
16
ANATOMY OF DESIGN
Activist design—those posters, billboards, books, and so on that force the viewer
to emphatically react to a social or political message—is not as easy as placing
some smart words and startling pictures together on a layout. Many are the
designers with good intentions who produce ineffectual though socially virtuous
missives; few are those who overcome the impulse to overdesign,
overconceptualize, and overinternalize their work so it can be both exemplary
design and functional activist communication. But for every dozen misguided
pieces calling for an end to war, poverty, and inequality, one or two hit the
mark by forcing the audience ...