How graphic designers are keeping the light of Labour shining
Labour Party Graphic Designers are an independent network of graphic designers who support the Labour Party, they celebrate the best art and design of the movement, past and present.
Art and design is an important tool when used politically, just think about the ‘Dig For Victory’ posters or Obama’s ‘Hope’ campaign. You can draw out complex politcal ideas and dilute it down to a few letters, a symbol or a sentence or two. Artists can bring communities together whilst unravelling a conversation which the community may not have thought about in a very comsumable way.
Why was ‘Labour Party Graphic Designers’ started?
The initial intention was to create a network of creatives in the party — you have the Jewish Labour Movement, Socialist Health Association, Labour Muslim Network, the Society of Labour Lawyers, Labour Party irish Society, the list goes on and on and on, but there was never a nucleus for creatives in the party. The left has ownership over a rich history of design, and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that over the last couple of decades the party and the broader left has possibly lost its way with design. Not in a particularly codified way, but when we started, we started with a loose ambition that we could perhaps in some way contribute to improving the quality of design in the movement.
Insofar as how that’s changed — we’ve done a lot of matchmaking between local candidates and designers, that grew purely organically from a lot of requests when we initially started up. Building links with the party, various campaigns and trade unions has been great in our growth — our main objective is to add value to the party and to the movement so understanding the needs of these various organs of the party has been helpful.
Design and graphics has been a necessary tool for campaigns since forever, you have examples from 1928 up until probably last week. How was the journey finding and collecting these pieces?
It’s been great — a lot of some of the best stuff from the party’s history is pretty buried. Iconic designs like ‘Labour’s Health Service Covers Everyone’ and the ‘Labour for Homes’ posters are well known, but stumbling upon lesser known designs like FHK Henrion’s ‘It’s Part of Labour’s Plan’ series and being able to give them a new lease of life is great. Recently we were given the heads up on Twitter about a typesetting and layout guide for the party from 1948 titled ‘Soldiers of Lead’, we got our hands on a copy and it’s wonderful. Watch this space, but maybe we’ll try and give that a bit of a reimagining for the digital age.
Design is a big part of defying opposition, especially in todays climate-
We touched on the idea earlier about the party and perhaps the broader left losing its way in design somewhat. The two issues that are at hand here is the professionalisation of the party — brand guidelines, in-house design teams, the fast pace social media and having to be reactive all have the capacity to strangle creativity somewhat. Historically the party did not have designers in house or appointed agencies, but used sympathetic designers — folks like Abram Games, FHK Henrion, James Boswell all come to mind. These artists created a lot of designs which are still some of the most iconic designs in the party’s history.
The other way in which we may have lost our way is being in the mindset of opposition and our art repeating that. Protest art is great, there are plenty of iconic designs from the genre and after a decade in opposition it’s easy to start off from the base perspective of being opposed to what the government is currently doing — this can unfortunately come at the expense of projecting our normative vision of what a better world could look like. Some of my personal favourite pieces from our artpacks have been designs which latch on to the notion of building a better world.
You’ve been connecting artists and creatives all over the country during quite an unfortunate time for labour supporters, how has Labour Party Graphic Designers helped yourself and your community when diagnosed with a tory government?
We definitely could have launched in less bleak times. We started up around March/April of last year and between Brexit, the election and the current pandemic it’s been pretty full on shit. Hopefully the work LPGD is putting out has added some vibrance and joy into the party. We try and stay out of any factional beef too much since there are enough avenues in the party for people to do that already.
Could you shout out your top 10 designs?
Ten is hard! Designs from the vault, I’d have to say Abram Games ‘Now Win the Peace’ is exceptional. The Labour’s Got Life and Soul campaign from the 60’s really sticks with me as well for being so far away from anything a party would do now. Boswell’s ‘Let’s Go with Labour’ posters are also pretty timeless
With regards to designers producing great work for the movement at the moment I think Italiano, Cutwerk, Myles Hunt Design, Toby Forster are doing really interesting things.
Labour Party Graphic Designers have their latest artpack on supporting key workers live on their website, including a brilliant foreword by the comedian Frankie Boyle. Submissions are currently open for a second edition of the pack on the same theme!
Website: https://www.labourdesign.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/labourdesign
Art Packs: https://www.labourdesign.co.uk/art-packs
Instagram: @labourdesign
