PROPAGANDA AND GRAPHIC DESIGN Sergio Reyes

What is Propaganda Propaganda is defined as a systematic propagation of official government policies through manipulating communications to the public The main uses of propaganda that most people remember are of the Political Party. The party uses propaganda as a powerful weapon against citizens. They control people’s minds with rumours, myths, ideas and false information. An Example of propaganda used by the Party is ‘doublethink’, “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength’, is the Party’s slogan. Nowadays we all know this is wrong but back then this was only a message by the government sent to the public to convince them to believe this. Citizens would believe most things the government said, especially if it’s done as propaganda.

Propaganda Today Many people believe that any persuasive communication is propaganda, one example is corporate advertising, and this applies to this day and age. Although many view propaganda as a bad cause, it sometimes isn’t, you may say propaganda used by the government today isn’t as bad as it used to, things like anti-littering campaigns aren’t exactly bad. Propaganda isn’t necessarily bad, it has just been used in a bad ways in the past. Propaganda may even be the truth, but it’s the government and designers who choose to display only one side of the story without mentioning any negatives or fewer negatives.

Graphic Design Graphic design had an important role, mainly in World War I and the Revolution of Russia. After the invention of the printing press, it became possible for printing posters/books. It was much easier and less risky to publish mass amounts of posters than oral propaganda, so artists like V.V. Mayakovsky and the Russian Telegraph Agency were asked to create posters to influence the opinions and behaviour of the people during the war. Although Russia was first to publish propaganda poster, the USA were the ones who got it noticed more and managed to publish more poster than any other war-nation.

How it was all influenced It wasn’t much what influenced the artists to create such posters in the early 20 th Century, but what influenced the public from these propaganda posters. The Soviet War and the First World War was happening at the time when propaganda became radical. These posters were so important around those times that millions were printed. Their main aim was to manipulate men to join the war (even by emotional blackmail), change political view, and any way which helped out during the war. Graphic design played a leading role as it’s a way of communication and it’s universally understood. Because visual images can be easily perceived, sometimes emotionally and understood immediately. As propaganda was commonly used by Nazi and communists, it was given a negative polish to the word. Artists in modern day take so much influence from early 20 th century to, again, influence the public opinion with powerful but none forceful technique. Arguably, this period changed the design/advertising world forever. Now it’s hard to tell whether corporate brand posters are propaganda or advertising.

‘Hope’ By Shepard Fairey This is the iconic Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster Designed by artist Shepard Fairey. The poster is a stylised pencil drawing of Obama in colours very unusual to be used in modern day/politics. It was made to look from early 20 th Century, in the era of the propaganda posters. The poster uses the same 3 colours used on most propaganda posters by the US Government during the Second World War. The pop art and pencil Style is what makes the poster stand out, with also the facial expression by the President making you believe that there is ‘Hope’.

Videos