how activists and graphic designers can work together

For many years graphic designers have been influencing human behavior and thought through the use color, placement, font, and imagery to present specific moods or reactions in order to create a desired effect. When this is done for political purposes we have come to know it as propaganda. Many times throughout history people have utilized this power for great evil. For instance, both Hitler and Stalin used propaganda in the 1930's to bolster support and help initiate new recruits into their cause. These days propaganda has become much more subtle in nature. And used lightly because of the bad reputation that was instilled upon it in reaction to acts performed by Hitler. Anti-War protestors have become smarter in the recent years, starting to realize the need to expand into the different types of media to spread their important message. Because of this they have forced themselves to create a relationship with designers who can create posters, fliers, newspapers, magazines, and websites to name a few. In a way that will reach a much broader ad more diverse group of people, protestors are imagined by many as the longhaired, flag burners that we saw much of in the 1960's. In response to this many of the decision-making republicans, and business people are discouraged from becoming allies with protest groups. As graphic designers we are able to define our audience and use many types of media to get a message to that audience. We have a great responsibility to use our skills in a moral and productive manner. Many organizers are working to change their image and as a newspaper article in the New York Times put it "many organizer are trying to sound a note of patriotism and distance themselves from the stereotypical images of angry flag burners or scruffy anarchists." By doing this they have been able to reach much more diverse groups of people, for instance a group of republicans recently published a full page letter in the Wall Street Journal that opposed the war in Iraq, this was organized by movement leaders of a protest group that has been very successful in getting their message heard. A problem that has arisen from the new technology era is the amount of information that is thrown out. People are forced to filter what they take in greatly. Because of this is formed the challenge to grab the attention of the potential audience. We must know the interests and workings of whom we are targeting in order to even get past that filter. Within a few seconds the reader will have either filtered it out or become interested and get involved in the message mentally. Protestors have moved greatly to the Internet. This is a good thing in respect to the fact that it is now out there for anyone to see, however it can also be very limiting. Millions of web sites crowd the Internet and to get a single site noticed there must be other work going on. Other forms of media must be utilized to reach as many people as possible. Posters should be placed strategically around the city, fliers mailed, newspaper ads run. To do this effectively graphic designers must be used. Because we all have to live in this world together there must be ways of communicating, I feel that Humans in a whole have come a long way in finding ways to relate to each other, and I feel that graphic designers have played a huge role in this process. We are able to bridge that gap of beliefs to get an important message out to everyone. We have also worked against ourselves also, by creating more and more cluster we have created a nation with such a short attention span that we have to work even harder to get their attention, on the good side I notice a trend that is producing much simpler and easy to decipher designs in a whole in order to stand out against all the clutter of today's electronic world. . republicans, and business people are discouraged from becoming allies with protest groups. As graphic designers we are able to define our audience and use. For many years graphic designers have been influencing human behavior and thought through the use color, placement, font, and imagery to present