CRITICAL ENGAGEMENT:

Graphic Design Culpability and Responsibility by kevin yuen kit Lo

To all my family and friends.

THE

WAR

IS

OVER.

IT IS TIME TO BEGIN AGAIN.

- Milton Glaser

Any progressive cultural critique must address the implicit relationships between the means of mass communication and the political, economic and social constructs which drive them.Though these connections are often difcult to make, for a wide variety of reasons, not least among them that they are often intentionally obscured, there is no denying that our communications environment at large is becoming saturated, supported and directed by advertising and marketing interests. It is estimated that the average American adult is exposed to over ten thousand advertisements per day.The growth of global advertising spending outpaces the growth of the world economy by thirty-three percent.1 As the public sphere recedes under this commercial pressure, the danger of our means of communication becoming completely relegated to the status of a commodity is becoming readily apparent.The implications of this trend are dramatic and severe: the more we are appealed to as consumers, the less we are appealed to as citizens, or, as social historian Stuart Ewen states,advertising has become the primary mode of public address.2 Yet advertising is rarely publicly controlled, and as much as marketers may wish us to believe the opposite, rarely does it serve public interest. It is by its very nature a medium of manipulation and persuasion, of opinion-making and consolidation, and as such its place within a democratic society is, at the very best, questionable. Though there has been a wealth of public criticism on the ethics of advertising, these critiques have had only a remedial effect on the industry since the consumer movements of the 1930s.Within the predominantly academic spheres of political science, cultural studies and philosophy, there is abundant critical discourse on the broader subject of the image culture which advertising feeds. Progressive political movements have also begun to challenge the ubiquity of commercial imagery and its relationship to the construction of an economic hegemony.Though the breadth of these criticisms will not be addressed at this point, it is important to note that what is often only addressed abstractly (if at all) is the very system of representation that gives these images form. Graphic design is implicitly involved as a mediator at every point within the communication processes

of contemporary society; it is the language through which we understand our environment and as such it bears an enormous social role and responsibility. This notion of social responsibility has played a central role in design education. The modernist movement, characterised by the Bauhaus, sought to contribute to the development of a society in which creativity would be fostered, and in which human needs would motivate the forces of production.3 Similarly, the late Tibor Kalman nostalgically yet aptly summarises:
In its enthusiastic youth, design was invested with vision. Awestruck by futurism, swept by currents of modernity, design, it was claimed, could communicate new ideas about society, light the way to new and democratic ways of seeing.4

This theoretical separation is both misleading and dangerous. Any criticism of advertising must intrinsically be levelled against graphic design as well.

These lofty ideals have essentially gone unrealised.With the consolidation of our current advanced capitalist economic system, graphic design has for the most part become entrenched as a tool of marketing.Yet advertising has always been a patron of the graphic arts.Though the elitist prejudices of many designers have deantly attempted to separate the two, their histories are deeply intertwined. Steven Heller clearly demonstrates this in his article Advertising: Mother of Graphic Design:
As the modern movements sought to redene the place of art and the role of the artist in society, advertising was seen not only as a medium ripe for reform, but also as a platform on which the graphic symbols of reform could be paraded along with the product being sold.5

Though the advertising platform has far from yielded the utopian fruits of modernist ideology, the intimate relationship suggested by Hellers article is of crucial importance.The exponential growth of the advertising industry has brought to life and even celebrity the profession of graphic design. Ignoring the role of advertising in design theory and criticism implies that consumerism and marketing have no bearing on the art of graphic design.6

Within the design community, it can be said that this criticism formally began with Ken Garlands First Things First manifesto, published in 1964.The manifesto challenged graphic designers to move away from the increasingly lucrative eld of advertising, and argued that its messages had become sheer noise that contributed little or nothing to our national prosperity. Garland believed that there were projects far more deserving and in need of designers skills and proposed a reversal of priorities in favour of the more useful and lasting forms of communication.7 Issued during a time when graphic design was coming into its own as a genuine professional activity, when consumer culture was rapidly gaining momentum, the manifesto was both poignantly received and critically dismissed. Much of this criticism lay in its supposed naivety, yet clearly Garlands foresight into the direction of graphic designs development was entirely accurate. His naivety lay in his belief that a saturation point in advertising had, or indeed could, ever be reached. In 1999 the manifesto was re-issued with a denitively more urgent tone in the midst of a growing socio-political movement against corporate globalisation.The new manifesto, which was initially published in the major design related journals Adbusters, the AIGA Journal, Eye, Emigre, Items and Form, demonstrated that the dominance of commercial culture over design was still at the forefront of many graphic designers thoughts as well. As the debate around First Things First 2000 continues, there is a growing recognition that graphic design plays a key role in the larger social conflicts that are becoming characterised by clouds of tear gas and black-clad protesters. However, it is undoubtedly presumptuous to say that this recognition is universal or that the nature and positioning of graphic designs role in these conflicts is even close to agreed upon by its practitioners. The updated manifesto received an onslaught of criticism very much in line with its predecessor. It was again dismissed for its naivety, elitism, simplicity and hypocrisy.

FIRST THINGS FIRST MANIFESTO

WE,THE UNDERSIGNED, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it. Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do.This, in turn, is how the world perceives design.The profession's time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best. Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact.To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse. There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television pro-grams, lms, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help. We propose a reversal of priorities in favor of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication - a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning.The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design. In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use.With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their message has only grown more urgent.Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart. Jonathan Barnbrook Nick Bell Andrew Blauvelt Hans Bockting Irma Boom Sheila Levrant de Bretteville Max Bruinsma Sin Cook Linda van Deursen Chris Dixon William Drenttel Gert Dumbar Simon Esterson Vince Frost Ken Garland Milton Glaser Jessica Helfand Steven Heller Andrew Howard Tibor Kalman Jeffery Keedy Zuzana Licko Ellen Lupton Katherine McCoy Armand Mevis J. Abbott Miller Rick Poynor Lucienne Roberts Erik Spiekermann Jan van Toorn Teal Triggs Rudy VanderLans Bob Wilkinson

Nonetheless, the manifesto has, at an incredibly crucial time, sparked a wealth of critical debate within the eld of graphic design. As design critic Rick Poynor notes:
In fteen years as a design writer, I have never observed anything in the design press to compare with the scale, intensity and duration of international reaction to First Things First.8

Poynor, who has played a leading role in design writing, provides an indepth response both to the manifesto itself and its detractors critiques in his article First Things Next. In challenging the multitude of critiques, from the supposed hypocrisy of its signatories (who have all worked in the commercial sphere) to the assumption that design is and should be a neutral, value-free process, Poynor reveals that although many designers understood the manifesto enough to make them feel uneasy about the social positioning of their profession, they fundamentally missed its point. The key argument of First Things First is that there is an increasingly desperate need to preserve a space for other forms of thinking, other shades of feeling and other ways of being in the world9. Addressing this need requires a radical shift in thinking on design, and it is perhaps this radicalism that has unnerved the design community so much. Poynor concludes that:
Determining the new kind of meaning is a huge collective project beyond the scope of a brief manifesto and a creative task in which all those who can imagine other possibilities are free to participate.10

However, this poetic conclusion seems merely to echo the conclusion of Poynors First Things First article, published two years earlier in Adbusters magazine:
Even now, at this late hour in a culture of rampant commodication it is possible for visual communicators to discover alternative ways of operating in design.11

In the face of such complex issues, Poynors optimism is encouraging, yet remains rather vague and insubstantial. Just as many detractors of First Things First were critical of its call for a new kind of meaning, Poynors response of a huge collective project does little to provide any further constructive direction. In the nal article of his compilation Obey The Giant, entitled Future Imperfect, Poynor concludes:
Designers who allow space for the peculiar, the wayward, the imperfect and, sometimes, the just plain wrong - set in motion a process and create the conditions for the viewer to have truly unexpected encounters with design that are one of its keenest, most human pleasures and a large part of its point.12

has been driven by marketing culture, its visual language has been largely reduced to one of stylisation and the creation of desire. An understanding of the complexity of the communications process drawn from a multidisciplinary analysis of cultural discourse needs to be synthesised into design thinking. In order to enact the necessary radical changes within the profession, these issues must be addressed simultaneously.

Though insightful, this hardly seems a tting statement to end on for a compilation that sets out to address critically and challenge implicitly The Giant of commercial design.This is not meant to dismiss Poynors undeniably valuable contributions to design criticism, however it is representative of the professions reluctance to engage genuinely with the socio-political issues that surround it. It should not be denied that many notable designers have taken critical positions on these issues, yet the general ambivalence within practice is disheartening.

If graphic designers actually want to move design into a more progressive social positioning they must confront this fear of radical change. The proposition is this: graphic design can and must work to establish itself in a more fundamental manner outside of the commercial sphere, thereby creating greater opportunities to act as an important medium for social reflection, commentary and dialogue.This requires an engagement with a multiplicity of issues.Addressing the structural factors that influence design production is obviously of utmost concern. Understanding who actually benets from a work and how that work is received within the public sphere must lead to a more selective choice of clients. Of equal importance is a re-evaluation of its formal language. Due to how directly graphic design

This essay will attempt to take up this challenge by engaging in a broadranging critique of commercial communications culture with the specic goal of identifying and analysing dominant themes that support and direct the creation and dissemination of messages into the public sphere. In All Consuming Images, Stuart Ewen proposes that the only requirements for an images appropriation into the style-market are its disembodiment or separation from its source, its capacity to be economically reproduced and its ability to be marketed and sold.13 These requirements will be taken as a point of departure, and explored and expanded upon within a broader thematic framework in order to determine the contextual processes by which experience is transformed into commodity. The rst theme to be identied is that of separation.As graphic design is a practice primarily engaged in the act of selection and representation, the theme of separation is an implicit starting point. Any form of representation intrinsically separates meaning from its context. The vast amount of critical theory surrounding this aspect of representation has only begun to be introduced in graphic design writing. Closely related to the theme of separation is the theme of reductionism. A component of modernist theory, the simplication of form presents an ideal model for communications. However, seen from a contemporary critical vantage point, its communicative limitations become apparent. Aditionally, reductionist strategies allow for the exact repeatability of sign systems and the development of a truly hegemonic mass media with all its inherent effects. The nal stage of commodication occurs with the theme of idealisation and the creation of desire. Desire is what drives the image economy and its effects are all encompassing. It is at this point that any argument of efcient communication ends and the dictates of the market

economy on a message become resolutely clear.The influences of these themes dominate both the external and internal relationships of a work of graphic design. Understanding these themes and the development of strategies to challenge them is the goal of this essay.

NOTES
1. Notes from a lecture by David Berman, How Logo Can We Go? Presented at the Declarations of [Inter]dependence and the Im[media]cy of Design symposium, Concordia University, Montral, October 26, 2001. 2. Stuart Ewen in The Public Mind: Consuming Images, Bill Moyers, PBS, 1989. 3. Stuart Ewen, All Consuming Images:The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1988), 140. 4. Tibor Kalman and Karrie Jacobs. Were Here to be Bad, in Print Magazine (Jan./Feb. 1990) 5. Steven Heller, "Advertising: Mother of Graphic Design," in Looking Closer, ed. Michael Bierut,William Drenttel, Steven Heller and DK Holland (New York: Allworth Press, 1997), 113. 6. Ibid. 115. 7. Ken Garland, "First Things First," published in Design, the Architects' Journal, the SIA Journal, Ark, Modern Publicity, The Guardian, April 1964. 8. Rick Poynor, "First Things Next," in Obey The Giant: Life in the Image World (London: August Media, 2001) 141. 9. Ibid. 148. 10. Rick Poynor, "First Things Next," in Obey The Giant: Life in the Image World (London: August Media, 2001) 150. 11. Ibid. 140. 12. Rick Poynor, "Future Imperfect," in Obey The Giant: Life in the Image World (London: August Media, 2001) 213. 13. Stuart Ewen, All Consuming Images:The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1988) 247.

A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection - not an invitation for hypnosis. - Umberto Eco

SEPARATION

Critical theories of language and literature have come to play an increasingly prominent role in design theory. Primers in semiotic theory are now commonplace in design education and the writings of authors such as Roland Barthes and Ferdinand de Saussure have found their way into design reading lists. However, within this context, Barthes generous contribution to cultural theory is generally understood through a purely formalist lens; its application is derived from the poetics of his criticism and detached from its original Marxist analysis. In such a way, graphic designers speak of being visual communicators within an image culture, without understanding the critical debates around the subject matter. In his seminal work, Mythologies, Barthes presents the concept of Myth through numerous texts investigating the meaning of various manifestations of mass culture. Essentially, Barthes Myth can be understood as a mode of signication based on the appropriation and transformation of existing signs. His analysis of it is in no way politically neutral, and through a thorough semiological critique, he demonstrates Myths nature of distorting and impoverishing meaning, in normalising and actively de-politicising speech.14 The language of Myth is very much inclusive of and parallel to the language of graphic design. Barthes insights into the nature of appropriation, representation, communication and understanding are crucial to the theoretical grounding of graphic design practice.Yet, as designer Jeffery Keedy states, It was the poetic aspect of Roland Barthes which attracted me, not the Marxist analysis.15

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By separating Barthes work from the political context in which it was derived, designers have in fact mythologised it in turn, further contributing to what Barthes determinedly sought to challenge.

Another seminal text dealing with representation and more specically its relationship to capital, cultural imperialism and the mediation of social relations is Guy Debords Society of the Spectacle.Though the theoretical, aphoristic and highly critical nature of Debords text may prevent its appropriation into graphic design theory as it exists now, his concept of The Spectacle, complementary to Barthes Myth, is invaluable to an informed understanding of the context within which graphic design exists. Additionally,The Society of the Spectacle acted as a revolutionary handbook for the student and labour insurrections of May 1968 in Paris, which had repercussions throughout the world.The ability to engage with theory, bringing it into practice, is an example of the praxis-based approach that graphic design will have to take in order to reposition its role.
In societies where modern conditions of production prevail all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.16

of the Spectacle over all aspects of social life.The separated nature at the root of the spectacle is reflected in its multiplicity of effects: the growing sense of social and self-alienation, the resulting political apathy, the systemic control of production and consumption and the organisation of time and space.Within all of its complexity, the spectacle is essentially the autocratic reign of the market economy which had acceded to an irresponsible sovereignty, and the totality of new techniques of government which accompanied this reign.18 Taken in its entirety, Debords stinging critique of capitalism, even with its emphasis on the power of image, can seem to lose its direct relevance to graphic design.What it does provoke however, is a recognition of the mediated environment that graphic design participates in constructing and is constructed within.Visual culture cannot be referred to casually; it must be investigated critically.The dramatic separation between the beautifully rendered surfaces presented through the mass media and the crumbling surfaces of social reality reveals the urgency with which graphic designers need to address the critique of the spectacle.

The opening thesis from Debords text introduces the fundamental nature of the image culture that is so often casually spoken of. It describes a cultural phenomenon that has forsaken genuine experience for vicarious representation through images. Furthermore, these images, detached from reality, have taken on an autonomous nature that no longer even represents reality, but replaces it within its artice. It is important to recognise that, as Debord states, the spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.17 Through the initial act of separating images and ideas from their contextual relationships, graphic design creates the condition for their autonomous social movement.When directed through the logic of the market, these images and ideas collectively achieve ubiquity within the social sphere.This ubiquity in turn provides the condition for the domination

In order to understand the practical development of the spectacle and its relationship to separation, an historical analysis is necessary. As a Marxist critique, the discourse on the spectacle represents the manifestation of social relationships under an advanced capitalist society and thus nds its roots in the industrialisation of society and its systems of mass production. Much of Debords text relates to a persons alienation from their production and the resulting externalisation of the economy:
The spectacle within society corresponds to a concrete manufacture of alienation. Economic expansion is mainly the expansion of this specic industrial production.19

Another key component of Debords text is the principle of commodity fetishism, the domination of society by intangible as well as tangible things,20 whereby the perceived value of an object has superseded its reality and its exchange value replaces its use value.

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By drawing the relationship between these factors, the creation of the markets upon which mass production is dependent becomes the locus from which to begin the historical analysis of the spectacle.Along with the many radical social changes that occurred during this period, the change in popular representations of style is of primary interest. Stuart Ewen, who provides an exemplary and exhaustive critique of style in All Consuming Images, writes:
The impact of industrialism on the character and scale of the style market was prodigious. Industries previously characterised by the artisanal handcrafts, and by relative scarcity of output, were now able to turn out enormous quantities of goods. Elegantly worked surfaces, once the product of slow and deliberate skill, were now the product of high-speed, less-skilled, factory processes.21

but the growing choice of consumer goods and their afliated images was simply that, the choice between which products to consume.The elite in power, the owners of the means of production, remained in power largely due to the economic contributions of a populace longing to be sated by the illusionary trappings of that power.

The elaborate ornamentation of goods, previously exclusively available to the elite, became accessible to the growing middle class.The standardisation of the production process not only allowed for elaborate ornamentation to be easily and universally applied, but also required it in order to differentiate products that were essentially the same.With the technological developments and renement of chromolithography and photography, the advertising and packaging of everyday goods became lavishly decorated with alluring images. Supercially ornate goods were linked to broadly disseminated images, creating an interwoven fabric of mass-produced style.22 The expanding markets that were developed by the rise of corporate capitalism at the end of the 19th century and the growing desire by industry to organise and control those markets can be identied as the birthplace of modern advertising. Prior to the 1880s, the great bulk of products were sold without extensive advertising, which was reserved for fringe products and novelties.23 The fundamental changes in the economic organisation of industry necessitated the application of advertising to everyday goods in order to stimulate and maintain the newly developed mass markets. The growing accessibility to this style-driven market is often seen as a democratisation of elite culture. On a symbolic level, this may well be true,

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In addition to the ornamental imagery adorning products and their advertisements, the mass market of goods gave rise to a plethora of new marketing techniques. The development of modern advertisings psychological component can be traced back to a necessity created by the rise of large enterprise and the emergence of national and international distribution markets. By the 1920s control over those markets was becoming increasingly specialised and, encouraged by the new sciences of motivational psychology, extended to the salesperson at the end of the distribution chain.Vast amounts of business literature, such as Dale Carnegies How to Win Friends and Influence People, were directed at technically rening the process of human relations.24 Control over and appropriately framed presentation of emotions was of key importance.Through the objectication, standardisation, and commercial application of human emotions, a dramatic separation in the notion of selfhood begins to take effect. Personal characteristics, drawn from the reservoir of human experience, were becoming the techniques of false personality.25 More dramatically, however, the sheer scale of distribution markets dictated that, as salespeople could not be consistently directed by centralised control, products themselves began to acquire the characteristics of these disembodied emotions.The separation of people from their emotions was refocused towards the products they consumed. As we near Debords Spectacle, the more [a persons] life is now his [sic] product, the more he [sic] is separated from his [sic] life.26

Signicantly, the rapid expansion of advertising did not go uncontested. The 1930s saw increasing resistance from a variety of consumer movements that were critical of the advertising industrys use of emotional appeal, false testimonials, scientic jargon and sexual imagery to sell products. The shift from actual product information to emotive and manipulative statements and images was seen as an outright attack on consumers rights.27 The Tugwell bill, named after the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rexford G.Tugwell, a reputed defender of consumers rights, was introduced into Senate in 1933 and called for an end to the false advertising of any food, drug, or cosmetic.The advertising industry reacted vehemently to

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this bill and used the full weight of its new economic and political positioning to contest it.This crisis for the advertising industry brought to life a closely associated eld, that of public relations.The goal of public relations was to move public opinion to a more favourable direction towards the industry and to lobby lawmakers and regulators, a model that is used to this day.Through the development of business-backed consumer groups, sponsorship of education, manipulation of dependent media industries and the creation of political and business partnerships, the public relations industry managed to provoke the rewriting of the Tugwell Bill into the Wheeler-Lea amendment in 1938, which was a considerably more lenient bill.Whereas the original bill dened the use of ambiguity and inference as false advertising, the amendment redened falsehood explicitly and put the burden of proof on the government.The ironic yet signicant effect of this policy was an immediate shift from the use of verbal claims in an advertisement, which could be easily proved false, to the use of all manners of suggestive imagery. 28 A bill that initially set out to curb the manipulative nature of advertising had in fact opened the door for its consolidation through the realm of the autonomous image.

advertisements with the careful compositional use of surrounding white space and full-bleed cropping to disassociate any notion of their original context.The carefully placed brand mark is the only remaining association made available for the viewer. Toscani makes no qualms about this decontextualisation and in fact advocates it as a way of engaging with the public. Seeing the controversy that his campaigns have sparked, it is hard to dismiss his supposed consciousness-raising intentions outright. However at the root of the controversy are not the issues presented in the advertisements, but the appropriateness of their presentation in a commercial medium to begin with. Whatever Toscanis intentions, the outcome is that social criticism is appropriated in the struggle for brand identication.29

In part as a result of this key legislation, the domination of image over reality has come to pass and contemporary graphic design, for the most part ignorant of its controversial history, plays no small part in determining the social consequences of this dominion. Criticism of ambiguity and inference in advertising today is routinely dismissed.Yet, when exploited to the extreme, the fundamental problem of the separation of image from product reveals itself. Within contemporary design history, Oliviero Toscanis social marketing campaigns for the clothing company Benetton have received an enormous amount of coverage, both critical and celebratory, for pushing the boundaries of the role of images in advertising.The beautifully shot and composed photographs of a new born baby girl, a dying AIDS patient and his mourning family, a dead soldiers blood-stained clothes, and portraits of inmates on death row have nothing to do with the clothing being sold or the company selling them. This separation is further expressed formally in the

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Sweaters and Jeans

It has been argued that given the success of the Benetton campaign, it may serve as a model to elevate the role of advertising, as a provider for important and accessible social communication30.Though the ideological impetus for this line of argument may seem noble, the reality of it is far less promising. Editorial compromises due to advertising interests are already commonplace. Further blurring the line between the two will make culture itself appear to exist at their [brands] behest.31 Moreover, the impact of Benettons model can already be observed. Benettons success was not in promoting social causes but in strategically and wholeheartedly disassociating a brand from its product.This strategy has now become the norm, allowing advertisers to appropriate any subject matter for its purposes, including its own criticism. Diesel, an Italian fashion company, has also taken this ironic approach to advertising since its inception in 1978. Juxtaposing typical sexual imagery with absurd thematic concepts (such as their For Successful Living campaign) they have carved a global niche for their brand.The campaigns were cynical and stylish, but rarely reached the level of depth of the Benetton campaigns.Yet in 1998, Diesel launched a series of ads which should have drawn intense criticism had it not been for Toscanis icebreaking strategies. Supposedly set in North Korea, the series depicted drab scenes of poverty (read communist) juxtaposed by the inclusion of a stereotypical piece of western advertising depicting young, beautiful Diesel models selling a fake brand entitled Lucky. A commentary is made, but it is not we are concerned about the detrimental effects of the globalised economy, but rather we dont care about those effects and neither should you. Diesel continues to expand its markets, and the evolution of its marketing strategy continues to emphasise this message of absurd detachment. Its most recent Happy Valley campaign directly integrates the criticism of advertising and over consumption into a grotesque series of advertisements each themed around the commodication of a particular emotion.The hypocrisy of such an approach is no longer even relevant, yet the ridicule of vital social issues and their integration into the commodity structure is a frightening characteristic of advertisings assault on the public sphere.

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Along similar lines, Sprite has supposedly been making fun of traditional advertising approaches since 1994, when its Obey Your Thirst campaign began. Purporting to deconstruct the linking of product consumption with happiness and success, recent television spots depict a stereotypical advertising narrative which is interrupted by the drinking of Sprite, causing reality to subvert the narrative through humour.The spots conclude with a high impact display of their logo and tagline: Image Is Nothing.Thirst Is Everything. Obey Your Thirst. Though less satirical (and perhaps less offensive) than the Diesel campaigns, the Sprite campaigns hypocrisy is exponentially increased when the scope of the analysis extends to the companys ownership. Sprite is wholly owned and operated by the company where Image Is Everything, the most powerful brand in the world, Coca-Cola. Coca-Colas ubiquitous cultural monopoly over the world is unquestionable; Coke is the second most recognised word in the world following okay, the Coca-Cola company is the creator of Santa Claus and can be seen as the indisputable reflection of American popular culture. Coca-Cola has a long history of ground breaking marketing strategies. It was the rst company to use women systematically in their advertising, produce consistent point-of purchase promotional ephemera and aggressively develop sponsoring partnerships. Coca-Cola has played a denitive role in not only representing but also shaping American culture. Moreover, its advertising has always exploited an ambiguous emotional appeal, easily universalised to foreign markets.32 This is exemplied by the much-acclaimed 1971 I Want to Buy the World a Coke television ad with the emphatic chorus Id like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Cokes early adoption of a global marketing strategy has successfully positioned it as one of the few truly global brands. The realities of Coca-Colas global reach are far less ideal than the picture painted by their advertising. In developing nations, Coca-Colas branding dominates the physical landscape. In Tanzania, schools, hospitals, and even orphanages are sponsored by Coca-Cola, which pays a small amount (approximately fteen US dollars a year) to brand signage with Coca-Cola advertising. Road and street signs are uniformly branded as well.

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The saturation of Cokes advertising is conjoined with the presence of their product. During a time of drought and famine in Northern Kenya in 1999, though staples such as food and water were unavailable, stores were consistently stocked with Coke. As Don Knauss, President of Coca-Cola in Southern Africa, states: Our competition is alternative sources of liquid refreshment, including water... [and] other non-essential items competing for consumer spending...33 The simple message of this ubiquitous presence is that Coca-Cola is equated with all that is good; education, health, wealth and happiness. Not having been socialised to deal with these types of messages, the population of Tanzania is taught to accept these associations. In 2001, one million people died in Africa due to malaria.The price of a can of Coke is equivalent to the price of the malaria pill. When asked what to take when ill, many in Tanzania will commonly advise the use of Coca-Cola, because it cures all illness.34 Malaria pills cannot compete with the brand image of Coca-Cola.This is but one example of the false education that the strategy of separating a brand from its context perpetuates. It is also but one example of how, quite disturbingly, people are dying by design. NOTES
14. See Roland Barthes, "Myth Today." In Mythologies (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972). 15. Andrew Howard, "There is Such a Thing as Society," in Looking Closer 2, ed. Michael Beirut,William Drenttel, Steven Heller and DK Holland (New York: Allworth Press, 1997), 199. 16. Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Black & Red, 1977), aphorism 1. 17. Ibid. aphorism 3. 18. Guy Debord, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, trans. Malcom Imrie (Verso, London, 1991), 2. 19. Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Black & Red, 1977), aphorism 31. 20. Ibid. aphorism 36. 21. Stuart Ewen, All Consuming Images:The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1988), 32.

22. Ibid. 38. 23. Raymond Williams, "Advertising:The magic system," in Problems in Materialism and Culture (London:Verso, 1980), 177. 24. Stuart Ewen, All Consuming Images:The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1988), 84. 25. Ibid. 26. Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Black & Red, 1977), aphorism 33. 27. Inger L. Stole, "Advertising," in Culture Works: the Political Economy of Culture, ed. Richard Maxwell (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 89-90. 28. Ibid. 92-95. 29. Andrew Howard, "There is Such a Thing as Society," in Looking Closer 2, ed. Michael Beirut,William Drenttel, Steven Heller and DK Holland (New York: Allworth Press, 1997), 198. 30. See "Commercial Art," in Eye Magazine 29, 1998, 26-35. 31. Rick Poynor, "Sentenced to Buy," in Obey The Giant: Life in the Image World (London: August Media, 2001), 62. 32. For a complete history of the Coca-Cola brand see Mark Pendergast, For God, Country & Coca-Cola (New York: Basic Books, 1993). 33. Sven Lunsch, "Knauss to satisfy Cokes thirst for new markets," Business Times, May 17 1998, electronic text available at <www.btimes.co.za/98/0517/newsm/newsm.htm>. 34. From a lecture by David Berman, How Logo Can We Go? Presented at the Declarations of [Inter]dependence and the Im[media]cy of Design symposium, Concordia University, Montral, October 26, 2001.

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REDUCTIONISM

The history of separation cannot be fully understood without addressing its complementary principle of reductionism.Without the ability to simplify, condense and repeat the images created through separation, their control, manipulation and dissemination would be impossible. Of all the cultural movements appropriated into commercial culture during the twentieth century, the Eastern European modernist movement of the twenties has undoubtedly played the largest role in shaping its form. Founded in radical socialist ideologies, characterised by the revolutionary work of members of the Russian avant-garde, such as El Lissitzky and Aleksandr Rodchenko, the modernist aesthetic of bold, dynamic typography, photo-montage and abstract symbolic devices arranged within a rational grid represented a universal, utopian and emancipatory engagement. The revolutionary and progressive symbolism of the new industrial technologies formed the basis of a design philosophy centred on clarity, conciseness and precision. Ironically, these values also held great weight within the expanding corporate commercial sphere and, among other factors, provided a touchstone between art and commerce. Another key factor was the belief held by many artists that participation within the commercial sphere would provide the opportunity to democratise art and communicate modernist values.35 This approach saw artists simultaneously advocating anti-capitalist politics while designing for commerce. Nevertheless, the revolutionary ideological grounding of modernism remained

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strong, and during the 1920s the choice between commerce and social revolution... was the signicant intellectual dilemma facing many modernist graphic designers.36 While many designers struggled to reconcile this contradiction, the commercial viability of its visual impact was undeniable and its expanding exposure through the mass media reied the modernist project as a modernist style, simultaneously consolidating its formal aesthetic while diluting its ideology. In Germany, which had become the meeting-ground for many important modernist theorists and practitioners, the rise to power of the Nazis in 1933 had a dramatic effect on the development of modernist culture.Vilied by the Nazis for promoting internationalist and socialist ideals, the Nazi regime caused an exodus of modern designers to Western Europe and North America.While Europe became engulfed by war, in America, where modernist languages of design had already been assimilated by the mid 1930s, migr European designers received a warm welcome. Distanced from the political turmoil of central Europe, many designers took to working for commercial enterprises and soon became integrated into corporate culture. The value of modernism, both as a philosophy of rational organisation and an aesthetic cultural movement, became a useful tool in the internal communications and external promotions of corporations:
American industry [...] turned to designers to promote a strong corporate image to various audiences, including their own employees, shareholders and the public. [] Design was increasingly used in systematic fashion to unite large conglomerates and to promote a coherent and vigorous public image.37

communication. To understand the signicance of this change it is of interest to examine the development and adoption by commerce of the reduced forms of modernist iconography.

The growing focus on corporate identity and the culture of branding was an important development for graphic design in America, elevating it to the status of a respected profession, complete with its own literature, research processes and awards ceremonies. Though the concept of corporate identity and the use of symbols and logos had existed for quite some time, the injection of modernist principles into these areas of marketing changed them into the dominant modes of commercial

An ideal example of the modernist project of achieving universalism through the scientic reduction of form was the development of Otto Neuraths Isotype (International System of TYpographic Picture Education) during the 1920s and 30s. A Viennese philosopher and social scientist, Neurath designed a collection of uniform graphic symbols to represent people, places, objects and actions. Intended primarily for use in educational materials, these symbols provided a visual perceptual system for the presentation of social statistics.Through principles of reduction and consistency, Neuraths symbol-signs brought together the mechanical empiricism of photography with the rational structures of mathematics and geometry 38 in an attempt to create an objective and universal system of communication. Neuraths work has since been reied into the public sphere through the application of the U.S. Department of Transportations standard symbol set, designed under the guidance of the American Institute of Graphic Arts in 1974.The D.O.T. system has been applied internationally to such a degree that it has achieved a consistency of understanding that extends beyond the boundaries of verbal language.The nigh universal application of these symbols is a testament to the effectiveness of Neuraths approach and the power of pictographic communication. Perhaps more telling still is the appropriation of this type of communication by the commercial sphere in the form of corporate logotypes and brand marks.The ubiquitous presence of these reduced signs within a commercially saturated communications environment has dramatic effects on the process of understanding. As Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller state in their article Critical Way Finding:
This diaphanous veil of commercial imagery is punctuated with a pattern of hieroglyphics, signs that are neither image nor text but occupy a middle ground between them. Such signs, whether generated in the name of private commerce or public information, are attempts to anchor or regulate the

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ongoing barrage of pictures and products. Like digital rocks in an analog stream, hieroglyphics guide the flow of communication by directing the interpretation of events, the consumption of goods, or the navigation of public spaces.39

Though these reduced signs, or hieroglyphics, have in some sense achieved the modernist project of internationalisation, the supposed objectivity and neutrality of their character masks numerous problems. The simplied geometric forms of these signs, which contributes heavily to their semblance of objectivity, encapsulate and represent vast amounts of cultural meaning. And though conventionalised, these meanings are in no way objective or neutral. Within the D.O.T. system, the male and female gures are used to represent lavatories for men and lavatories for women.The female gure is distinguished by the n-like extensions of a party dress, a loaded cultural convention. Furthermore in every other sign save one, the male symbol is used to represent people in general.The only other sign in which we see the female symbol (more accurately, the womens lavatory symbol) is the sign for ticket sales, where the woman serves the man. In this way the D.O.T. system clearly represents more than objective information, it represents cultural customs, value systems, and structures of power.40 The ability of these simple symbolic marks to represent the vastness of human experience while maintaining the appearance of objectivity, and hence authority, through highly economical means, is at the root of their stylistic appropriation by the commercial sphere. Through advertising, powerful associations are created between a wide range of intangible values and emotions and a corporations logo, which is then replicated ad innitum.Through their mass exposure, these logos become conventionalised signiers of a complex range of values and emotions. The grafting of these signs onto experience is reinforced by the reciprocal approach of using seemingly complex, realistic imagery to represent conventionalised and generic ideas and emotions.Water droplets on cans and bottles of beverages represent the notion of refreshment, smooth, polished surfaces are equated with beauty, health, and progress, SUVs tearing through the wilderness with freedom, fast food with family.

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These conceptual associations become further reduced and applied formally by graphic designers, where fast moving lines and angular abstract shapes symbolise technology, jagged typography represents counter-culture, Helvetica represents truth.

Coupled with the hieroglyphic language of logos, a complex yet reductive and codied system of representation is promoted through advertising and reinforced within numerous manifestations of popular culture. However, beyond their role in consolidating this system of representation, logos play an essential role in communicating brand ownership. Logos provide the visual reference point connecting a brand to its property.Thus, an analysis of ownership structures becomes essential to the contextual understanding of strategies of reduction.

By examining the primary sources of production and distribution of these reductive forms of communication, a parallel can be drawn between the formal execution of this language and the structural reduction occurring through the wave of media mergers over the last two decades. The liberalisation and deregulation of communication policies coupled with the rampant growth of commercial advertising has created an oligopolistic media market dominated by a handful of global corporations. This consolidation is not only reflective of the dramatic concentration of wealth and power characteristic of the global economy, but obviously plays a dominant role in reinforcing it. Criticism of these media monopolies is commonplace, focussing primarily on the homogenisation of cultural material and the destruction of diversity that this entails. However, undoubtedly a valuable and necessary critique, this approach falls short when critical analysis of the media environment reveals that there remains quite a diversity of information and entertainment, and that maintaining and encouraging this diversity is of primary concern to many media owners.41 What becomes revealing is the type of diversity that is created and allowed for.Though corporate media is surprisingly inclusive in representing social problems such as racism and discrimination, the focus tends to be on the individual, not the structural; the specic manifestations of suffering, not the broad social conditions underlying them.42 Reducing and concentrating social issues to representations of individual experience inevitably compromises social understanding while simultaneously creating strong emotive connections with the audience. A similar approach is used in the creation of niche markets, which act as the representatives of media diversity. With the consolidation of the current media giants, there has been a shift from the focus on producing mass cultural forms that appeal to the majority to the development of more fragmented niche products.43 Media companies seek out the issues and ideas that are not dealt with by their mainstream coverage and subsequently promote them within specic markets. These products have clearly-dened cultural boundaries that through their specicity generate greater audience interest and investment.

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This intensity of interest allows niche products to be marketed to consumers and sponsoring advertisers at a premium price.44 Additionally, through control of both mass and niche markets, products can then be strategically moved between the two, carrying the intensity of a niche product into the mainstream (an ideal example being the popularity of Hip-hop music) or creating a niche market for a once mainstream product (such as Star Trek).What becomes apparent is that the interest of media companies is not so much to homogenise popular culture than to organise and exploit diverse forms of creativity toward protable ends.45

property (such as logos or slogans). Graphic designers who wish to engage in social commentary, a function that is so well suited to their craft, are constantly in danger of the repercussions of violating these laws.The process of reduction controls and directs cultural production within the public sphere contributing to its privatisation.Through complex structures, cultural representations are simplied and tied to commercial ownership. As democratic dialogue is constrained, the very notion of free speech is called into question. NOTES

The relevance of these issues to graphic design returns to the forefront when we examine the structures of control that are utilised to organise the diverse and chaotic media environment. Intellectual property laws, a central topic of design discourse, are what bind media brands and products together through elaborate architectures of copyrighted texts, trademarks, and licensing agreements.46 Based in romantic notions of sanctied authorship, intellectual property laws have since developed into complex systems of regulation and ownership.The lengthening of copyrights and the extension of intellectual property laws into areas that were previously regarded as public domain (the most dramatic example being human genetic material) reflect a dramatic shift from the previously held assumption that things in the public domain should stay that way unless a compelling case could be made for privatisation, [to the assumption] that things should be privatised unless a compelling case can be made not to.47 This becomes representative of the extreme reduction of cultural ideas to the point of returning to intangibility, yet an intangibility that is owned as property and traded as a commodity. Graphic designers, acting as mediators within an often appropriative sphere, are asked to work within the limits dened by these property laws. As corporate ownership extends to images and ideas that were once publicly available, the reservoir from which graphic designers draw is increasingly constricted and codied. Beyond the economic control provided by intellectual property laws, corporations are increasingly using these laws to silence criticism or even commentary that reference their

35. David Crowley and Paul Jobling, Graphic Design: reproduction and representation since 1800 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), 150. 36. Ibid. 146. 37. Ibid. 159. 38. Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller, "Modern Hieroglyphs," in Design Writing Research (London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1999), 41-43. 39. Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller, "Critical Way Finding," in Looking Closer 2, ed. Michael Beirut,William Drenttel, Steven Heller and DK Holland (New York: Allworth Press, 1997), 208. 40. Ibid. 41. Michael Curtin and Thomas Streeter, "media," In Culture Works: the Political Economy of Culture, ed. Richard Maxwell (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 226. 42. Ibid. 227. 43. Ibid. 231. 44. Ibid. 232. 45. Ibid. 231. 46. Ibid. 234. 47. Ibid. 235.

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LOGOS SERVE AS MASKS FOR CORPORATE CRIMINALS

IDEALISATION

The processes of separation and reductionism that have been explored thus far create the necessary conditions for the commodication of the communications environment by creating a value system based in detached and reduced signication. Idealisation, understood simply as the attribution of unwarranted positive characteristics to a product, message or concept from the stylisation of surfaces to the projection of false promises exploits these conditions, gives currency to this system and directs its movement. Whereas the creation of desirable objects, imbuing them with aesthetic and spiritual value, can be said to be an integral part of human nature, the manufacture of desire for its own sake is a phenomenon that requires greater analysis. The roots of this phenomenon can be located at the beginning of the 1900s, with the development of mass markets and the techniques of psychological advertising described earlier. By the early 1900s the most successful advertising agents were trying not only to attract attention but aggressively shape consumers desires.48 In order to create desire, above and beyond what was achieved through the stylisation of goods and the application of emotional characteristics to products and packaging, advertisers, directly informed by the realm of psychology, played upon what Jackson Lears has termed the therapeutic ethos. Lears describes this ethos as:
[a] reaction against the rationalionalization of culture the growing effort to exert systematic control, over mans external environment and

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ultimately over his inner life as well. [...] Many began to sense that their familiar sense of autonomy was being undermined, and that they had been cut off from intense physical, emotional, or spiritual experience. The therapeutic ethos promised to heal the wounds inflicted by rationalization, to release the cramped energies of a fretful bourgeoisie.49

Advertisers reacted to this sense of detachment, providing a symbolic universe lled with promises of physical beauty and emotional fullment that proved to be extremely protable. However, this universe was in actuality rather limited in scope, grounded in the generic concept of selfbetterment.The growing sense of urban malaise allowed advertisers to create a standardised platform from which to sell all manners of products. This uniform approach of appealing to a generic psychological dissatisfaction allowed for the expansion and unication of markets by ignoring the specicity of individual consumers, their ethnic background, geographical location and most importantly, their actual needs.The presence of idealised advertising imagery and messages created an environment where the dissatisfaction felt by many was transformed into needs felt by all.This played an incredibly important role in the burgeoning American economy:
Psychological standardisation that is, simply to use a way of life as the basis of unication [] determines the extent of the American market. Mass production requires mass consumption, but there cannot be mass consumption without widespread identical views as to what the necessities of life are.50

Though life style advertising was effective in controlling economic markets, it was the advent of the First World War that provided the catalyst for its development into a new and totalising form of psychological propaganda:
it was in the war itself, when now not a market but a nation had to be controlled and organized, yet in democratic conditions [...] that new kinds of persuasion were developed and applied. [...] Alongside the traditional appeals to patriotism lay [a] kind of entry into basic personal relationships and anxieties.51

Advertisers began to develop complex techniques of persuasion in order to sell their products, rooted in the creation of what has become known as the American Dream: a mythic construct built upon idealised notions of family, freedom, progress and success.Though its economic role was invaluable, its effectiveness in mobilising a diverse populace during the war is what consolidated its position within American society. One example of this new role for the umbrella industry of American public relations and marketing can be found in the Mohawk Valley Formula. In a reaction to growing labour strikes in the late 1930s, public relations industries developed this scientic method of strikebreaking, which consisted of mobilising a community against strikers and union activists rather than engaging police in direct violence against them, which was the method used previously.52 The Mohawk Valley Formula basically consisted of entering a community and flooding it with propaganda that presented an idealised picture of the world, of hard working people and their possessions, of harmonious familial life, and of a singularly unied community. Once the community became accustomed to this constructed environment, the strikers were positioned as dangerous threats to its harmonious ways of life, and made into scapegoats for why peoples actual lives did not live up to the construction.53 Though the techniques have become more sophisticated, the myth diversied, and the channels of delivery vastly expanded, the formula remains the same. Advertising today, more so than ever, serves to indoctrinate people with value systems that are both economically and politically protable to elite structures. This is not to suggest that all commercial media are engaged in a mass conspiracy, but that by acting under a guided market system54 they create an environment that achieves these ends:
one out of six dollars in the whole economy is spent on marketing. Its an extremely inefcient use of funds. Marketing doesnt produce anything, any public good. But marketing is a form of manipulation and deceit. Its an effort to create articial wants, to control the way people look and think about

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things. A lot of that marketing is straight propaganda, advertising. Most of it is tax-free which means the way our system works, you pay for the privilege of being propagandized, of having all this stuff dumped on you.55

The societal consequences of this are extreme. In America, this kind of marketing propaganda generally operates at a continuous, yet low level of intensity, socialising the public to accept and in turn idealise a certain way of life.This way of life obviously allows for an ample amount of diversity (as examined earlier) yet the structural foundations, concepts such as freedom and self-betterment, remain the same.When necessary however, this propaganda can quickly build upon the value system created and become a direct form of propaganda, mobilising the populace to action, or inaction as the case may be. The attacks of September 11th provide an ideal example.An onslaught of advertising and public relations campaigns launched shortly after the attack unilaterally supported war and helped to earn George W. Bush, a president marginally elected under great controversy, an approval rating of 92 percent.56 Filled with American flags and heroic imagery, this propaganda called for patriotic consumption and unwavering support for a war-mongering government.Though it would be presumptuous to give disproportionate credit to the campaigns themselves, commercial media played an important role in consolidating public opinion. A population bred upon the concept of freedom has been led to accept this concept as the justication for a continual state of war, of good against evil. This form of blatant propaganda requires little critical scrutiny in order to be understood; it is designed with specic purposes, under specic conditions and uses conventionalised strategies to achieve its goals. However, the creation of the conditioned responses these strategies play upon is a far more complex system of sociological propaganda, with far more subtle expressions.This subtlety has much to do with the naturalisation of the Mohawk Valley approach through advertising and is reflective of its effectiveness. As Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller describe:
Advertisings impact emanates from its representations of the everyday, its reiteration of stereotypes and relations of power. Much consumer advertising

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portrays the apparent naturalness of social conditions, not exceptionally or bombastically, but in the course of its daily business.These images are all the more forceful because of their incidental and offhanded nature.57

Though Lupton and Miller are referring specically to advertising, the nature of sociological propaganda is such that it extends to the majority of cultural products. Graphic design has largely internalised the assumption of idealisation as part of its role, the value-added of making products desirable.Yet inherently, this creation of desire plays into the system of creating and consolidating values and behaviours, which are in turn reintegrated into the designers toolbox.This cyclical and cumulative process of idealisation leads inevitably to the marginalisation of genuine social experience and communication. As a form of systemic social control, this is frightening, yet on an individual level, the psychological conditioning it necessitates may be more frightening still. As Jacques Ellul argues:
A person subjected to propaganda does not remain intact or undamaged: not only will his opinions and attitudes be modied, but also his impulses and his mental and emotional structures. Propagandas effect is more than external; it produces profound changes.58

general sense of despair and alienation is growing amongst youth in the west, and, notably, they are the primary target market for the majority of commercial media. A prime example of this targeting is the development of the Channel One network, a commercially produced television news program that is broadcast in tens of thousands of American schools. In exchange for the donation of equipment necessary to receive their broadcasts, schools open educational institutions to commercial inundation. Coupled with the abundance of magazines, television shows, and commercially sponsored events that are specically aimed at teenagers, Channel One has colonised one of the last remaining commercially free spaces.Teenagers bear the brunt of the onslaught of idealised images. At a formative stage of development, they are indoctrinated to desire and to be desirable.

An environment saturated with idealised images inevitably creates articial needs in people that cannot be materially satised.Though this is a common critique, often trivialised for its generality and simplicity, its reiteration is imperative. As the dislocation grows between the ideal and the real, dissatisfaction translates into a myriad of forms, from loneliness, apathy and alienation to the serious psychological disorders that are growing at an epidemic rate.Though, quantiable psychological studies examining the relationship between mass media and psychological illnesses are only beginning to surface, dramatic rises in the prevalence rates of severe depression, especially amongst youth, are well documented.59 Along with the rising rates of depression, a host of other illnesses have been pathologised; anxiety disorders, eating disorders, ADHD, etc., along with the drugs to cure them. In the US, suicide is now the third leading cause of death among people 15 to 24 years of age.60 A

The creation of desire lies at the heart of consumer culture, the detrimental effects of which are becoming increasingly severe.The diverse psychological, environmental, political and social problems that our society faces are intricately tied to the development of an unsustainable way of life.Yet not only are these problems masked by the idealised representations of this way of life, its advancement is the most vocal solution being proposed by the ofcially sanctioned mass media. George W. Bushs rallying cry to shop in the wake of September 11th provides a recent example.The absurdity and irony of these tactics reveals what designer Andrew Howard stated in 1997: "the nature of the problem is not just consumption but the ordering of our consciousness to become consumers in the rst place."61 Driven by economic and political motivations, the mediated environment is laying waste to humanist concerns, cultivating a society of individuals who are rapidly being stripped of the means to ght back.
To the extent that necessity is socially dreamed, the dream becomes necessary.The spectacle is the nightmare of imprisoned modern society which ultimately expresses nothing more than its desire to sleep.The spectacle is the guardian of sleep.

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NOTES
48. T.J. Jackson Lears,"Salvation to Self-realization," in The Culture of Consumption, eds. Richard Wightman Fox and T.J. Jackson Lears (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), 18. 49. Ibid. 17. 50. Jacques Ellul, Propaganda:The Formation of Mens Attitudes, trans. Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner (New York: Random House, 1973), 68. 51. Raymond Williams, "Advertising:The magic system," in Problems in Materialism and Culture (London:Verso , 1980), 179. 52. Noam Chomsky, "Propaganda and Control of the Public Mind," in Capitalism and the Information Age:The Political Economy of the Global Communication Revolution, eds. Robert W. McChesney, Ellen Meiskins Wood and John Bellamy Foster (New York: Monthly Press Preview, 1998), 183. 53. Ibid. 184. 54. Noam Chomsky, "The Propaganda Model Revisited," in Capitalism and the Information Age:The Political Economy of the Global Communication Revolution, eds. Robert W. McChesney, Ellen Meiskins Wood and John Bellamy Foster (New York: Monthly Press Preview, 1998), 195. 55. Noam Chomsky, "Propaganda and Control of the Public Mind," in Capitalism and the Information Age:The Political Economy of the Global Communication Revolution, eds. Robert W. McChesney, Ellen Meiskins Wood and John Bellamy Foster (New York: Monthly Press Preview, 1998), 189. 56. Gallup Poll, Oct. 2001. 57. Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller, "Subliminal Seduction," in Design Writing Research (London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1999), 141. 58. Jacques Ellul, Propaganda:The Formation of Mens Attitudes, trans. Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner (New York: Random House, 1973), 161. 59. Peter M. Lewinsohn, "Age-cohort changes in the lifetime occurrence of depression and other mental disorders," in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 1993, 110-120. 60. National Institute of Mental Health web site. Suicide Statistics available at <http://www.nimh.nih.gov/research/suifact.htm>. 61. Andrew Howard, "There is Such a Thing as Society," in Looking Closer 2, ed. Michael Beirut,William Drenttel, Steven Heller and DK Holland (New York: Allworth Press, 1997), 200. 62. Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Black & Red, 1977), aphorism 21.

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we dedicate tonights performance to quiet refusals loud refusals and sad refusals we dedicate it to the imminent market collapse we dedicate it to carpenters waitresses and drug addicts we dedicate it to secretaries, alcoholics and schizophrenics we dedicate it to the boys kissing boys girls kissing girls girls kissing boys and everything in between we dedicate it to anxiety attacks, hangovers, worried depression and all the other necessary by-products of trying to live free we dedicate it to any endeavour who's ultimate unreasonable goal is autonomy self-determination or joy we dedicate it to every prisoner in the world

- godspeed you black emperor royal festival hall, london, on april 3rd 2000

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PEOPLES COMMUNICATION CHARTER

Communication is basic to the life of all individuals and their communities. All people are entitled to participate in communication, and in making decisions about communication within and between societies.The majority of the world's peoples lack minimal technological resources for survival and communication. Over half of them have not yet made a single telephone call. Commercialization of media and concentration of media ownership erode the public sphere and fail to provide for cultural and information needs, including the plurality of opinions and the diversity of cultural expressions and languages necessary for democracy. Massive and pervasive media violence polarizes societies, exacerbates conflict, and cultivates fear and mistrust, making people vulnerable and dependent. Stereotypical portrayals misrepresent all of us and stigmatize those who are the most vulnerable.Therefore, we ratify this Charter dening communication rights and responsibilities to be observed in democratic countries and in international law. Article 1. Respect All people are entitled to be treated with respect, according to the basic human rights standards of dignity, integrity, identity, and non- discrimination. Article 2. Freedom All people have the right of access to communication channels independent of governmental or commercial control. Article 3. Access In order to exercise their rights, people should have fair and equitable access to local and global resources and facilities for conventional and advanced channels of communication; to receive opinions, information and ideas in a language they normally use and understand; to receive a range of cultural products designed for a wide variety of tastes and interests; and to have easy access to facts about ownership of media and sources of information. Restrictions on access to information should be permissible only for good and compelling reason, as when prescribed by international human rights standards or necessary for the protection of a democratic society or the basic rights of others. Article 4. Independence The realization of people's right to participate in, contribute to and benet from the development of self-reliant communication structures requires international assistance to the development of independent media; training programs for professional media workers; the establishment of independent, representative associations, syndicates or trade unions of journalists and associations of editors and publishers; and the adoption of international standards. Article 5. Literacy All people have the right to acquire information and skills necessary to participate fully in public deliberation and communication.This requires facility in reading, writing, and storytelling; critical media awareness; computer literacy; and education about the role of communication in society. Article 6. Protection of journalists Journalists must be accorded full protection of the law, including international humanitarian law , especially in areas of armed conflict.They must have safe, unrestricted access to sources of information, and must be able to seek remedy, when required, through an international body. Article 7. Right of reply and redress All people have the right of reply and to demand penalties for damage from media misinformation. Individuals concerned should have an opportunity to correct, without undue delay, statements relating to them which they have a justied interest in having corrected. Such corrections should be given the same prominence as the original expression. States should impose penalties for proven damage, or require corrections, where a court of law has determined that an information provider has willfully disseminated inaccurate or misleading and damaging information, or has facilitated the dissemination of such information. Article 8. Cultural identity All people have the right to protect their cultural identity.This includes the respect for people's pursuit of their cultural development and the right to free expression in languages they understand. People' s right to the protection of their cultural space and heritage should not violate other human rights or provisions of this Charter. Article 9. Diversity of Languages All people have the right to a diversity of languages.This includes the right to express themselves and have access to information in their own language, the right to use their own languages in educational institutions funded by the state, and the right to have adequate provisions created for the use of minority languages where needed. Article 10. Participation in policy making All people have the right to participate in public decision-making about the provision of information; the development and utilization of knowledge; the preservation, protection and development of culture; the choice and application of communication technologies; and the structure and policies of media industries. Article 11. Children's Rights Children have the right to mass media products that are designed to meet their needs and interests and foster their healthy physical, mental and emotional development.They should be protected from harmful media products and from commercial and other exploitation at home, in school and at places of play, work, or business. Nations should take steps to produce and distribute widely high quality cultural and entertainment materials created for children in their own languages. Article 12. Cyberspace All people have a right to universal access to and equitable use of cyberspace.Their rights to free and open communities in cyberspace, their freedom of electronic expression, and their freedom from electronic surveillance and intrusion, should be protected. Article 13. Privacy All people have the right to be protected from the publication of allegations irrelevant to the public interest, or of private photographs or other private communication without authorization, or of personal information given or received in condence. Databases derived from personal or workplace communications or transactions should not be used for unauthorized commercial or general surveillance purposes. However, nations should take care that the protection of privacy does not unduly interfere with the freedom of expression or the administration of justice. Article 14. Harm People have the right to demand that media actively counter incitement to hate, prejudice, violence, and war.Violence should not be presented as normal, "manly", or entertaining, and true consequences of and alternatives to violence should be shown. Other violations of human dignity and integrity to be avoided include stereotypic images that distort the realities and complexities of people's lives. Media should not ridicule, stigmatize, or demonize people on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, and physical or mental condition. Article 15. Justice People have the right to demand that media respect standards of due process in the coverage of trials.This implies that the media should not presume guilt before a verdict of guilt, invade the privacy of defendants, and should not televise criminal trials in real time, while the trial is in progress. Article 16. Consumption People have the right to useful and factual consumer information and to be protected against misleading and distorted information. Media should avoid and, if necessary, expose promotion disguised as news and entertainment (infomercials, product placement, children's programs that use franchised characters and toys, etc), and the creation of wasteful, unnecessary, harmful or ecologically damaging needs, wants, products and activities. Advertising directed at children should receive special scrutiny. Article 17. Accountability People have the right to hold media accountable to the general public and their adherence to the standards established in this Charter. For that purpose, media should establish mechanisms, including self- regulatory bodies, that monitor and account for measures taken to achieve compliance. Article 18. Implementation In consultation with the Signatories, national and international mechanisms will be organized to publicize this Charter; to implement it in as many countries as possible and in international law; monitor and assess the performance of countries and media in light of these Standards; receive complaints about violations; advise on adequate remedial measures; and to establish procedures for periodic review, development and modication of this Charter.

HOPE

The purpose of the preceding thematic critiques has been to demonstrate the economic and political context within which the majority of graphic design operates.The critiques present a small component of a much broader critique of monopoly capitalism, corporate globalisation and its growing hegemony. Whereas it would be arrogant, not to mention impossible, to propose a dogmatic solution to the complexity of issues involved, especially through the lens of graphic design, it would be equally recessive and defeatist to not propose solutions at all. Graphic design is a vast eld, and the themes of separation, reductionism and idealisation, though integral to an understanding of context, are by no means the denitive boundaries by which the medium is set.This essay has been organised to focus on them because they offer tangible points from which graphic designers can directly act. Through an understanding of the mechanisms underlying these themes and their detrimental impact, designers can make active and responsible choices to avoid exploiting their representations in language. Furthermore, a strategy favouring the inversion of these themes can provide a working model for more honest and informative forms of communication. By making genuine attempts at grounding imagery in the context of its production and reception, diversifying codes of representation, providing alternative viewpoints and refusing idealised stereotypes and manipulative emotive techniques, designers can and have directly challenged the commodication process.The necessary complement to this strategy of

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inversion is the development of a public discourse around the societal effects of separation, reductionism and idealisation. Designers need to take the initiative in revealing and problematising these issues within practice. These propositions should not be understood as reformist principles calling for a return to vernacular design nor as an attack on fundamental principles of good design and aesthetic values.What is being proposed is a critical engagement in the construction of meaningful communication by directing design language away from the commodity structure.This kind of engagement in language is reciprocal to the development of a broader social responsibility from designers, which takes form in a wide variety of approaches, fundamentally grounded in the recognition of graphic design as a social and political practice. Liz McQuistons Suffragettes to She-Devils presents a wealth of examples of socially engaged graphic design.The book catalogues an extensive amount of visual material drawn from the feminist movements of the twentieth century. Acting, in their own right as agents and carriers of the ongoing call for change63 the diverse forms of graphic expression helped to disseminate information, establish communications networks, promote issue-oriented education and deliver stinging social critiques. Graphic design played an important role as a tool of empowerment, giving voice to women and articulating their concerns. The vast stylistic variety of the material represented in McQuistons book is not only demonstrative of the diverse issues and contexts from which it is derived but provides an interesting insight into graphic designs place in social struggles. In contrast to the emancipatory and utopic vision of the modernist movement, the images of the womens movement in no way prescribed to a unifying aesthetic dogma. Obviously, these movements are fundamentally different and stylistic comparisons would not provide constructive insights. However, when seen in conjunction with other social and counter-cultural movements that became symbolic of a certain stylistic representation (for example the DIY style of the punk movement or the urban agressiveness of hip-hop), what can be noted is that the womens movements lack of stylistic unity, though not an intentional strategy, in fact adds a level of resistance against its co-option,

commodication and resulting dissolution.What unies the works presented in Suffragettes to She-Devils is a passionate commitment to the issues and a political engagement from the artists far beyond the level of rhetoric. This level of engagement to social issues is rare amongst professional designers. Indeed a concerted effort to distance oneself from what might be called biased perspectives, under the guise of neutrality and objectivity, is often seen as the invaluable asset of professionals. Hence, emphasising designs growing economic function while ignoring its social and political ramications is common within the promotion and practice of graphic design. Katherine McCoy states:
Commerce is where we are investing time, budgets, skills, and creativity.This is a decisive vote for economics over other potential concerns, including social, cultural, spiritual, and political needs.This is a political statement in itself, both in education and practice.64

Jan van Toorn emphatically reiterates the effects of subsuming graphic designs social role to institutional private interests:
Not questioning social responsibilities implies that you surrender to that sector of society that, because it possesses all our means of survival, manoeuvres design in the role of entrepreneurial aesthetics. Design, often regarded as autonomous activity, thereby functions more and more as an aesthetic legitimisation of the dominant ideology.65

The strategy to advocate a design autonomy as apolitical and dissociated from social concerns can be traced to a multiplicity of social, cultural and political factors that tend to place the economy above all other concerns, effectively engaging in the depoliticisation of the citizenry at large. Specically within the eld of graphic design, Katherine McCoy places an emphasis on educational factors, and the role of modern formalist training employed by many design schools:
The Basel graphic translation projects, so effective in training a keen formal sense, unfortunately use a process of abstractional analysis, thereby stripping

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imagery of its encoding symbolism. Divorcing design form from content or context is a lesson in passivity, implying that graphic form is something separate and unrelated to subjective values or even ideas.66

conrmed and called into question.This means that education is one of the sites of the conditions for critical action and transformation.That is to say, the academy as a potential source of counter-images.69

As a design educator, McCoy proposes a simple, clear-sighted appeal to engage students, from the very beginning of their education, with contentbased projects of personal and political signicance: The responsibility for developing content is a crucial one; it counteracts the passive design role in which one unquestioningly accepts client-dictated copy.67 In shifting the focus of design education from formal concerns to genuine and tangible communicative challenges, educators empower students to develop their own voices as well as the critical faculties to recognise voices that are not often heard.This progressive approach begins to move design beyond the realm of representation into the role of actual communication.

The efcacy of education and the academy as a site of resistance should not be understated. In 1997, the Jan van Eyck Acadamie in Maastricht,The Netherlands, hosted the design beyond Design conference.This international gathering centred on critical, alternative and dissident design practices. A statement by bell hooks, which was used as the motto for the conference, underscored the marginal nature of these practices:
I was not speaking of marginality one wishes to lose, to give up, or surrender as part of moving into the center but rather as a site one stays in, clings to even, because it nourishes ones capacity to resist. It offers the possibilities of radical perspectives from which to see and create, to imagine alternatives, new worlds.68

The conference, which brought together academics, intellectuals and design practitioners along with an exhibition of their work, acted as just such a site, and became a pivotal event in the contemporary history of critical design practice.The works presented covered a breadth of specic projects and issues, and was unied by an attempt to investigate the discrepancy between the socio-economic and symbolic reality of the world-wide information and consumption culture and the prospects for the democratisation of the media.70 Supported by strategic theoretical dialogue and discussion, the designers presented striking examples of alternative design practices.Though a large diversity of work was presented, there was a consistent challenging of dominant design ideologies, as well as an inherent action against the thematic principles of separation, reductionism and idealisation. Much of the success of the design beyond Design conference lay in its inclusion of participants who create strong links between social responsiveness in design and active practice. The work in the public sphere of Sheila Levrant de Bretteville focuses on a dialogue-based understanding of context, and commemorates histories of the people that have lived in the communities she works in. Specically, her work aims to make the plurality of voices of people in those neighbourhoods visible, allowing us to listen.71 This approach counters the separation of a work from its historical and geographic context, transforming the physical environment into a document of its past, too often effaced by gentrication and other economic prejudices.

Els Kuijpers, one of the organisers of design beyond Design, relates this statement to the role of the academy:
it is logical that education can be so effective in working towards an emancipatory programme because it is where the dominant culture is both

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Another project of interest is the design studio 2x4s Museum of the Ordinary, which denes a section of the urban environment of Manhattan as a museum, consequently labelling and intervening on objects and public spaces within it. Using devices typical of a museum, ordinary objects are framed and isolated while labels provide information of their social and economic histories and values. In doing so, the museum deconstructs the naturalisation of the constructed environment and critiques the idealised notions of design practice. Another important design beyond Design participant was Grard Paris-Clavel, one of the founders of the Ne pas plier activist design collective. Ne pas plier creates graphics to support popular social struggles, giving voice to marginalised people. Their work moves graphic design into the streets, reclaiming social space and connecting directly to individuals and groups who actively use it. In his conference lecture, Paris-Clavel eloquently describes the groups objective, that the signs of poverty not be joined by a poverty of signs, and that the exclusion of language not be replaced by languages of exclusion.72 All these projects associated with design beyond Design, reinforce bell hooks statement that it is in the margins of design culture, rather than in the mainstream, where activist efforts are still most effective.They present powerful and necessary alternative visions of what design can be. Moreover,

Ordinary

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while remaining at a critical distance, they can and do strategically influence the centre.The renewing of the First Things First manifesto, with its broad reach, would not have been possible, nor relevant, without the contributions made at this pivotal conference.

At the recent Declarations of [inter]dependence and the im[media]cy of design symposium, which took place in Montreal in October 2001, the initiatives made at the design beyond Design conference were further extended into practice. Student-oriented, the symposium proper was preceded by intensive four-day collaborative workshops where a wide variety of both image and object-based design work was produced and disseminated into the public sphere, as well as being presented within a gallery setting.

This dialogic process was also explored by the We Interrupt The Programme workshop. A project initiated by Ian Noble and Russel Bestley at the design beyond Design conference, We Interrupt The Programme focused on deconstructing the language of graphic design in order to challenge assumed communication hierarchies and open the construction of meaning to a more democratic process. Breaking down the design process to the juxtaposition of individual words and images which were generated autonomously by the students, a matrix of narratives was created that was reflective of the collaborative group yet open-ended enough to allow for negotiated interpretations by the audience.Working through an experimental approach, not centred on the determination of specic meaning, a more organic approach to communication design was explored.

Ironically, the symposium, which focussed on politically and socially engaged design practice, took place in the aftermath of September 11th amidst the surge of war mongering American propaganda. The work produced by the Design Is Not Enough workshop, led by Tony Credland, Sandy Kaltenborn and Brian Holmes, reacted to this critical moment by producing work to counter the propaganda being issued by the mass media. Oriented towards creating public dialogue, disseminating information and critiquing the media, the facilitators and students created a body of work based rmly in the context of its reception and the interaction between designer and audience.

Though the message can never be an open, democratic construct between sender and receiver, we can attempt to expose the nature of the process at work by allowing the reader a free hand in the act of construction itself.73

Inherently, this revealing process seeks to satisfy two goals. Firstly, it empowers the reader by placing them into a collaborative position in the generation of meaning. And secondly, it brings attention, albeit obliquely, to the strategies of persuasion employed in graphic design, challenging the viewer to be more critical of the mediated environment at large.

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The development of critical and dialogic approaches to visual language at the Declarations conference was coupled with an engagement in sociopolitical concerns.Though this has not resulted in any explicit utopic solutions, what the conference has succeeded in achieving is invaluable, and that is the creation of dialogue itself.At the root of the argument is the fact that if design is about communication, it must be inherently about the creation of dialogue. Dialogue as exchange, dialogue as education, dialogue as resistance. In Jacques Elluls treatise on propaganda, he systematically demonstrates its all-encompassing power and its apocalyptic destructive effects. Yet hidden in the introductory denition of propagandas characteristics, Ellul makes a bold and empowering statement: Propaganda ceases where simple dialogue begins.74 The creation of spaces for dialogue is an essential component of the progressive struggle.The Internet has provided an ideal medium for the delivery of alternative information, creating spaces of autonomous dialogue. Though it is being rapidly colonised by commercial interests, its viability as a platform for activists is unprecedented. Perhaps the best example of this is the Indymedia75 web site. Established in 1999 for the purpose of providing grassroots coverage of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) protests in Seattle, the site has since become a global portal for independently produced media. Constructed around open-source open-publishing software, the site allows for anyone to participate by posting articles, images, sound and video footage.The success of the initial site has spawned over eighty afliated media centres worldwide presenting alternative, non-corporate media, connecting local struggles and initiatives to a global audience. The Internet is populated with an abundance of web sites that share the radically democratic spirit of Indymedia which provide critical, alternative, and dissenting perspectives, information and content.76 One such site, the Guerrilla News Network77 showcases short video documentaries that expose global issues too often ignored by the mass media.The videos combine high impact imagery with innovative video-scratching techniques and informative commentary set to powerful musical soundtracks.The site describes them as music videos for people who think.78 These videos are exemplary of designs role in communicating vital alternative information in an engaging fashion.

Graphic design, which is now understood as including design for the web, has an important role to play, not only in how users will interact with the medium, but in contributing to its viability as a source of independent production. A vibrant design community exists on the web, consisting of designers seeking to push the boundaries of the mediums communicative potential.79 Experimental design sites abound alongside personal sites showcasing graphic designs expressive nature. Bridging the gap between these sites and those with a progressive agenda would be a tremendous step towards furthering the Internet as a tool for social change.

The ark web site80 provides a strong example of the conjoining of creative practice, technological sophistication and dissenting politics.The site plays on the corporate investment model to list, support and document anti-corporate projects. From the creation of satirical web sites such as gwbush.com, voteauction.com and gatt.org which specically mimics the World Trade Organisations ofcial web site, to subversive public relations email campaigns, ark has successfully caused interventions to the corporate agenda. Most notably, their Toywar campaign prevented the corporate buyout of a Swiss art collectives website, etoy.com, by the Internet toy distribution company Etoys. The campaign helped to bring Etoys stock value down from 67 dollars in November 1999 to just under 20 dollars by January 2000, when the suit from Etoys was dropped.81

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Though operating from a very different direction, the Saturation Engine project82 is equally illustrative of the combining of creativity, technology and dissenting politics. The engine reclaims the imagery from the media fallout after September 11th and recontextualises it into an audiovisual barrage. The condensed, repeated and conflicting images not only reveal their propagandistic nature but create[s] a situation where new meanings can be constructed from the imagery that surrounds us constantly.83 Both these sites aim to challenge existing structures of media and corporate power.They exploit the potential of the Internet as a space of dialogue and dissemination to encourage critical thought and action.

Evidently, the generation and sustenance of dialogue as a critical strategy needs to be complemented by direct action strategies within the public sphere.The reassertion of its public character is of primary importance. Culture jamming, a term coined by the band Negativland, has become a popular strategy employed by media activists. Understood under the term dtournment by the situationists, it was seen as a key strategic concept, an insurrectional style by which a past form is used to show its own inherent untruth an untruth masked by ideology.84 Culture jamming can be used to describe a broad range of subversive activity, from the work of grafti artists to the radical refacement of billboards by the Billboard Liberation Front85 to pirate radio broadcasts. In essence, it is an attempt to challenge the authority of the mass media through creative acts of resistance within the public sphere. Adbusters magazine, the journal of the mental environment, has appropriated culture jamming as the rallying cry for their manifesto, seeing it as a social movement with the revolutionary aim of toppl[ing] existing power structures and forg[ing] a major rethinking of the way we live in the 21st century.86 This type of sloganism, typical of the more recent issues of

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Adbusters, along with the slickness of its design has drawn the magazine regular criticism.The apparent contradiction between its anti-advertising objectives and its image-based editorial strategies, not to mention its aggressive self-promotional techniques, raises questions regarding its integrity and accountability.Though this criticism is understandable and necessary, Adbusters approach has placed the magazine in a unique and important position. Found alongside popular publications, often co-existing with major design journals, Adbusters maintains a highly critical and radical perspective, both in form and content.The magazines image-based approach and strategic use of design elements provide powerful examples of graphic designs ability to subvert dominant messages and raise challenging questions. Jan van Toorn, though not speaking specically about Adbusters, provides insight into the magazines approach, differentiating between the role of the visual and that of the image:
The problem of design today is that it is more fascinated by the visual, as a realistic imitation or decoration, and not by the image as a subjective narrative and interpretive element. As a result of its internal dialogue, however, the image is more than a perception. It is a necessary construction on the brink of ction, that reveals the dialectic of representation and presentation.87

Direct action in graphic design implies the support of direct action in peoples struggles. It cannot exist as an autonomous critique, as the members of Ne pas plier describe:
an image is not an inert object to be contemplated, nor is it a political tool in itself. Only when inserted into action or struggle does it produce political effects; only when carried by individuals or groups does it come alive, generating meaning in return.88

Adbusters, though at times guilty of crossing the line between the visual and the image, plays an active and important role in the contemporary development of the image as a critical tool. Criticism, albeit warranted, should not be used to efface the culture jamming that it engages in, and, more signicantly that it inspires in others. Yet the effectiveness of culture jamming as a direct action strategy is limited if it does not move beyond a critique of the media to address directly the structural factors and inequalities underlying its power.

During the protests against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) meeting in Qubec City in April 2001, Ne pas plier along with a network of other designers and artists organised an exhibition, conceived as a temporary agit-prop centre in support of the movement,89 where a wide diversity of graphic material; stickers, posters and banners, was given out free for use by demonstrators. Exemplary as an indicator of the nature of the works, was the mask project designed by the Cactus Network in collaboration with students and teachers at Concordia University. Over 4,000 bandanas - printed with a laughing face on one side, and a gagged face behind cyclone fencing on the other were given out providing both symbolic strength and physical protection from the excessive amounts of tear gas (5,148 cannisters) used by the police.

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The protests in Quebec City generated an abundance of visual material, both simple and sophisticated, that symbolises the importance of graphic design in social struggle. From a placard scrawled with the message Canada is not 4 sale but our PM is to the intricate anti-FTAA poster designed by the Beehive design collective, graphic material aids in the construction of a meaningful narrative and provides a visual memory of the events.This poster, and others designed by the Beehive, are excellent examples of political critique explored through the language of graphic design. The collectives characteristic illustrative style uses a complex fractal-like approach to depict diverse and specic political conflicts that are interwoven into a larger narrative image. By revealing simultaneously the multiplicity of issues involved and their relationship to larger issues, such as the FTAA, their posters present beautiful and comprehensive political critiques.

The city was awash in colourful and emphatic political expressions, countering the clouds of tear gas and black suited police.This diversity of expression within political struggles returns these discussions to the strengths and successes of the graphic support material of the feminist movements, and optimistically, of the concrete progress made by the movements themselves.

Ne pas plier, the Cactus Network and the Beehive Collective are but three of the countless organisations and individuals that had chosen to use their graphical talents to protest the FTAA agreement in Quebec City.

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The examples that have been presented explore a wide range of possibilities for socially engaged design practice.They revolve around the complementary strengths of education, dialogue and direct action as instigators of social change. Supported by a thorough understanding of the thematic incursions of separation, reductionism and idealisation on design practice and language, they will lead, I hope, to the generation of a more fundamental concept of design responsibility.This responsibility cannot be based solely in the continued development of critical thinking and writing on design, but must take place in the creation of a practice composed of designers who think, listen and most importantly, act. Graphic design has played the part of social pacier for far too long.Taking action is an essential component of taking responsibility. It means getting out of the cocoon and into real situations of social co-operation and confrontation.90 It means believing, supporting, and participating in movements for radical change. At heart, it is about democracy. As Jan van Toorn states:
In the light of the economic and social relations of power in the world, it is not realistic, I believe, to hope for the direct participation in the media by those who have no voice.That accounts for the incredible importance that practical intellectuals as designers should attach to an emancipatory view of their role as contribution to the real democratisation of the media as public spaces.91

If we wish to continue to believe that we live in a democratic society, then we, as citizens, must engage in a more direct control over the makeup of our social environment.The environment cannot be left to regulation by an idealised market system.The belief in an unsustainable economic model has led to countless atrocities; rampant environmental destruction, an exponentially growing divide between the rich and the poor, endless war. If we understand that the means of communication set the basic parameters for the functioning of society, then designers are complicit in the perpetuation of these problems.Yet this understanding also places the designer in a privileged position for the furthering of a socially progressive agenda. As the adverse effects of rampant commercial culture grow, it is continually challenged by popular resistance. It is designs urgent role to not only give voice to this resistance, but to work towards the construction of a genuinely sustainable and democratic communications environment.

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NOTES
63. Liz McQuiston, Suffragettes to She-Devils (London: Phaidon Press, 1997), 9. 64. Katherine McCoy, Countering The Tradition of the Apolitical Designer, in Looking Closer 2, eds. Michael Beirut,William Drenttel, Steven Heller and DK Holland (New York: Allworth Press, 1997), 216. 65. Jan van Toorn, Communication design: a social practice, in design beyond Design, ed. Jan van Toorn. (Amsterdam: Jan van Eyck Akademie editions, 1998), 155. 66. Katherine McCoy, Countering The Tradition of the Apolitical Designer, in Looking Closer 2, eds. Michael Beirut,William Drenttel, Steven Heller and DK Holland (New York: Allworth Press, 1997), 217. 67. Ibid. 68. From a lecture by bell hooks, A Happening Life: Endless Design, presented at the Third Harwell Hamilton Harris lecture, North Carolina State University, School of Design, North Carolina, February 24,1997. 69. Els Kuijpers, Marginality as site of resistance, in design beyond Design, ed. Jan van Toorn. (Amsterdam: Jan van Eyck Akademie editions, 1998), 16. 70. Jan van Toorn, design beyond Design, ed. Jan van Toorn (Amsterdam: Jan van Eyck Akademie editions, 1998), 12. 71. Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, in design beyond Design, ed. Jan van Toorn (Amsterdam: Jan van Eyck Akademie editions, 1998), 119. 72. Grard Paris-Clavel, Everything is Possible, in design beyond Design, ed. Jan van Toorn (Amsterdam: Jan van Eyck Akademie editions, 1998), 101. 73. Russel Bestley and Ian Noble, Document:We Interrupt The Programme (Southsea:Visual Research: 2001), unpaginated. 74. Jacques Ellul, Propaganda:The Formation of Mens Attitudes, trans. Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner (New York: Random House, 1973), 6. 75. http://www.indymedia.org 76. A small sampling: http://www.zmag.org, http://www.alternet.org, http://www.rabble.ca, http://www.a-infos.ca 77. http://www.guerrillanews.com 78. Ibid. 79. A small sampling: http://www.k10k.net , http://www.altsense.net 80. http://www.rtmark.com 81. See http://www.rtmark.com/etoymain.html for further details.

82. http://www.saturationengine.com 83. Ibid. 84. Author unknown, Drifting with The Siituationsist International. Electronic text available at <http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/238> 85. http://www.billboardliberation.com 86. Adbusters Magazine masthead. 87. Jan van Toorn, Communication design: a social practice, in design beyond Design, ed. Jan van Toorn. (Amsterdam: Jan van Eyck Akademie editions, 1998), 166. 88. Excerpt from an interview with Ne pas plier, carried out by Andr Rouill, published in La recherche photographique, 1996. 89. Brian Holmes, Carnival and Counterpower, originally published on the nettime mailing list <http://www.nettime.org> May 1, 2001. Electronic text available at <http://www.declarations.ca/knowledge/carnival.htm>. 90. Adapted from Design Is Not Enough newsletter by Tony Credland, Brian Holmes, and Sandy Kaltenborn, published at the Declarations of [Inter]dependence and the Im[media]cy of Design symposium, Montral, October 2001. Electronic text available at <http://www.declarations.ca/knowledge/dine.htm>. 91. Jan van Toorn, Communication design: a social practice, in design beyond Design, ed. Jan van Toorn. (Amsterdam: Jan van Eyck Akademie editions, 1998), 166.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY / READING
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Berger, John. About Looking. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980. Bestley, Russel and Ian Noble. Document:We Interrupt the Programme. Southsea: Visual Research, 2001. Bierut, Michael,William Drenttel, Steven Heller and DK Holland, eds. Looking Closer 2: Critical Writings on Graphic Design. New York: Allworth Press, 1997. Crowley, David and Paul Jobling. Graphic Design: Reproduction and Representation Since 1800. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996. Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black & Red, 1977. Ellul, Jacques. Propaganda:The Formation of Mens Attitudes.Trans. Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner. New York: Random House, 1973. Ewen, Stuart. All Consuming Images:The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture. New York: Basic Books, 1988. Ewen, Stuart. Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976. Fox, Richard Wightman and T.J. Jackson Lears, eds. The Culture of Consumption. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983. Herman, Edward S., and Robert W. McChesney.The Global Media:The New Missionaries of Global Capitalism. Lodon: Cassell, 1997. Klein, Naomi. No Logo:Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies.Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2000. Lupton, Ellen and J. Abbot Miller. Design Writing Research. London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1999. McChesney, Robert W., Ellen Meiskins Wood and John Bellamy Foster, eds. Capitalism and the Information Age:The Political Economy of the Global Communication Revolution. New York: Monthly Press Preview, 1998. McQuiston, Liz. Suffragettes to She-Devils:Womens liberation and Beyond. London: Phaidon Press, 1997. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media:The Extensions of Man. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1964. McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy:The Making of Typographic Man.Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962. Pendergast, Mark. For God, Country & Coca-Cola. New York: Basic Books, 1993. Poynor, Rick. Obey The Giant: Life in the Image World. London:August Media, 2001. Sennett, Richard. The Fall of Public Man. New York: Knopf, 1977. van Toorn, Jan, ed. design beyond Design: Critical Reflection and the Practice of Visual Communication. Amsterdam: Jan van Eyck Akademie editions, 1998. Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society. New York, 1958. Margolin,Victor. The Politics of the Articial: Essays on Design and Design Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Maxwell, Ricahrd, ed. Culture Works: the Political Economy of Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.

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COLOPHON

Sincere thanks... to my mom and to Natasha, for their constant inspiration and support to my professors; Rhona Richman Kenneally, Michael Longford, pk langshaw, and Lydia Sharman to Boogie for the amazing photos to Tomi Ungerer for the original EAT poster to Godspeed You Black Emperor for their dedication to Sandy K for the postcard to Anti-Racist Action Toronto, Ne pas plier, the Beehive Collective and Entropie Cration for the beautiful posters to John for Evil Empire to Theory and especially to everyone on the front lines.

Text set in Gill Sans and Perpetua by Eric Gill. Titles set in Citizen by Zuzana Licko.