OUGD505 - Design Practice 2 [SB2] - Historical Action Organisations

In order to further my research, I will be looking at some of the most effective action organisations of the past and their manifesto's and how they achieved their aims.

Take back the Night

Take back the Night is a foundation founded in the early 1970's and still operates today. Take back the Night involves a nighttime march by women and men alike to protest against sexual assault and harassment. The marches began in 1975 with towns coming together to condemn sexual assault and spread to many different reaches of the world. The simplicity of the protests meant that everyone could come together for a single cause and walking through the night gave the protesters a sense of empowerment you wouldn't usually have so late in the day.

In the context of design, the protest collateral seeks to empower and directly address the audience, in order to create a sense of urgency towards the audience to act. The use of contrast and bold imagery/typefaces definitely coincides with most of the collateral created over the foundation's existence, and I think creating such design is a tried and tested formula with protest material.

Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter is an organisation formed in 2013 to combat the police brutality towards black people in America. There is slim chance you haven't heard of this movement before, meaning the movement has definitely succeeded in raising awareness of the issue going on in America and even other countries today. The key to the Black Lives Matter movement is the fact that the organisation is decentralised and has no clear hierarchy. This creates an opportunity to empower everyone freely and the lack of hierarchy means the movement becomes much more democratic, reaching more corners of the earth than any other movement. This is also one of the first global movements in the digital age and it clearly takes advantage of this with the hashtag BlackLivesMatter amassing hundreds of millions of uses throughout their operation.

In the context of my project, the main take-aways of this movement is how powerful social media is in reaching an audience. The movement would have never become this large without the use of Twitter primarily, where people are able to share their experiences live. In order to create a viral campaign around gentrification, I would have to find a way to empower disgruntled individuals and make their voices heard. Below is some of the collateral the Black Lives Matter movement has created.

Scrap Trident

Scrap Trident is a movement dedicated to stopping the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent in the UK. Trident is an operation consisting of four submarines with nuclear weapons, of which one is constantly patrolling the border as a deterrent to other countries. This operation is due to be renewed in costs of up to £25bn. With such an extortionate amount of money, you have to wonder if we really need such a deterrent in the world we have today. Scrap Trident is more of a classic protest group, utilising word of mouth to their advantage. They benefit from listing protests on their website and aiming to use analog advertising to attract fellow protestors. Below are some of the images taken at their protests.