First Things Now
Lily Corne Klein and Kevin Yuen Kit Lo
2021
“We propose a reversal of priorities in favour 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.”
As the cracks in the facades of neoliberalism, racial capitalism, imperialism and colonialism widen, mass mobilizations, solidarity networks and coalitions of people resisting these frameworks are working to reorient our societies’ priorities towards community care, mutual aid, environmental sustainability, and transformative justice. With these forms of organizing and resistance steadily becoming more mediated, and social media’s evolution as a highly visible breeding ground for emergent political art and ideas, the urgency to re-evaluate the role of graphic design in social movements has been reaffirmed and renewed.
The examination of how design can be harnessed to combat exploitative forces, as well as its complicity within them, is nothing new. The First Things First manifesto, initially written by Ken Garland and published in 1964 and then re-issued in 2000 is a key touchstone. With strong popular appeal at the time of its (re)publication, the manifesto inspired debates that filled the design press, influenced the practices of many young designers, and spawned a myriad of initiatives rethinking the social role and responsibilities of graphic design. First Things First was renewed once more in 2014 with a clearer focus on the implications of digital technology, and then again in 2020, with an intersectional perspective on the climate crisis as its focal point. Although these latest editions collected an impressive amount of signatures, within the vastly different cultural climate, a more sprawling and oversaturated media landscape, and without the endorsement of celebrity designers, they seem to have generated little discussion or visible action beyond good intentions.
The Black Lives Matter uprisings over the summer of 2020, forced the design industry into a more rigorous period of self-examination, and gave rise to crucial discussions and initiatives centred on racial justice. Largely focused on the overrepresentation of whiteness in the design field (according to the 2019 Design Census, 71% of designers practicing in the U.S. are white), these conversations lead to scrutiny of the barriers to and the discrimination within design education and workplaces, and to an amplification of the work of BIPOC designers. It challenged white and non-Black designers to reassess and deconstruct the racist underpinnings of “neutrality” and to educate themselves on White supremacy and systemic racism and their positions within them.
While these conversations seem to have reached their highest volume yet, they’ve also been ongoing in the field for at least 30 years. Cheryl D. Miller’s 1987 article “Black Designers: Missing in Action”, and Brenda Mitchell-Powell’s “Why is graphic design 93% white?” show how systemically entrenched racism is within the field. Despite the undoubted importance of confronting, investigating, and repairing these conditions, doing so –– especially without broader political or class analysis –– has unfortunately not provided a blueprint to move the industry beyond veneers of ‘inclusion’ and tokenizing gestures that invite particular representatives in as symbolic achievements in equality, simultaneously masking ongoing participation in exploitative and oppressive systems.
It would be defeatist to claim that the needle has not moved on these important issues. Social engagement, sustainability, and inclusion have undeniably gained a significant foothold in the popular discourses of design. In education, Dori Tunstall, was appointed as the first Black Dean of a Faculty of Design at OCADU in 2016, bringing with her a mandate of “decolonizing” the design curriculum. This signals a willingness on the institutional level, and a recognition of the demand from the student body, to take seriously the ethical implications of design, allowing different forms of knowledge and ways of thinking to enter the academy, and expanding the vision of what design is and can be. As these students enter professional practice, we can only hope that these critical perspectives will be carried forward with them.
“Socially-Engaged” Design Studios
Despite the now widespread adoption of ‘design thinking’ –– a method with the core tenet of approaching design problems through empathy, and the rise of design firms identifying themselves as “socially-engaged” or creating “social impact”, actually coming across work in the design press that embodies the modes of collaborating and engaging with community one would imagine such a positioning to produce, paradoxically remains quite rare. Rarer still is evidence of work that openly contests established hierarchies and power structures in order to confront the urgent crises we face.
In order to make sense of this dissonance, we present below, a selection of graphic design studios, collectives and individual designers, working in the terrain roughly defined as socially-engaged practice. Our intention is not to compile a comprehensive list, but rather to present a wide scope of those currently working under this broad umbrella, in order for the very incoherence of the category itself to become clear.
The list encompasses a wide diversity of practices, from small radical activist studios to progressive NGO communications firms, DIY publishing ventures, those who make politically-oriented work shown mostly in gallery settings, or who put radical tools, political imagery, and messaging directly into the streets and the hands of people in active resistance movements.
With our current limitations in terminology, each of these varied practices falls under the moniker of “socially-engaged”, greatly diluting any sense of the term’s meaning. Such vagueness makes this language an easy target for co-optation, and enables it to be implemented as a smokescreen in ways that impede actual social transformation.
This was made evident in the research undertaken to compile this list, as we found many design firms self-identifying this way, but which we chose not to include. These agencies used this language to describe applying traditionally coercive design and advertising approaches to work for clients that could (by some standards) be deemed more "wholesome”, capitalizing on the social sector through gentrifying design practices, or carrying on with business-as-usual, rounded off now and then with a charitable gesture. In the more acute of these cases, we might find “positive change” used as a stand-in for “gentrification”, “social innovation” as a synonym for entrepreneurialism and precarity, “inclusion” in place of “assimilation”, “sustainability” to mean “green capitalism”, and so on.
These tendencies call attention to a number of vital questions about whose definitions of imprecise terms like “social good” or “positive change” are commonly upheld, which criteria are used to evaluate such claims and their efficacy, which interests and systems these projects are invested in and beholden to, and what the visions and futures of “positive change” they hope to bring about look like.
To further nuance and clarify the spectrum of approaches and political orientations motivating studios using this type of language, it may be helpful to consider questions such as:
Who do they work for? Do they work predominantly with nonprofits? cultural organizations? “socially-responsible” companies? governmental organizations? philanthropy? activist movements? large corporations? politicians?
How are their workplaces structured? How are decisions made? What is the makeup of their team? What do their labour practices look like?
Does their work focus on particular issues (ie. sustainability, gender, migration, racial justice)? And if so, is it clear why? How are they accountable to the communities facing these issues?
To which knowledge systems, spaces, or structures do their designs aim to increase or provide access to?
Do they use traditional advertising and branding strategies and methodologies? What metrics do they use to define a project’s success?
Does their work exist primarily in the realm of representation? What aesthetics are being deployed and why?
Is their work focused on raising awareness, making information accessible, empowering communities, and/or directly confronting institutions and power?
While certain organic categories may begin to take shape in the reader’s mind, any groupings which do emerge remain rather nebulous. Mirroring the complex webs of power in which we are all implicated, the difficulty in making neat distinctions is not necessarily a negative thing. However, developing a new shared lexicon or set of typologies that recognize the variety of approaches taking place, that draw out the relationships, resonances and potential conflicts between them, feels like an urgent task in order to both push these nascent design practices forward while challenging the co-optation of the discourse. Furthermore, a visual overview of these studios’ production may provide insight into questions and categories of aesthetics and their relationship to the ethics and cultures of social change and social struggle.
The following is inevitably an incomplete and personally-biased list, but it’s one we haven’t seen elsewhere. While shedding a little more light onto these committed designers and the vital work they do, we also hope it can be a useful jumping-off point for further research and analysis on these trends, act as a resource for emerging designers looking for ways to use their skills and talents towards social transformation, and help sharpen and give momentum to all our visions, as varied as they may be.
The Grapus Legacy. Emerging out of the May ‘68 Paris student protests, Grapus came to define the aesthetic of French political posters and protest art more generally. As members of the French Communist Party, the work of Grapus expressed a new vision for society, merging politics and culture with a bold and distinctive form of image-making that was equal parts playful, aggressive, and rigorous. Throughout its trajectory, Grapus saw the coming and going of artists, designers, and collaborators. Growing to about 20 people at its height, Pierre Bernard, Gerard Paris-Clavel, François Miehe, Jean-Paul Bachollet, and Alex Jordan were the collective’s mainstays and anchors.
Resulting in part from a dispute over whether or not to work for the Louvre, Grapus eventually dissolved in 1991, but gave birth to several studios that each carry on a particular aspect of Grapus' legacy: l'Atelier de création graphique (Pierre Bernard with Dirk Behage and Fokke Draaijer), les Graphistes Associés (Gérard Paris-Clavel with Vincent Perrottet), Ne pas plier (which Paris-Clavel went on to found shortly after les Graphistes Associés), and Nous travaillons ensemble (Alex Jordan with Ronit Meirovitz and Anette Lenz). Léo Favier’s 2014 book What, you don't know Grapus? provides an indispensable history and portrait of the many perspectives and tensions that made up the collective.
Jan Van Toorn is a key figure in the development of critical and self-reflexive design practice and one of the most influential and significant figures of Dutch design. Van Toorn’s work developed critical theory on design’s creation and consumption, and how art, communication, and media operate in shaping society. Mobilizing graphic design as a means of social commentary and a tool for critique and questioning, his designs call attention to their status as visual constructions and place viewers in a position of active engagement, challenging their expectations and disrupting conventional ways of seeing. He inserted oppositional perspectives and critique into unorthodox forms and unsuspecting contexts, working to render visible the existing power relations in which designers, clients, and viewers are entangled. Van Toorn’s design work, writing, and committed career as a design educator serve as a model for graphic designers to engage critically with their discipline and explore design’s radical potential. Jan Van Toorn passed away on the 13th of November, 2020.
Barnbrook is the London-based design studio founded by key First Things First 2000 signatory, Jonathan Barnbrook. Barnbrook is one of the few designers who holds equal respect and influence within institutional design spaces, artistic, and activist design circles. His notable collaborations with artists such as David Bowie are coupled with radical political design work that unflinchingly attacks corporate globalization, consumer culture, war, organized religion, and designers themselves. Barnbrook acted as Art Director for Adbusters Magazine, created the logo for Occupy London and designed countless books and publications. Drawing on historical references and political criticism, his celebrated typeface designs with names such as Bourgeois, Manson, Doctrine, and Drone expertly distill his ideology of design aesthetics and politics.
ONYX Self-Imaging Labs is a graphic design and art direction studio working to expand the Black cultural lexicon across the arts, culture, and advocacy sectors. Founded by Rush Jackson in 2020, the studio prioritizes working with Black, Brown, and queer initiatives and communities across a wide range of design services. Their collaboration with Jerome Harris on the publication design, art direction, and website for To the Front: Black Women & the Vote, presents rich historical material within a contemporary design aesthetic, bringing alive the archives of Black women suffragists’ political organizing in DC and Maryland and connecting this activism with 21st-century movements.
Image-Shift is a Berlin-based graphic design and visual communication studio founded by Sandy Kaltenborn whose work operates in cultural, social, political, educational, and urban settings. They aim to work in companionship with their clients, resisting relationships that mirror the hierarchies produced by the structure of capitalist service-industries. Image-Shift’s practice has extended beyond graphic design into community organizing work and campaigning with the long-standing anti-gentrification initiative Kotti & Co in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighborhood. The studio’s 13-point non-manifesto provides valuable and practical insight into the principles which ground Image-Shift’s work, serving as an excellent guide to the fundamentals of socially-engaged design practice.
Design Action Collective is a worker-owned and managed co-operative and union shop that provides graphic design, visual communications, and web development services to activists, non-profits, and social justice organizations. The collective began in 2002 as a spin-off of Inkworks Press, an historic resource for the printing needs of progressive organizations in the Bay area. Their work is grounded by Points of Political Unity which clearly articulate the values of the collective, such as transnational solidarity with all people working toward social justice and democracy, standing with the working-class and labour organizing, the centrality of racial justice to all liberation struggles, the critical importance of environmental protection, and a commitment to the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
RallyRally is a Toronto-based communications design studio founded by Jay Wall partnering with forward-thinking organizations on issues ranging from climate action and human rights advocacy to equitable city-building and environmental urbanism. In addition to their work with clients, RallyRally also undertakes self-initiated projects that cultivate the creative growth of their team and help shape their local communities, often using playful and inventive modes of public engagement to encourage interest and involvement in city-building, urbanism, and community development.
Justseeds is a worker-owned artists’ co-operative and decentralized network of over 40 artists and printmakers across the US, Canada and Mexico who produce collective portfolios, contribute graphics to grassroots struggles for social and environmental justice, work collaboratively on projects both inside of and beyond the co-op, and engage in direct artistic action in public space. Justseeds also operates an extensive online store and distribution centre of activist prints and posters. Considering their visibility within active social justice movements and the scale and quality of their productions, the absence of Justseeds from institutional design discourse is a glaring omission. Their extensive portfolios of work epitomize the relationship between art and resistance, and act as a living archive which visualizes the histories of a wide range of social justice struggles.
Justin Kemerling Design is a collaborative sign studio based in Omaha, Nebraska. They work on a range of progressive political campaigns, social initiatives and climate action grounded in the Midwest. Their multi-year, multi-channel campaign to stop the TransCanada pipeline brought ranchers, farmers and indigenous communities together to protect the Ogallala Aquifer. Recent projects include national advocacy work to hold police unions accountable and end police violence.
The studio also runs several collective projects including the Power to the Poster, Round and Round (a collaborative co-working space), and the Design Alliance of Omaha. Justin has just launched a book documenting his work and his practice, In the Middle of Everything.
Sébastien Marchal is a Paris-based graphic designer and “affichiste” whose body of work displays a steadfast commitment to creating graphics which address pressing social, political, and cultural concerns. Working alongside activist movements, as well as unions, collectives, researchers, and artists, Marchal engages in ongoing research to develop his graphic and typographic vocabulary, enabling him to produce fitting responses in the often pressurized moments of his commissions. Based on his Commune Sans typeface design, Marchal created and facilitated many of the open-source mobilization graphics for the Nuit Debout movement in France.
Hyperakt is an interdisciplinary design and innovation studio invested in working to elevate human dignity, ignite curiosity, and move society forward. Hyperakt’s clients, which include humanitarian and philanthropic organizations, electoral campaigns, research institutes, government agencies, tech innovators and social enterprises, share their commitment to building a more equitable world. The studio works across brand and content strategy, visual identity, web design, and produces particularly impactful data visualization, with a focus on engaging visual storytelling.
Inkahoots is a Brisbane-based design studio with a distinctive visual language and firm commitment to left-wing politics. The studio evolved from a collective of community artists screen-printing political posters in a union basement, to become a multidisciplinary design studio creating spaces for productive social resistance and public dialogue. The studio collaborates locally and internationally on projects of all sizes across a range of media, specializing in the creative integration of physical and digital experiences. A recent example of this work can be seen in their gesture-controlled projection Vexed, which allows participants to wave or destroy flags displaying current mantras of political propaganda. Founding member Jason Grant regularly contributes critical writing to discussions around the possibilities of a radically alternative design practice, challenging the discipline’s reverence of branding and commodity culture.
Loop is a Toronto-based creative agency implementing strategic design to amplify the stories and impact of social enterprises and organisations, non-profits, and NGOs. Their partnerships revolve around improving healthcare, advancing human-rights, community development, and education. They have made public commitments towards fostering an actively anti-racist studio environment and design practice, as well as a professional pledge in the spirit of reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in Canada. Recent work includes design for the North York Women’s Shelter and innovative interactive tools and experiences for WWF Canada.
Partner & Partners is a worker-owned design practice focusing on projects promoting actionable visions for social, economic, and environmental justice. They work across disciplines with collaborators in art, architecture, government and activism. They bring their intelligently executed design work to many activist projects, like their web design for Justseeds, the Waging Nonviolence media platform, and diverse work in support of housing rights. Highlighting these commitments is their work on the exhibition, identity, and publication design for Building for Us with frequent collaborator Interference Archive and the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, which traces the history of racist and exploitative housing policies and disinvestment in New York City, and the rise of modes of resistance such as squatting, co-operative housing, and other forms of self-help housing which advance racial, social, and economic justice through cooperation.
Design to Divest is a Black-led collective of designers, artists, technologists, and strategists focused on creating a more just society through divesting from inequitable systems and institutions, and designing new ones where Black and other marginalized people have true equity and ownership. In addition to providing complimentary graphic design services for Black cause-based organizations, the collective strives to shift power structures by making design education accessible, cultivating a new vanguard of Black creative thought leaders, and supporting Black designers and their work.
The Public is a community-centred activist design studio based in Toronto, partnering with grassroots organizations, non-profits, and those working towards a better world. The studio is guided by ethical and sustainable practices such as eco-friendly printing processes, progressive hiring, local purchasing, democratic decision-making, and maintains a rooted presence in the local communities they work with. The Public’s participatory design processes value the expertise and wisdom participants have derived from lived experiences navigating and surviving systems of oppression, and view these insights as central to design’s ability to generate transformation. Through the creation of popular education resources and facilitation of co-creative workshops, The Public provides opportunities to share knowledge and skills and build capacity among participants to bring about the more just world they wish to see. Housed in the studio’s storefront is The Public Gallery, an exhibition space which seeks to re-imagine how local and marginalized artists can have their work shown and appreciated.
Memefest is an international network of designers, media activists, artists, and academics critically engaged with communications design practice, art and theory. Since 2002, Memefest has showcased, archived, and produced radical design interventions that create situations with the potential to engage people in transformative social relations. Their annual "friendly competition" solicits visual communication projects, innovative approaches to social mobilization, and critical writing from students and professionals as a form of radical pedagogy, knowledge production and relationship building. These competitions feed into inter/extra-disciplinary symposia and workshops where Memefest members take on the role of a temporary design studio producing work for local social justice causes. Memefest also works in publishing, bringing together collective insight generated by these events, creating an ecosystem of knowledge dissemination.
Minute Works is a Manchester-based graphic design studio working with clients sharing their ambitions of a democratic, equitable, and sustainable society. Committed to a responsible investment of time and money, the studio has commendable practices of transparency and accountability about their commissions, costs, and rates, maintaining a publicly accessible Client Disclosure Report, and donating 10% of profits to good causes. A particularly noteworthy project is their work on the website and pocket guides for RiotID, which use infographics and pictograms to illustrate information on riot control weapons, including tear gas safety tips, manufacturer locations, and advice for activists and journalists to monitor human rights violations and challenge use of force abuses.
Vocal Type. Feeling disappointed with a design industry that felt dull and repetitive, and coming to the realization that this was largely due to the homogenous demographics of the professionals working within it, Tré Seals founded Vocal Type in 2016. The type foundry aims to introduce non-stereotypical elements of minority cultures into design through the development of typefaces highlighting histories of protest and resistance by marginalized groups. Each typeface is inspired by a particular history or movement, ranging from the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Argentina to the Civil Rights Movement and Stonewall Riots in the US, and are given names to honour key figures in these struggles such as Eva, Martin, Carrie and Marsha. In the summer of 2020, the studio saw a rapid increase in visibility with its typefaces being used widely on protest signs, banners, murals, and web graphics in support of the Black Lives Matter uprisings.
Firebelly is a socially conscious creative studio based in Chicago dedicated to using their collective power and platforms to dismantle inequity, promote diversity and inclusion, and design a better world. Central to their approach to responsible design, is the understanding that diversity—across age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, citizenship status, education, class and culture—builds perspective and empathy. The studio often works with community-oriented non-profits, foundations, and charity organizations, and through endeavors such as Camp Firebelly, Reason to Give, Firebelly University, and the Grant for Good, they actively support and invest in emerging designers and local community organizations. Firebelly also organizes the annual showcase of experimental typographic design, Typeforce.
Isometric Studio brings together graphic design and architecture to create visual identities and spatial experiences that advance equity and justice, centering the lived experiences of marginalized people. Working with clients that range from cultural institutions and universities to tech companies and non-profits, their projects address complex social issues, amplifying activism on gender equity, climate change, racial justice, LGBT identity, and immigrant rights. Co-authored with Megan Wicks, their project Confronting Unjust Policing: A Primer for Systemic Reimagining, tackles urgent questions about how injustice is embedded within American institutions, providing a blueprint for critical evaluation, and potential pathways for meaningful alternatives to systems like policing and the prison-industrial complex.
And Also Too is a collaborative design studio who work with communities and movements to make tools for liberation and redistribute power through co-design. The studio’s Creative Director Una Lee is co-founder of the Design Justice Network, which aims to connect design practitioners who believe that those who stand to be the most impacted by design projects should be centred in the design process. The Design Justice Principles guide every aspect of their work, focusing on ethical, consentful and collaborative processes beyond end results, building on the creative power of communities working towards a shared goal. Their beautiful work with Indigenous youth on the Feathers of Hope publications exemplify these processes.
Autonomous Design Group is a UK-based independent collective of designers, artists, and creatives opposed to capitalism and authoritarianism who believe in the vital importance of aesthetics as a terrain of political struggle. The collective offers artistic support to activist groups and social movements, aiming to resist capitalism’s strategy of neutralizing radical art and ideas through commodification. They provide open-source editable graphics which anyone can modify and use as a tool for resistance and to disrupt public space in their local contexts.
Sasha Endoh Code & Design is an intersectional feminist digital agency working to strategically uplift the initiatives and voices of those fighting for justice and to make the web accessible to all. Following the belief that technology should be used to amplify voices, empower teams, and build a better world, they work with nonprofits, activists, and cause-based organizations building robust web platforms with a focus on usability and accessibility for both visitors and the teams that run them. Founder and principal Sasha Endoh regularly teaches coding workshops for women and girls, and organizes do_action_mtl, a WordPress hackathon to help local non-profits increase their impact.
Poly-Mode uses graphic design as a tool to better society, inspire people towards self-improvement, and help organizations embrace cultural diversity and community involvement. They work across a range of sectors from art institutions, governmental departments, to HIV/AIDS housing and healthcare advocacy with Housing Works. Poly-Mode’s founder Silas Munro is a committed educator, focusing on expanded design studies with particular interest on the post-colonial relationship between design and marginalized communities. This further takes shape through the studio’s facilitation of BIPOC Design History, which revisits and rewrites the history of design through a series of lectures, readings, and live discussions, centered on previously marginalized BIPOC designers and cultural figures.
Zoff Kollektiv is a Berlin-based visual communications collective working at the intersection of design, art, and politics with groups working towards social, political, environmental, and economic education and transformation. Their work on EU Sanctions Watch, a tool that tracks international sanctions and their impacts, and on RomArchive a website providing sources of knowledge, art, and culture to counter stereotypes and prejudices about the Roma people, exemplify their ability to translate complex information into engaging and accessible forms.
Other Forms is a mobile research and design collective producing exhibitions, publications, writing, and typography exploring how within semi-autonomous marginal spaces, design reflects and critiques the material and social conditions of its practice. Other Forms works contingently and dialectically, seeing their process as a continual improvisation around ideas of work, language, and politics. Their publishing practice explores the aesthetics, mediatization, and ideological forms of political, militant, and experimental communication.
Molotov is a Montreal-based communications co-operative specializing in graphic and web design, campaign strategy, and public relations. They also offer training workshops which provide participants with tools to empower themselves to develop their own communications efforts. These services were created specifically for organizations bringing progress to Quebec, and have been used to increase the impact of clients including political campaigns for Québec Solidaire, community healthcare initiatives, public awareness campaigns, and non-profit research institutes. They are guided by principles of self-management, operate through a non-hierarchical, non-profit model, and choose to work only on projects they can stand behind.
House9 is a Montreal-based collaborative design studio that works internationally with clients in the environmental, educational, public health and cultural sectors across a range of disciplines. They create projects that translate complex research data into accessible and engaging platforms, and collaborate with artists on elegant and minimalist publications and installations. House9 also hosts a podcast featuring in-depth conversations with collaborators and clients.
The Work Department is a women-led social innovation strategy and design firm based in Detroit working with clients who share their values of access, equity, and mutual respect. They use human-centered and participatory approaches which value listening to and learning from the voices of those often left out of design and decision-making processes. These processes and values are evident in their current partnership working with FoodLab Detroit towards building a more equitable, nourishing, and sustainable food system, and tackling issues such as sexual harassment, fair wages, and mental health in the restaurant industry. The Work Department has also been a long-time design collaborator for Allied Media Projects, the organization behind the Allied Media Conference, an annual event that brings together thousands of media, technology and arts activists to connect, exchange and cultivate strategies for social change.
TEMPLO is a London-based branding and digital agency motivated by the belief that design shouldn’t just look good, but should do good as well. Their extensive body of work tackles a myriad of social justice issues including climate change, human rights, international justice, homelessness and migration. Their work on these urgent issues can be seen with the Asylum Support Guides created for Migrant Help, which employ a vibrant visual style and accessible information on various aspects of the asylum process, and their web design for Digital City of Refuge, which presents a collection of impactful visual stories of migrants entering cities in Europe, aimed at contributing to public, academic and policy debates on integration.
Strike Poster is a Winnipeg-based collective of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-fascist graphic designers and artists creating self-directed graphic content that aims to directly challenge dominant narratives and the neoliberal establishment. In addition to this self-directed work, Strike Poster facilitates art builds and skillshares and offers graphic design to local social movements. They have contributed their work to a broad range of campaigns and movements including fights to remove police from Winnipeg schools, tenants’ rights groups, prison abolitionists, anti-austerity activists, grassroots media-makers, left electoral campaigns, and climate justice organizations.
Manoverboard creates online strategies and websites for innovative companies and nonprofits, aiming towards an Internet built using open-source technology and which is accessible to all. The studio undergoes B Corporation certification every two years, for which they must meet standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. Their work with Greyston, a social-enterprise and commercial bakery with an innovative Open Hiring model that grants employment to anyone looking for work (without interviews, resumes, or background checks) exemplifies Manoverboard’s ability to create storytelling platforms that highlight the mission of the organizations they partner with.
GenderFail Press is an imperfect publishing platform fueled by the messiness of collaboration, education, and community, examining various forms of failure as sites of creative potential. Their publications focus on expanding queer subjectivity and pushing against capitalist, racist, ableist, xenophobic, transphobic, homophobic, and misogynist ideologies. In addition to these publications, highlighting the work of other publishers they admire, their GenderFail Archive Project acts as a socially-engaged reading room and reconceives archiving as a social activity. With their Protest Fonts initiative, GenderFail produces typefaces based on protest signs used in queer and trans protests since the Stonewall Riots in 1969.
Sadie Red Wing is a Lakȟóta graphic designer, researcher, and educator from the Spirit Lake Nation of Fort Totten, North Dakota, devoted to visual sovereignty in Indigenous design and advocating for the inclusion of Indigenous perspectives in design curriculum. Her MGD thesis presents a rigorous analysis of Lakȟóta visual language, and her research on using design tools and strategies for cultural revitalization efforts created a new demand for tribal competence in graphic design research. In addition to involvement in on the ground organizing and advocacy work, she has also contributed design in support of the #NODAPL protests in Standing Rock.
Civilization is a Seattle-based design practice working with public, private, and non-profit clients to create identity systems, digital experiences, printed materials, environmental graphics, and exhibitions that are engaging, empathetic, sustainable, and create meaningful connections. The studio also hosts workshops and lectures, produces the interview series Beyond This Point, and runs a not-for-profit gallery called Non-Breaking Space devoted to showcasing important graphic design work. The gallery has hosted a number of exhibitions such as The Design Of Dissent with Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic, Signs Of Resistance: A Visual History of Protest in America with Bonnie Siegler, and As, Not For: Dethroning Our Absolutes curated by Jerome Harris, which highlight critical and often overlooked histories of graphic design as political resistance and critique.
ELLA is a woman and minority-owned design studio that prioritizes marginalized voices, embraces complexity and contradiction, and always brings multiple perspectives to their projects. They are invested in building mutual trust with their clients and cultivating a shared sense of responsibility for the work they create. Their work on exhibition catalogues such as Colored People Time, Regeneracion: Three Generations of Revolutionary Ideology, and Below the Underground: Renegade Art and Action in 1990s Mexico display the studio’s ability to craft politically-engaged designs that are thoughtfully suited to the thematic concerns and subject matter of their clients’ work. With the aim of promoting discussion and furthering understanding of basic typography and graphic design principles, ELLA also collaborates on Design Atlas, an educational tool for teachers, students, and designers. Both partners teach at Art Centre College of Design.
MANY is a New York-based communication design studio focused on the common good, whose work elevates progressive social agendas, sustainable economic endeavours, and prioritizes end users. Principal and Creative Director at MANY, Andrew Shea’s book Designing for Social Change: Strategies for Community-Based Design, provides a hands-on primer for graphic designers looking to use their problem-solving skills towards effective work with community organizations.
