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The article Cada um mais um was originally published on Experimenta Design’s website (PDF).
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Each one another one
Graphic Design as tool for social analysis

A few weeks ago, when I looked at some books documenting posters from the 25th April of 1974 (Portuguese Carnation Revolution), I was able to observe once again the quality of the visual communication during this period.

I was revisiting many of these works due to my participation in Experimenta Design 2009 and the challenge that it was given to me: to choose a Portuguese design object and to think how to “add value” to it. All, under the umbrella of the exhibition’s motto Less is Better.

Thirty-five years ago, the political and social ideologies were presented to society through posters, spreading messages with a strong visual identity. This identity was either imported from other countries’ movements (Russian Constructivism or the Swiss International Style, for example) or was the result of the affirmation of the quality of Portuguese graphic design through the use of iconography and illustration.

Today, the affixation of posters on walls is prohibited and cities are overcrowded with expensive and exclusive poster displays, framed by a stylized box that makes them look the same. The flood of totalitarian publicity, defined by a ubiquitous marketing policy, makes the access to independent communication extremely difficult and limited - both to emitter and receiver. In addition, we can observe a social conformism and somnambulism created by an environment that manipulates, disfigures and controls.

Using Graphic Design as a tool to reflect upon this phenomenon, I started to look at the way through which the Portuguese political parties convey their ideas to their citizens.

One of the first steps was to analyze the logos and typefaces of the five main political parties.

With exception of Bloco de Esquerda, all the parties use italic versions of their chosen typeface, trying to suggest dynamism and a sense of speed. The Social Democrat Party is the only one that uses a typeface with some serif elements (Optima), which normally attributes it a connotation of conservativeness. However, until very little time ago, the typeface was very similar to Portuguese Communist Party’s, with a publicly criticized re-branding. Furthermore, what is curious and paradoxical to note is that the typefaces used by the Portuguese Communist Party and the Popular Party (liberal-conservative) are nearly the same. They are in fact so similar, that only a very astute observer will notice the differences.



This says a lot about the way through which the parties speak to the voters and are concerned about their identity. A few months ago, on the occasion of the political posters exhibition at Lisbon’s Design Museum, the design critic Mário Moura said that the Portuguese political communication is homogenous and that the goal is to point at the centre, hence not alienating potential voters.

In fact, this strategy can be observed in many outdoors, where new brands replace the logos (identity) of the parties. Since a few years ago, the Socialist Party presents itself as New Frontiers. The iconic closed fist that was born with the party, gave its place to a rose, that now evolved into an imperceptible stylized version, supported by two axis and forming a sort of target. The 3 logos cohabit on the posters, flyers and web, making the identity very foggy.



The Bloco de Esquerda also uses traditional corporate communication, but opts many times for satire, using various visual effects that normally have an amateurish result. In reality, the satiric aspect is normally so exaggerated and visually incoherent, that its identity is continuously fighting for its survival.

PSD (Social Democratic Party) calls itself Politics of Truth, joining a hand with the shape of a “V” of victory to its logo. For several times, it’s this “V” that represents and explains/ communicates to the citizens what this party is. On Twitter, PSD calls this space Follow the Truth. On flickr, an on-line image archive, the title is Portrait of Truth. What we can find in here are the party’s posters, where we can see many photographic portraits of its main candidate, thus making herself synonym of truth. PSD is now simply V.

It is also curious to note that on Portuguese political posters, from left to right wing, the number of colours used as background is increasingly bigger. This option is obviously linked with the intention of not wanting to exclude anyone, of trying to please everyone. Thus, we can see outdoors on Portuguese streets with big gradients of colour and versions a, b, c and d of the same poster, but with different colours. So, the loss of identity is also increased by the (mis)use of colour.

At a time where every year we see renewed states of crisis, it won’t be a surprise if I say that Portugal also suffers from a profound identity crisis in terms of social and political visual communication.

What it is possible to observe on the several poster archives of the Carnation Revolution period, is that 35 years ago there was a big necessity of communicating with the population, of agitation, of promoting discussion without fear of assuming differences. Today, the goal is to get diluted as much as possible on the landscape, to confuse and to be a manipulated chameleon by fast marketing.
Naturally, designers have responsibility in this current reality, as they do little or nothing to fight this uncritical and somnambulist environment.

Designers and other Professional mediators have proved, unfortunately, to be unable to stay out of this ongoing colonization of the media and have found themselves incapable of renegotiating an attitude which is related to the benefit of all. As a result, the image of reality they produce consists of no more than a myriad of individual sidetracks, reduced to mere form and stereotypical content. Because designers and intellectuals fail to reflect critically upon the condition under which their own action comes about, their mediating role between private and public interest has been lost. The visual language of graphic or other design - originally intended as an emancipating force - has been replaced by the forms of expression of advertising and public relations. ¹

Thus, there is a strong relation of complicity/ responsibility between all the parts involved on the process of emission, production, mediation, manipulation and reception of information.

On the Portuguese top 5 of most sold newspapers, there are 3 daily sports (football) newspapers. And on the top of tv ratings are constantly either football games or soap operas. This says a lot about the capacity of the population to seek refugee - after bombardment - on idols that are renewed each day, actors that appear and vanish, like brands, like logos, like the identity of the parties. The time given to brands like CR9 (football player Cristiano Ronaldo), exceeds by a great margin what is reasonable and only promotes a flashing signal of hypnotism, distracting from social reflection.
It is then worth noting that the gradient or rainbow that we see on the outdoors of Portuguese streets, is the same that comes out of the televisions and of the internet (the sports newspaper A Bola, is the most read website in Portugal).

For these reasons, I selected a poster from an unknown author, produced circa 1974.

It is a poster from an extinct political party (MDP/CDE), that uses the chorus (bring another friend) of a famous song by then politically engaged Zeca Afonso. The logos that were already visual metaphors for people, are transformed now into human body icons. The poster constructs a narrative through a pattern and aims to be a contribution for the promotion of reflection between independent and institutionalized communication. It proposes to establish and confront the relation between citizens and an environment of hypnotism and illusion: each one, another one.

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¹ van Toorn, Jan; Jan van Toorn: Design’s Delight, 010 Publishers, 2006, pp. 28