The Graphic Imperative

International Posters for Peace, Social Justice and the Environment 1965–2005

“The poster is the prime field for experimenting with visual language; it is the scene of changing ideas and aesthetics, of cultural, social and political events.”—Pierre Bernard, French designer

Every movement for social change in the past hundred years has begun with the arts. Theatre, poetry, music and posters have been central, but political and social posters in particular, are living reminders of struggles for peace and justice. Whether they communicate, exhort, persuade, instruct, celebrate, or warn, graphic posters still jar us to action through bold messages and striking iconography.

The Graphic Imperative is an exhibition of international sociopolitical posters that stir our emotions yet cause us to reflect. The exhibition of examples of Agitprop provides a window to an age of change, utilizing the power of visual metaphor and at times, savage irony and humor. Themes from the past four decades include dissent, liberation, racism, sexism, human rights, civil rights, environmental concerns, AIDS, war, literacy and tolerance.

These posters have transmitted the ideals, hopes and dreams of millions who have dared to raise their voices in protest or concern. They have helped empower and propel important movements for social change. Some have become icons that have changed the way we view our institutions, our world and ourselves. Because graphic designers need to express their individual views about a cause or issue, their posters are a form of personal expression in a field that often prefers the bland.

By selecting 100+ posters, we have endeavored to show the social, political and aesthetic concerns of many cultures in a single exhibition. In delineating themes and contrasting political realities, we hope to focus the issues of our turbulent times as Cuban poster designer Raul Martinez stated: “putting a graphic face on a movement.”

We have chosen work that is conceptually strong, yet with a direct message. All of the posters selected exhibit a combination of the following qualities; the work is innovative in some way. The work embodies and reasserts the value of a particular way of imparting a point of view to its public. The work is a highly accomplished example of its type in its discipline. The work is of lasting rather than transitory interest. The work contributes strongly to the context of an exhibition. The work exemplifies the exhibition’s key argument that creativity through graphic design is a force for cultural emancipation.

The Graphic Imperative is perhaps the first poster exhibition that offers the public a chance to savor and compare a magnificent body of powerful messages, a seamless blend of text and image.

Authors & Curators:

Elizabeth Resnick, Associate Professor, Communication Design
Massachusetts College of Art + Design, Boston, MA

Chaz Maviyane-Davies, Professor, Communication Design
Massachusetts College of Art + Design, Boston, MA

Frank Baseman, Associate Professor, Graphic Design Communication
Philadelphia University, Philadelphia, PA

Cartoon Network Design at Play

This multi-media exhibit — featuring wide samples of print advertising and marketing materials, billboard executions, premium design, on-air spots, Websites and online games, each designed to support the network’s original animated programming — will spotlight the local talents of Cartoon Network’s renown team of designers, writers, animators, producers and graphic artists.

Spanning three full galleries at MODA, this first-time partnership also will explore the process of creating an animated television program from doodles and 3-D models to styleguides and storyboards. Futhermore, Design at Play will review the “holistic” approach to branding and promotion through multimedia platforms, explore product design and packaging for retail, and highlight creative examples of more traditional advertising.

The Design Prescription (Resurgens + EVo7)

EXTENDED Through December 15th!

(ATLANTA, GA) Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) and the Atlanta Chapter of the American Institute of Architects will present the second exhibition in the Resurgens + Emerging Voices series, The Design Prescription, now extended through December 15th!!. Sponsored by Cooper Lighting and Emory Healthcare and the Woodruff Health Sciences Center. Technical assistance provided by CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health*.

The Design Prescription examines how better urban planning, the built environment and the products used in our environment can positively affect public health. Atlanta’s symptoms are numerous and well documented: obesity, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, feelings of depression and anxiety are prevalent in our community and we believe that smart design can be part of the solution or “the prescription.”

MODA’s galleries are divided into three major topics:

Global Environmental Issues:

From the air we breathe to the water we drink, the environment impacts our health like never before. Georgia ranks in the top 10 of the most polluting states, with Atlanta being near the top of the nation’s most Ozone-polluted cities. With an increasing population comes an increased demand on the natural resources available, straining not on the current ecosystems of the state but also impacting the health of all people.

The Design Prescription

• The 2030 Challenge is a concerted effort directed at asking the building industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid catastrophic climate change
• The United Stated Green Building Council (USGBC) created the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system to focus on integrating sustainable design and building practices into design and construction to limit the waste created, energy consumer and create healthier built environments
• The EarthCraft House is a green building program created as a partnership between the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association and Southface Energy Institute that teaches builders the latest methods and resources for energy-efficient construction.
• Energy Star is a federal government program that promotes energy efficient consumer products

2. Physical Activity:

The simple physical movement of the human body can produce a number of health benefits, yet our current culture does very little to encourage physical activity among adults and children alike. The medical field tells us that ailments like obesity and heart disease can be reduced with physical activity, so what in our built environment prevents or discourages physical movement and what is the solution?

The Design Prescription

• Documented case studies of smart urban planning
• Livable community strategies
• The evolution of the streetscape to encourage walking and biking in Atlanta
• Products, landscape and urban planning along with architectural design that support and encourage physical activity

3. Psychological Concerns:

Feelings of isolation, depression, and stress are serious health concerns that lead to physical manifestations like high blood pressure and obesity. On a daily basis millions of Georgians face these problems and studies show that escalating commute times and traffic are a major stressor for our citizens. The buildings we work in have a major impact on our emotional and physical health. Can better design make us happier and healthier?

The Design Prescription

• Smart growth and planned communities that promote connectivity for life’s daily activities can help reduce traffic congestion, commute times and road rage
• Products that help to create healing environments, such as lighting created to combat seasonal anxiety disorder
• Better designed work spaces can increase productivity

The Design Prescription is the second exhibition in the Resurgens + Emerging Voices series co-produced by MODA and AIA Atlanta. Resurgens is an annual exhibition featuring a current trend or hot topic on the Atlanta architectural scene. This year’s topic of public health grew out of the Green Movement that seems to be everywhere. What are the next steps of sustainability and how will it affect us individually and as a people? Emerging Voices is an annual portfolio review and exhibition organized by the Young Architects Forum of AIA Atlanta. This competition highlights architects working in the field 10 years or less. This year is the 5th anniversary of the Emerging Voices program. Past winners including: dencity design, Alloy Projects, work.group, Plexus R + D, Gamble +Gamble Architects, Brock Green (now with Lord, Aeck & Sargent will contribute models, case studies and drawings offering solutions to the question of how can design affect public health.

MADE in GA

This exhibition is curated by Carie Davis, Design Manager for Coca-Cola & President of IDSA Atlanta and is in conjunction with the Industrial Design department at Georgia Tech. Building off the success of Japanese Design Today, Raymond Loewy: Designs for a Consumer Culture and Design at Play: The High Design of Cartoon Network, MODA’s most popular product design-based exhibitions, MADE in GA will look close to home and feature contemporary product design that has its roots in Georgia.

Including the work of freelance designers and consulting firms as well as corporations and design schools, MADE in GA will highlight the myriad of product design that originates in our home state.

This exhibition will take the viewer inside the world of the industrial designer, and demonstrate the processes and importance of industrial design. MADE IN GA will feature design concepts, works-in-progress, final designs and off-the-shelf products. The audience will be exposed to the processes via concept sketches, renderings, study models, prototypes, digital models, and marketable products. The products showcased will come from Georgia’s varied industries that utilize industrial designer’s skills.

The breadth of the exhibition will further demonstrate the versatility and importance of industrial design. Product examples featured in MADE IN GA will further demonstrate industrial design’s role in social, environmental and economic issues and inspire consumers to think critically about the products they buy and the manner in which they are produced.

On You

Georgia Institute of Technology students’ work will be displayed in an exciting exhibition entitled On You opening January 31 ^st 5-8pm and running through May 3^rd, 2008 at Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA).

On You is an exploration of our close, daily relationship with technology through projects and ideations created by students of the Computer Science and Industrial Design programs at Georgia,” explains co-curator Clint Zeagler.

Zeagler, alongside co-curator Thad Starner taught a class on Wearable Electronics during Fall Semester 2007, which was the first partnership between the Computer Science and Industrial Design departments. The class demonstrated how technological innovation must meet functionality and pleasing aesthetics in order to create a marketable product.

“Police Assist”, a remarkable project on display is an automated, unobtrusive data collection system to be worn by police officers that incorporates a body-mounted high resolution camera that allows for recording and transmission of data. The students’ goals for the product:

• Gather live evidence, such as more accurate descriptions of incidents and to protect officers from frivolous lawsuits
• Transmit the officer’s location to other officers and their station
• Monitor the status of multiple patrolling officers

“SmartNoti”-short for Smart Notification is a resourceful response to a common problem. Based on the observation that people often misplace or leave their personal belongings, the SmartNoti is a device that was designed as a bracelet or hooded jacket that is BlueTooth enabled. The user would tag his/her personal belongings—like an mp3 player, cell phone, wallet or keys with small Bluetooth markers. Whenever the user gets out of range of his/her belongings, their bracelet or hooded jacket would receive a vibration or LED light alert. The lights and vibrations can be customized to the user’s preferences.

These are just two examples of the innovative and inspired products on display. Along with the actual prototypes, look for a description of the process of how these products came to exist explained through drawings, graphics and video.

On You is sponsored by The GVU Center at Georgia Tech.

The Furniture of Eero Saarinen: Designs for Everyday Living

In cooperation with Knoll, the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) presents the first exhibition to examine the complete range of furniture designs of Eero Saarinen. Widely heralded as America’s foremost architect in the 1950s, Eero Saarinen (1910 – 1961) gained his earliest international prominence with his prize winning furniture designs done with Charles Eames for the 1941 Museum of Modern Art Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition. Saarinen’s subsequent cooperation with his life-long friend Florence Knoll resulted in his most noted designs: the Grasshopper Chair, the Womb Chair and derivative 70-Series seating, and the iconic Pedestal Series of tables and chairs.

Designs for Everyday Living presents examples of Saarinen’s early furniture designs, sketches, photographs and descriptions of each of Saarinen’s furniture designs and collections. Knoll has provided archival examples and pieces of Saarinen’s timeless designs from current production.

Eero Saarinen, son of Eliel Saarinen, architect and director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art from its inception in 1925, did his earliest furniture designs while still in high school, creating a strikingly modernist master bedroom suite for the family’s Cranbrook residence. In 1931, after a year of study in Paris following his high school graduation, Saarinen worked with his father on the design of the furniture for the Cranbrook Kingswood School for Girls.

One of the students at Kingswood the next year was Florence Schust, who arrived and announced her desire to study architecture. Such charming self-assurance intrigued Eliel Saarinen and his wife, and Florence Schust virtually became a member of the Saarinen family, traveling with them to Finland and throughout Europe during the summers of her Cranbrook years.

When Florence Schust married Hans Knoll, forming Knoll Associates in 1946, it was a very short time before Eero Saarinen’s furniture designs were being developed and produced by Knoll Associates.

The Museum of Design Atlanta is fortunate to have worked closely with Knoll in the planning of this exhibition. Additional assistance has come from Brian Lutz, author of “Form and Innovation,” an essay on Eero Saarinen’s furniture that is included in Shaping the Future, catalog of the current traveling exhibition celebrating the centennial of Eero Saarinen’s birth. Lutz is also the author of the upcoming monograph, The Furniture of Eero Saarinen, scheduled for publication by Yale University Press in 2008.

ID3×5: A Celebration of Design at Grady High

In 2004, Grady High School added a new instructional emphasis to its Communication Magnet program in an effort to allow students to explore the real-life challenges faced by designers. Known as Digital Media Design, the program assigns projects that center on a theme common to all students – awareness of identity. The Museum of Design Atlanta’s (MODA) newest exhibit, ID3×5, encompasses five years of these student projects related to personal, school and community identity.

Projects range from Books and Bricks, an original student book documenting the story of the renovation of Grady High School from the students’ perspective, to an exhibit of models proposing innovative designs for a transit station along the Atlanta Beltline. Above all, ID3×5 is a celebration of how students have worked at designing themselves - as people, students and citizens.

Emerging Voices 2008

The Museum of Design Atlanta’s (MODA) Emerging Voices 2008 showcases the masterful design work of young Atlanta architects. Winning entries from The Young Architects Forum (YAF) of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Atlanta Chapter’s architectural design competition (House Walker Architecture, Ai3, and Ed Akins II) and the winner and entries of the first AIA Atlanta 48-Hour Design Competition will be displayed.

About Emerging Voices:

Emerging Voices is an annual portfolio based competition established by Atlanta’s Young Architects Forum (YAF: ATL) and the AIA Atlanta Chapter, highlighting exemplary work of young architects and designers in Atlanta today. Projects of all types, theoretical or real, built or unbuilt, are welcome.

Emerging Voices has a mission to recognize works of high quality at the early stages of one’s career and provide a public forum for its exhibition. The competition rewards emerging professionals who are striving to practice their craft and considering the peculiarities of a specific geographic environment: Atlanta.

Emerging Voices has established a record of accomplishment among architects in Atlanta as the singular, local competition that identifies a bright new spot on the metropolitan design scene.

Holiday Card Sale and Exhibition

MODA very first Holiday Card Sale kicked off the first week in October, 2008.  The Card Sale included fabulously designed cards that were created by Atlanta’s best design talent. MODA was delighted to bring great design to Atlanta during the holiday season!

In the Bag

The Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) will open its newest exhibition, “In the Bag,” on February 5. The exhibition will run through May 2, 2009, and will explore the origin, evolution and design of the handbag.

Curated by Atlantans Clint Zeagler and Kevin Knaus, the exhibition takes the visitor from “design to delivery” of the handbag, showcasing top bags from the Friends and Sex and the City sets and from both local and leading designers, including Hermes and Oscar de la Renta among others.

“Atlantans will have the chance to see a unique and captivating showcase of handbags,” says Zeagler, owner and creative director of Pecan Pie Couture, an Atlanta womenswear line. “It’s a one-of-a-kind opportunity to really delve into the design and appeal of the handbag.”

The exhibition will begin by emphasizing the development and construction of different handbags and will move into the works of leading designers, displaying their collections within categories that highlight the handbag’s emotional significance, iconic status and societal role.

The exhibit concludes with handbags designed by students in the Master of Accessories Design programs from the Domus Academy in Milan, Italy, and the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia.

“The handbag plays such an important role in our society, and yet many people are unaware of the process that goes into its design,” says Knaus, vice president of Global Fashion and trend director for Material World, a leading global textile, trim and apparel sourcing show in the Americas. “With ‘In The Bag,’ viewers will understand that process and – hopefully – recognize these bags as the works of art that they are.”

“In the Bag” sponsors are Atlanta Magazine, YKK Zippers, American Tanning & Leather Co., Lee’s Signs and the Savannah College of Art and Design.