More attractive than David Cameron’s photgraph?
I felt I was inevitably going to write something about manifestoes, professional bodies or a union for my essay as well as these topics being the main focus of the group discussion but I have fortunately(!?) found another topic I’m interested in, although I’m still trying to work out exactly what my angle will be.
During our first group discussion I briefly touched upon political posters and imagery and the way politics is represented through Graphic Design by mentioning a series of posters I recalled having seen during coverage of the autumn Conservative Party conference. After searching the web unsuccessfully for sometime to find them I did what I should have done in the first place and visited the Conservative Party offical website. It felt a bit wrong visiting it and I had the urge to purge my web history and temporary internet files afterwards, just in case someone came along and used my computer and notcied where I had been, but I finally managed to rationalise my visit as a legitimate bit of research.
What struck me about these posters was that they harked back to political posters of the past that stood out and worked as great pieces of graphic art (and propaganda), even if you didn’t necessarily agree with the sentiment. They appealed to the designer in me.
Another recent article I’ve come across also struck a cord with me about the relationship between poster design and the illustration of politicians, political ideas, ideology and idealism. The article poses the question: why are our political posters not very good anymore. I agree with the writers position and hope that in my essay I can expand upon this.
I would love to see more designs like the Barack Obama Hope poster created by Shepard Fairey and less airbrushed photographs.
Comments
The spanish civil war should be a good place to base some of your research.
And you can try out your rhetorical skills on the Tory’s campaign posters here.
I think this is really interesting. Could it be that the lack of good design in politics reflects a certain apathy in young (designer-type) voters? Perhaps if there was more of a difference between the parties, real causes to get your teeth into, we would have better design? Certainly Obama’s campaign caught the collective imagination in a way politics over here (and over there) hasn’t in decades.
If I had seen some of these posters (particularly the ones that are predominantly blue and green) and not known anything about them I would have probably thought that they were for the Green party! I have always associated the Conservatives with being, well, conservative and I would extend that view to their visual representation aswell. I guess what I really mean is that these posters look too good to be for the Conservatives!
I also think that the poster has been designed very well, but I agree that it does not really represent Conservative party, even though the party has been trying to change their image, but their policy and who they stands have never changed, so the poster is misguiding people, as Eleanor mentioned above, it is like more Green Anti Climate camping poster than a conservative party poster. The history of political propaganda through poster design is very rich, so it is definitely well worth to study.
Read in the Standard today that they’ve just hired Saatchi because they’re in such a panic over their shrinking lead…
Yeah I read that too. There was a couple of pages devoted to it in the ES, made me think of this post. Alledgedly the breif was to tear chunks out of Gordon Brown. Seems like they might have given up on the ‘being nice’ angle and gone back to their usual tactics