promoting peace across various issues.
Kent’s use of typography is visually interesting and engaging. The altered type adds a more emotive feel to the work, helping promote the cause.
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This is particularly evident in the ‘Stop Bombing’ piece, layering handwritten type behind a manipulated bold typeface. The background and colours used in this piece are perfect. The red is engaging and represents violence/death, the beige represents peace, with blue the mediator in between with the solution (same colour as ‘stop bombing’). This visual not only views as a landscape, but also as a flag.
Resources:
Figure 1: Fokawolf (no date b) Foka Wolf art. https://www.fokawolf.com/collections/for-sale. (Accessed 8/8/24).
Figure 2: Instagram (no date). https://www.instagram.com/fokawolf/?hl=en. (Accessed 8/8/24).
Figure 3: Figure 2: Instagram (no date). https://www.instagram.com/fokawolf/?hl=en. (Accessed 8/8/24).
Figure 4: Dawood, S. and Dawood, S. (2019) 'Abram Games: the war designer who persuaded Britain with his posters,' Design Week, 5 April. https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/1-7-april-2019/abram-games-the-war-designer-who-persuaded-britain-with-his-propaganda-posters/. (Accessed 8/8/24).
Figure 5: Dawood, S. and Dawood, S. (2019) 'Abram Games: the war designer who persuaded Britain with his posters,' Design Week, 5 April. https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/1-7-april-2019/abram-games-the-war-designer-who-persuaded-britain-with-his-propaganda-posters/. (Accessed 8/8/24).
Figure 6: Corita Kent: Nun, graphic designer and political activist - Forward Festival (2020). https://forward-festival.com/article/corita-kent-nun-graphic-designer-and-political-activist. (Accessed 8/8/24).
Figure 7: Corita Kent: Nun, graphic designer and political activist - Forward Festival (2020). https://forward-festival.com/article/corita-kent-nun-graphic-designer-and-political-activist. (Accessed 8/8/24).
Case Study: Hannah Park
Resources:
Figure 1: GC5PPE (no date) Oca.ac.uk. Available at: https://learn.oca.ac.uk/mod/book/view.php?id=25355&chapterid=6240 (Accessed: 9 August 2024).
