It’s six o’clock in the afternoon. Inside the bus there are around 80 people, many of them standing. Apart from the city raining outside, the only unusual thing to be found inside the bus is a poster, sitting too small inside the frame. Carris *1 puts up these occasional posters to inform us, among other things, about the February 11th referendum *2. We all know about the referendum, we all watched the impassioned debates and the book launches on TV, we all read the blogs, the billboards, the pamphlets given to us with “Agora Sim!” [Now Yes!] and “Não Obrigada” [No Thank You] *3. Nothing surprises us anymore: we’re all used to the “media circus” that characterizes any electoral act in Portugal. Nevertheless, this poster only tells us that “to vote is a right and a civic duty”. No one doubts that. But will this poster, with its hypothetical rising sun and blue sky, convince us to express our opinion, to answer “yes” or ”no” to the question we will find on the voting ballots *4?
The Portuguese State, represented in the referendum by the Technical Secretariat of Electoral Process Affairs (STAPE) of the Interior Ministry, calls for our vote through, among other media, a “referendum announcer poster” (official term), which is found posted in public buildings and vehicles throughout the country. However shouldn’t a “referendum announcer poster” have as its fundamental goal not only to inform, but to captivate and mobilize public opinion – we, the citizens standing during rush hour, who have other things to think about – to the electoral act it refers to? Shouldn’t the duties and the rights this poster invokes be present in a more incisive way in the very message and the discourse it conveys?
This discourse, built on a poster from orthographical (words/typography) and iconographical elements (images/graphical signs), should call to attention of passengers and other citizens, making them think about both their convictions and their future choices. Unfortunately, the poster in question does not correspond at all to the proposed objectives: its formal organization is insipid, its typographical use and composition are tenuous and ill-resolved in terms of spacing and alignment, its chromatic gradients and subtle morph – the progressive graphical transformation of one shape into another – are inappropriate and inconsequential. This poster, designed by STAPE’s resident “graphic arts technician” (the author of other posters used in recent electoral acts, visible at stape.pt) is, at best, a lost opportunity.
In Portugal there are thousands of professionals – communication designers – that through their power of observation, knowledge, creativity and talent convey messages and discourses of all kinds, using an array of media. These are the people who shape the majority of our visual landscape – inside and outside the rainy bus – and as such their work deserves to be recognized by all Portuguese. But more than recognizing it, we should all be even more demanding with what surrounds us, with what is communicated to us every day.
An example of this exigency is the “Get Out the Vote” initiative from AIGA, which began after the Florida voting ballot scandal of the 2000 presidential election. Under the motto of “Good design makes choices clear”, many of it associates designed posters with one sole objective: to call on people to register and to turn out to vote. In one of them, from a studio in Maryland, we can see, and read, three words and an exclamation mark, one single typeface, and four colours. Nothing else. The composition is as clear as its message, and the urgency as present as necessary. That the Maryland poster (all posters are available for download on aiga.org) is graphically superior to the STAPE poster I have not the slightest doubt. But perhaps the most important thing about this poster is that it is proposed, both in form and content, by the very members of society – designers conscientious of their civic rights and duties – supposedly responsible for the State’s communication, with which they are evidently unsatisfied. Just as we should be, when we glance at the poor poster inside the bus that takes us home. If image and communication are a means for legitimizing the State, then the quality of the former should rise to the aspirations of the latter, and should not be understood as a mere bureaucratic procedure. Furthermore, the State, and all its institutions, should play an active role and contribute in a significant and enduring manner to the elevation of the visual culture of its citizens: they should be the first to have that exigency, and look for the right professionals to meet it.
To the American designer and theoretician Katherine McCoy, “design can never rise above its content.” In the case of this referendum’s “announcer poster”, the situation is perversely inverse: Democracy’s greatest act – the act of voting – failed once again in finding a deserving interlocutor, one that should have been elected by the very State it validates.
Should that have happened, perhaps we would have left the bus with the feeling we had seen something meaningful.
by Frederico Duarte after the Portuguese referendum, February 2008. Originally published in Portuguese, in Público newspaper.
3 Comments, Comment or Ping
jason kenny
Just like you, I go forever with out reading RSS. My view is, if it’s important at all, It will hit my twitter stream.
Jan 17th, 2009
Errol Bailey
I assume the poster in question was referring to the abortion referendum last year. However, for the purposes of my reply, it does not really matter.
I should confess that I do not have a background in design, but I also feel that isn’t relevant for the purpose of my reply. If it is, I’m sure someone will let me know!
One thing that the author of the article wrote that did not sit well with me was the following: “However shouldn’t a “referendum announcer poster” have as its fundamental goal not only to inform, but to captivate and mobilize public opinion.”
What I understood from this is that it should be the State – in this case the Portuguese State – that “captivates and mobilises” public opinion. I’m not sure I would wholly agree with this statement.
As has been seen with previous referendums regarding the EU constitution, the State’s interests are not always at one with those of the majority of its citizens. I do not believe that modern States are able to captivate and mobilise their citizens in a non-partisan manner, nor do they seek to. Thus, the idea that we should want the State to captivate and mobilise the people, who could well be worse off should the State successfully captivate and mobilise, seems illogical.
The author of the above article uses the “Get Out the Vote” initiative from AIGA, which ran under the motto “Good design makes choices clear,” to illustrate effective design. But we have to be clear that the AIGA posters were commissioned by the design community for the wider community; they were not commissioned by the State.
Furthermore, despite AIGA’s request for non-partisan works, the very fact that the campaign existed can be interpreted as a partisan act: a response to the frustration and disillusionment in American politics that was clearly evident during and after the 2000 Florida voting scandal.
While I agree that the Portuguese referendum poster is insipid and uninspired, I don’t believe we should ask contemporary governments – which are more interested in manufacturing opinion – to be responsible for captivating and mobilising public opinion. We should assume responsibility for it.
The Portuguese referendum was not the State’s referendum; it was the public’s referendum. Those in the community who cared about the issue at hand were the ones who should have been doing the captivating and mobilising…just as AIGA did.
Jan 21st, 2009
Reply to “The Bureaucratic Duty to Inform”