I stayed home sick today. In sweatpants. Hot tea, the internet and me.
I Google myself.
I am looking for a doppelganger and I find one. At Friendsoflasser.com, there is a Jim Lasser who is running for Greenburgh Town Supervisor. He seems nice enough. He wants to “clean up,” “heal,” “normalize.” I like him. If I lived in Greenburgh, I would probably vote for him.
Jim of Greenburgh is not a designer. And it’s pretty safe to say, after looking at his website, that he didn’t hire one either. The sad fact is that good graphic design has influence over all of our culture, yet there is a profound absence of it in our elections.
There is a constant complaint that people don’t vote, and thus don’t care about elections. The vote is taken for granted, people say, and we fail to remember the struggle and importance of a free democracy.
I agree with these people. Very few people really care about elections anymore. In general, we are a selfish people, who fail to see beyond our own jobs, pets and haircut appointments. Civic pride and a belief in the importance of the vote is a sad casualty of our modern world. Quite simply, we live in a world in which there is just too much stuff: too many responsibilities, too much guilt, too many choices of coffee, too many movie stars. To make things worse, we are now at the dawn of the Three Screen Era: besides television, handheld devices and our computers will compete for the bulk of our attention.
With this as a backdrop (an oversimplified one, I know), it is no wonder that elections get relegated to our collective back-burner for attention.
Each November our sidewalks and roadways are littered (pun intended) with the tepid signs of candidates for office. Along with remnants of the faded cardboard draculas of halloween, the cocaine grins of real estate agent boards, and balloons tied to mailboxes identifying birthday party victims, we see the posters for candidates. It is amongst this grotesque camouflage that we are expected to get excited, get involved, and find time in our busy lives on a coming Tuesday to vote.
I agree with my grandfather’s generation. They would say that it is our duty as Americans to vote; democracy does not need to put on makeup to get the people’s attention. Sadly though, Americans are different animals than they were fifty years ago. We are more insular. We are an island to ourselves. We have shorter attention spans. It is marketing and design that has increasingly played a key role in bringing us out of the cave of ourselves—compelling us to read, participate or, more likely, spend. Our elections are far too important to not be refreshed and updated to fit with the times.
By example, take another olde event that we still participate in. Think about modern parades. If we were to recreate the ideal of a parade in our mind, likely there would be cheering, clapping and smiles. But if you were to go to a parade in 2005, you would see mouths half-open, vacant stares, and parents blankly compelling their children to clap while constantly checking the clocks on their cellphones. The parade is a 19th Century event that translates poorly to our “Three Screen” world. This is but one example of the rituals of a bygone era going bye-bye.
Unlike parades, voting is a fixture of our government. It is here to stay. But what is dangerously in doubt is the participation of the citizenry. Designers would do well to think about how we can reinvigorate people to get involved again.
Of course there are other factors why we don’t vote. There is a general distrust of government because of Vietnam, Watergate, Monica, etc. There is mudslinging amongst candidates. There are still parts of this country where non-white people have a struggle in voting. I am not saying a dose of good design can solve all of it, but it is a good place to start.
Furthermore, it can be done. Election graphics do not have to be red, white, blue and Helvetica. They do not have to be safe and vanilla. We only have to open a book and look to our historic enemies: the Communists, the Nazis, the Cubans are all famous for strong graphics and the reactions they created in the populace. And we don’t have to relegate our messages to 19th Century devices either. Blogs are a good start, but there needs to be more innovation. The 21st Century animal is not paying attention to posters, handbills and balloons. We need to embrace the Three Screen mentality and create new devices to permeate the citizenry. We need to recognize the evolution in ourselves, and see what we pay attention to.
Quite literally, the free world depends on it.
jimm,
welcome as an author to speakUp. looking forward to your contributions. good post. i have to admit that i'm one of those designers who thinks during election season that " i will put my design skills to work next time." needless to say that i don't do much once november passes, only to go through the same thoughts again next year.
On Oct.24.2005 at 10:02 PM