White Nationalist or Alt-Right leader Richard Spencer speaks garbage to power. His “Hail Trump!” Neo-Nazi, white supremacy rhetoric must be met with virulent official and popular protest. Complacency is not an option; certainly not for Spencer, who is taking this surreal time period in the wake of Trump’s victory to air the movement’s trash with a more visible presence. If freedom is to continue, the enemies of freedom must be condemned with all the force that designers of all stripes can muster. It is not about partisanship—prejudice is not partisan. Freedom and Justice are our national legacy, not this from the The Atlantic this week.
Some will ask, what does design have to do with it? Really? Design frames and conveys ideas. Bad ideas can be graphically communicated as easily as good ones. Symbolic representations have deep significance. The man below with raised arm yelling “Hail Trump” is making a graphic statement. The salute recalls Fascism, the propagation of which was and is bolstered by graphic design. Symbols support and yet are often louder than words. Graphic designers are purveyors of both.
