tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59004543187013204172024-03-05T18:54:41.060+00:00Election AestheticsPolitics / Design / Visual Culture / AestheticsSam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-46236595703090304542016-02-21T16:05:00.004+00:002016-02-21T16:06:54.233+00:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">So, with the US Election process underway, and now a date set for the UK Europe referendum it seems like a good time to get Election Aesthetics going again. Once again, we're looking for submissions that note, analyse and otherwise consider the visual culture of modern politics - So please do feel free to contact us with ideas and contributions!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">To get the ball rolling, here is a link to something less contemporary but no less fantastic. Joan Didion's essay 'Many Mansions' (published in the excellent collection The White Album) is a tour de force of journalism, describing the Governor's Mansion built by Nancy and Ronald Reagan in 1975. Never finished, the Reagan's never moved in, yet through Didion we see this vacant mansion as an exposition of the soul of what she termed the 'California Republic'.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Full text <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YNrHCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT44&lpg=PT44&dq=%22joan+didion%22+%22many+mansions%22&source=bl&ots=mAR7ZgpeT0&sig=ae66D4PzJRbaZbsbrjxDVzjcejE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwitv9SRlonLAhVJXBQKHfzqDHUQ6AEIKjAC#v=onepage&q=%22joan%20didion%22%20%22many%20mansions%22&f=false" target="_blank">here</a>, but below some extracts:</span><br />
<i><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">“It is simply and rather astonishingly an enlarged version of a very common kind of California tract house, a monument not to colossal ego but to a weird absence of ego… mediocre and ‘open’ and as devoid of privacy or personal eccentricity as the lobby area in a Ramada Inn.”</span></i></div>
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...<br />
<i><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">"‘Flow’ is a word that crops up quite a bit when one is walking through the place, and so is ‘resemble.’ The walls ‘resemble’ local adobe, but they are not: they are the same concrete blocks, plastered and painted a rather stale yellowed cream, used in so many supermarkets and housing projects and Coca-Cola bottling plants. The door frames and the exposed beams ‘resemble’ native redwood, but they are not: they are construction-grade lumber of indeterminate quality, stained brown.”</span></i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">....</span><br />
<i><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">“The place has been called…a ‘Taj Mahal.’ It has been called a ‘white elephant,’ a ‘resort,’ a ‘monument to the colossal ego of our former governor.’ It is not exactly any of these things. It is simply and rather astonishingly an enlarged version of a very common kind of California tract house, a monument not to a colossal ego but to a weird absence of ego, a case study in the architecture of limited possibilities…flattened out, mediocre and ‘open’ and as devoid of privacy or personal eccentricity as the lobby area in a Ramada Inn. It is the architecture of ‘background music,’ decorators, ‘good taste.'”</span></i></div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-7530532141468526002015-05-06T21:16:00.001+01:002015-05-06T21:57:11.528+01:00Obscure Design Typologies: Swingometers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Almost there! The scaffold media platforms are all bolted together on College Green and right now no doubt there are dry runs being run on the broadcasters graphic suites. So just to get in the mood, here's a selection of the strange design phenomena of the swingometer ... a design typology that - given the new state of British politics - will have a range of new scenarios to describe. Till then, enjoy these:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b4bv8R6Y7yY?rel=0" width="560"></iframe><br />
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2010<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fwebHaB86UY?rel=0" width="420"></iframe><br />
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2005<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N5GV8SbofgM?rel=0" width="420"></iframe><br />
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1987<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V-mIMlklV9E?list=PL4A0B07A8689DFA6A" width="560"></iframe><br />
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1983<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CyzdFhg5ZOM?list=PL4A0B07A8689DFA6A" width="560"></iframe><br />
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1979<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nzyQG95bISY?rel=0" width="420"></iframe><br />
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1974<br />
<h1 class="yt watch-title-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; display: table-cell; margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top; width: 824px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Election 74 - BBC - HQ"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jyM1lv1t9wM?rel=0" width="420"></iframe></span></h1>
1970<br />
<h1 class="yt watch-title-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; display: table-cell; margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top; width: 824px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Election 74 - BBC - HQ"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jfTHdlHlJcg?rel=0" width="420"></iframe></span></span></span></h1>
1966<br />
<h1 class="yt watch-title-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; display: table-cell; margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top; width: 824px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Election 74 - BBC - HQ"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7V7vdCfMDYg?rel=0" width="420"></iframe></span></span></span></h1>
1964<br />
<h1 class="yt watch-title-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; display: table-cell; margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top; width: 824px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Election 74 - BBC - HQ"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_2KPzymrD5s?list=PL4A0B07A8689DFA6A" width="560"></iframe></span></span></span></h1>
1955<br />
<br />
<h1 class="yt watch-title-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; display: table-cell; margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top; width: 824px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Election 74 - BBC - HQ"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wfgeCFWb8KA?rel=0" width="420"></iframe></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></h1>
And finally, a BBC 2 documentary on the history of election broadcasts.</div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-1542503540233762892015-05-04T15:51:00.002+01:002015-05-04T15:53:35.860+01:00Kandy-Kolored Konstituancies: The Geography of Electoral Markings and Political Paraphernalia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
By Paul Bower<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUwM5mh4p7lZ2fGf208bhf697zGoB_7SAQyeOO109pspQrRu6xJXSwDF4MWYKjz-hjOKN_KYW1SmwdKluMxtANbc1KczbuIgRinjti5kRvY3hvPe8hTOOllK1vEXnF-ltWRR3Gr6iXUpc/s1600/2136174988_5d1bf240c2_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUwM5mh4p7lZ2fGf208bhf697zGoB_7SAQyeOO109pspQrRu6xJXSwDF4MWYKjz-hjOKN_KYW1SmwdKluMxtANbc1KczbuIgRinjti5kRvY3hvPe8hTOOllK1vEXnF-ltWRR3Gr6iXUpc/s640/2136174988_5d1bf240c2_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;">Risk! in game play. Image by Laura Blankenship under a CC License</span></td></tr>
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General Elections foster a culture of visual marking of territory in the United Kingdom, which only Royal events, Christmas, football World-Cups and Northern Ireland can typically match (but rarely surpass for a mass tribal event which isn’t violent).<br />
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Visual markings, united by their temporality, can take many forms in the run-up to a General Election. As election-day approaches they start to appear at an unrelenting rate. The physical and territorial paraphernalia of a General Election enters the public consciousness through our cities, neighbourhoods, streets, windows and letterboxes. Posters, leaflets, flags, balloons, billboards, placards and rosettes of all colours act as non-digital visual signs - nostalgic reminders of an age before Smartphones and the Internet - of an eccentrically antiquated democratic state.<br />
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Staunch party members and decided voters will often place such signs in their front window, or allow one to be staked in their garden informing passersby of a territory recently taken, as if they’re partaking in a huge game of Risk!<br />
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Like the strategy board-game, territories or Parliamentary Constituencies make up the board on which this game is played. Pollsters attempt to rig the game by predicting places where a swing in vote is most likely and where Party efforts should be focussed to maximise impact and sway the electorate to amass a majority. Such focus tends to reveal itself territorially as party funds are re-directed, the printing presses roll and political paraphernalia is circulated around the streets by a foot-army of dedicated party members walking door to door. Meanwhile, in so called safe-seats, where a political party has all but conquered, very few visual signs of a General Election can rarely be seen at first glance.<br />
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Colour takes on an added political hue during a General Election. Constituency maps are coloured in by their dominant political party colours and the paraphernalia placed in the built-environment is no different. Battle-lines of colour are drawn and political strategists direct efforts from their ‘war-rooms’ and colour co-ordinated campaign-coaches touring the country.<br />
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Election day arrives and the territorial paraphernalia has reached its best-before-date. The ultimate mark of a black cross in a box is to be made. One more day and all but a few of the visual signs will be recycled as the next Government is decided. <br />
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What is seen on a micro level is taken to the macro-max as Polling stations close. The country becomes visualised as a fragmented map of 650 ‘isles’, reminiscent of Rupert Thomson’s dystopian novel Divided Kingdom, each awaiting to be filled in one by one, like a democracy colouring-in book for the watching masses.<br />
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The people sit in their living rooms watching the live count and wait for the verdict. Which colour will their territory remain or turn? The result is announced and the territorial marks fade whilst new contested territories - often a lot less visual - emerge.<br />
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
Paul Bower is in the process of finishing an architecture PhD at Queen's University Belfast, which has attempted to probe 'post-conflict' architectural practice in Northern Ireland.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<a href="https://contestedterritories.wordpress.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://contestedterritories.<wbr></wbr>wordpress.com</a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<a href="https://twitter.com/paul_bower" target="_blank">@paul_bower</a></div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-21053796285957323062015-05-02T16:15:00.004+01:002015-05-02T16:15:57.901+01:00A Pint Glass, A Laundry Basket and a High-Vis Jacket: Objects as Political Props<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By Nick de Klerk<br />
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‘Every idea and object has a history, which describes its provenance and tells you what it is doing there.’ Christina Mackie <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdx6VXM-AadfRYBuWsQMLa2aL3ynoumlq3q4Z5h-YXJmuiJPWDhbTM32LGn08HRokQI2cnLBYhNORrCVFzHV_vzciY0MWt7IlUWq2chsU8XhPg_D1vJxd7rL_F6N7mkSka8vXkyxjbwkU/s1600/Nigel-Farage-Ukip-St-George-s-Day-433284-300x200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdx6VXM-AadfRYBuWsQMLa2aL3ynoumlq3q4Z5h-YXJmuiJPWDhbTM32LGn08HRokQI2cnLBYhNORrCVFzHV_vzciY0MWt7IlUWq2chsU8XhPg_D1vJxd7rL_F6N7mkSka8vXkyxjbwkU/s1600/Nigel-Farage-Ukip-St-George-s-Day-433284-300x200.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a><br />
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Scenario 1 <br />
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<a href="http://www.ukiphillingdon.com/wp-content/uploads/Nigel-Farage-Ukip-St-George-s-Day-433284-300x200.jpg">A pint glass</a>, full to the brim with warm, English ale is held aloft, a St George’s flag grasped in the other hand. The backdrop: a broad, apparently effusive grin that belies its well-worn, workaday nature.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFzNd9VhyGsnCy_CrGlj7z7xUmm7t1pD6XD1bF61iwWlN6VGTkWaf834yTlCuQjxPGnmk9-lOaxk0U259cpN5VcfyZgbe_FNh4YN8cGLe8bdqWTkNi_aKcP4di6RPQtQSB2xJHwTOD1RU/s1600/ed_miliband_kitchen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFzNd9VhyGsnCy_CrGlj7z7xUmm7t1pD6XD1bF61iwWlN6VGTkWaf834yTlCuQjxPGnmk9-lOaxk0U259cpN5VcfyZgbe_FNh4YN8cGLe8bdqWTkNi_aKcP4di6RPQtQSB2xJHwTOD1RU/s1600/ed_miliband_kitchen.jpg" height="406" width="640" /></a></div>
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Scenario 2 <br />
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A <a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03232/miliband_kitchen_3232780b.jpg">lurid green laundry basket</a>, carefully placed not quite under the second kitchen’s counter, hovers ambivalently in view. It appears empty, although there might be something heaped at the bottom. A man and a woman stand alongside each other: she leaning against the opposite counter, he facing her, resting his hand against the counter. They are both holding coffee mugs, and are apparently deep in conversation. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0nIs4RdFpBSUPrCVfFly6BvEer5pH6xoqeJWS2VopqE27YHtNVFk-F446WoeDyVwrcEd9hvIL4gSXWR7ZHHxRcCg2ZPELck0C6m45gErmvpL1-vJDp9fNl3SJN5fekw2hHIsRDiH-BiI/s1600/High+Vis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0nIs4RdFpBSUPrCVfFly6BvEer5pH6xoqeJWS2VopqE27YHtNVFk-F446WoeDyVwrcEd9hvIL4gSXWR7ZHHxRcCg2ZPELck0C6m45gErmvpL1-vJDp9fNl3SJN5fekw2hHIsRDiH-BiI/s1600/High+Vis.jpg" height="358" width="640" /></a></div>
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Scenario 3 <br />
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A pair of middle-aged men face each other, one awkwardly holding what at first glance appears to be an architectural model, but which, on discerning the trowel gingerly grasped by the other, reveals itself to be a plastering hawk. The space they are in appears to be a warehouse or construction site – what it is, is not clear, but the inference is: this is where work happens. As if to press home the point, they are wearing construction helmets set at deliberately jaunty angles and <a href="http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/81800000/jpg/_81800501_463939298.jpg">bulky high-vis jackets</a>. <br />
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Three mass manufactured, synthetic objects, three contrived scenarios. The pint glass, the laundry basket and the high-vis jacket (as deployed) nonetheless attempt to create points of connection with the everywoman and man at whom these scenarios are targeted, within three visible spheres of influence: the pub, the home and the workplace. <br />
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The pint glass, an ‘inverted truncated cone around 6 inches tall’ which tapers by ‘about 1 inch over its height’, is pushed to the foreground, augmenting its bearer’s claim to an authentic ordinariness. The measure of the tea coloured ale is regulated by UK law and sold in imperial measure while the definition of a pint of beer was the subject of an early day motion in <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2007-08/988">2008</a>. As an ‘<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/jan/26/beery-tyranny-pint-glass">an imperial symbol of defiance that says "back off" to Brussels</a>’, it’s a pithily appropriate flagstaff for a nationalist political party. It’s very form and identity is rooted in the commons, matched by the ale’s ability to fuel and lubricate public discourse. <br />
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The laundry basket, according to apparently genuine customer reviews, is popular and robust. ‘Verified Purchaser’ <a href="http://reviews.wilko.com/6551-en_gb/0352075/wilko-com-wilko-laundry-basket-green-reviews/reviews.htm">bunny1967</a>, from Gloucester deems it ‘lightweight but sturdy’. In the constituency of customer reviews its purchasers have exercised their franchise, assessing value, quality and ease of use. It too is a truncated cone, which tapers out from a slightly narrower base. The basket wall is punctured by a series of oddly truncated arched openings for ventilation, set out radially from the centre of the bin, grouped in four rows of four. They look like they could be windows and have a curiously architectural quality. It has an odd, borrowed monumentality, shot through with pathos, given the cheapness and disposability of the artefact. <br />
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The high-vis jackets, like a small cluster of fluorescent carapaces, cannot help but dominate the image, simultaneously obscuring and yet conferring authority on the scene playing out in front of us. They too have become a well-worn trope of political posturing, used by many <a href="https://twitter.com/MarinaHyde/status/582827699334434816">politicians</a> as a visual shortcut to working credibility. Perhaps if you build it, or at least appear to be trying, they really will come. <br />
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The props demand an increasingly central role in a political culture dominated by images and soundbites, with less and less of a demand for, or interest in, ideas. They have become both product and process, and constitute publics around them – in use, consumer reviews and comment forums. It’s a short cognitive leap to consider whether these objects are merely artefacts of a political culture or whether they are the culture itself. <br />
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Two current exhibitions suggest there may be some credence to this proposition. The Parliament of Things, currently on at <a href="http://www.firstsite.uk.net/page/the-parliament-of-things">FirstSite</a> in Colchester, draws its title from Bruno Latour’s notion, and considers how we ‘understand and perceive objects’ and ‘the influence that technology bears on how value [and meaning] is assigned.’ In brief, Latour’s project complicates what he sees as artificial categories of social and physical constructions and the discourse that surrounds them. <br />
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Okwui Enwezor’s <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/okwui-enwezor-venice-biennale-karl-marx-havana-biennial-boycott-274420">Parliament of Forms</a>, one of the main exhibitions at this year’s Venice Biennale, suggests that forms or objects can be ‘brought together to form one stage of meaning, one stage of enunciation, one stage of articulation’. These forms have long been relegated to a supporting role – codified and regimented and always seen in relationship to a social or political action. By invoking the collapse of history and the recognising the entanglement of things, time and people and processes, we can begin to articulate an equivalence of form with other actors in any given scenario, offering an opportunity to see the political process and our relationship to it anew. <br />
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The pint glass, the laundry basket and the high-vis jacket have a visual and formal language entirely of their own which has embodied and associative qualities. Consider the supply chain or the market in which they are bought, sold or traded, the extraction and processing of the minerals from which they are manufactured, the communities displaced, and labour exploited and organised in the process. Territories, titles and land, shipping and transport, storage and packaging and ultimately disposal to waste or recycling – only to change shape, continuing in an unbroken cycle. <br />
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No longer mute accessory to or conveniently representative of an expressed political narrative or scenario, the props jostle, compete and occupy a political stage alongside, against and in concert with the usual protagonists. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Nick de Klerk works in architecture, tweets at @nick_deklerk and blogs (occasionally) at <a href="https://explodedviews.wordpress.com/">https://explodedviews.wordpress.com</a></span></div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-6481423192573896922015-04-30T19:31:00.005+01:002015-04-30T19:31:55.068+01:00How to Launch a Manifesto<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By Henrietta Ross</div>
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The stage is set, the audience is hand-picked and thoroughly screened, the leader’s backed by evocative imagery and armed with a set of policies committed to print. It’s the manifesto launch: the jewel in the crown of the seemingly infinite array of highly constructed presentations which have come to characterise much of this general election campaign. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1TyjcNfASSC45nZTGnqvVIPTwCVkIT2UOCqS5Uj8BpnQnYku4aK2QtypC9MI_OznVzYVH6ema2RB_ah24yYXXT1Hku_NlRkahhdB7UbP7gnVkGMp6zEPIyuTh34eqSrWScxGv0XEm30A/s1600/00_Cameron.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1TyjcNfASSC45nZTGnqvVIPTwCVkIT2UOCqS5Uj8BpnQnYku4aK2QtypC9MI_OznVzYVH6ema2RB_ah24yYXXT1Hku_NlRkahhdB7UbP7gnVkGMp6zEPIyuTh34eqSrWScxGv0XEm30A/s1600/00_Cameron.jpg" height="344" width="640" /></a></div>
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This is an era in which our would-be leaders fight it out through the medium of the sound-bite and the staged photo-opportunity. We are increasingly encouraged, and perhaps willing, to base our political choices on images, overly simplified policy statements and the highly crafted or unwittingly captured characteristics of political leaders. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqYHvIuMYqZHV1riv9S0sTFEcUsLDQh7d4C051AfUPJNBQDj5fZKYJFij_oYrMpqDkNJBBHhyEd6_VDXv7_PW41-vmTDcHPf57tQWT8IbKbQvRb0w_KsIF8c3wCdMp_kNWiOkiCoz1yPs/s1600/01_Miliband.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqYHvIuMYqZHV1riv9S0sTFEcUsLDQh7d4C051AfUPJNBQDj5fZKYJFij_oYrMpqDkNJBBHhyEd6_VDXv7_PW41-vmTDcHPf57tQWT8IbKbQvRb0w_KsIF8c3wCdMp_kNWiOkiCoz1yPs/s1600/01_Miliband.jpg" height="222" width="640" /></a><br />
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The manifesto launch is possibly the most stage-managed appearance in electioncampaign. With three basic components: a leader, a backdrop and a publication, it also offers a set of highly comparable events: a means to consider how each of the political parties have chosen to construct an identity in a context where presentation has apparently become paramount. <br />
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First, Labour and the Conservatives: worth considering side-by-side because it seems both have made good use of the standard-issue manifesto launch pack made up of the key customisable components for capturing the centre ground. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8TlLiqjvMqg3vU4OdD9iiiKGnjLMR7szqIFqiU2y0sNKpviY4N9gBGoZq6v6X37dPUC4i4wCb1boxi2nLKxaY7FJnLJoohcDOwdc9rpJjFfO3Cv1jdy_Sb8ecInKV5L354CjqIhrFdPc/s1600/02_Miliband_Cameron.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8TlLiqjvMqg3vU4OdD9iiiKGnjLMR7szqIFqiU2y0sNKpviY4N9gBGoZq6v6X37dPUC4i4wCb1boxi2nLKxaY7FJnLJoohcDOwdc9rpJjFfO3Cv1jdy_Sb8ecInKV5L354CjqIhrFdPc/s1600/02_Miliband_Cameron.jpg" height="210" width="640" /></a></div>
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The striking similarity of the slogans is driven home by the common choice of justified type. Variations in size and, for Labour, weight and case, enhance the shared emphasis on the ‘future’ theme. The typography says I have a vision, it’s bold, it’s direct, it’s a distinctive future – the individual appeal of which is arguably undermined by the fact that apparently so does the other guy, in a very similar way. Meanwhile the union flag is present in both backdrops, but given a starring role by the Conservatives. <br />
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Here distinction in the visual rhetoric can be discerned. Conservative supporters can identify the key elements as the nation: the unruly, full-colour union flag, to be led by Cameron and a handful of cabinet colleagues, who lean in on one and other on the manifesto cover: their backs to a dark, blurry outside world. For Labour the flag’s muted red symbolism might signify the state, which backs the people, who back the party, led by Miliband and the manifesto he hopes will become the basis of his mandate. <br />
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For the SNP and UKIP – with campaigns characterised by efforts to temper the impression of their radical roots and appeal to a broader spectrum of the electorate – justified type is again in evidence, but in a more moderate form. Both limit the text-block to two lines and the SNP break it up with the diminutuve ‘for’. The usually bold SNP yellow is also mellowed, making the stand-out impression the socialist red of Sturgeon’s suit: a not-so-subtle nod to the party whose traditional supporter-base the Scottish Nationalists have set their sights on. <br />
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Farage meanwhile introduces cursive type for the everyday man-of-the-people feel. The UKIP purple is muted and morphed into the blue of the union flag in the backdrop, which looks too small for the job at hand and is set in a low-ceiling, strangely shadowy room. If UKIP aim to overturn the impression that they represent a threatening fringe group lurking in the sidelines of the political spectrum, this presentation seems to fall wide of the mark. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMKhqt9hlcGX1Lbnn2u9zwytxvX7bNjLxHHI8vIBVddkqrafiT4U2c-zfkwtFM62D5ghb0e_tSAZISf620CUkuBkUNkC4eNH7p_Q8vYiIh5Vi8p4i3RoU_D6PppBpKCI1F-RXuSrENKs/s1600/03_Sturgeon_Farage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMKhqt9hlcGX1Lbnn2u9zwytxvX7bNjLxHHI8vIBVddkqrafiT4U2c-zfkwtFM62D5ghb0e_tSAZISf620CUkuBkUNkC4eNH7p_Q8vYiIh5Vi8p4i3RoU_D6PppBpKCI1F-RXuSrENKs/s1600/03_Sturgeon_Farage.jpg" height="188" width="640" /></a></div>
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For the Green party the full backdrop has been dispensed with, replaced by banners framed with natural light. Two politicians stand at utilitarian-looking podiums on wooden floorboards. The emphasis is on dialogue, openness and fresh thinking, with type set at an angle that’s different, but not radical. The manifesto cover showcases the range of issues, beyond saving the planet, the Green party are ready to grapple with. Slices of key policy areas stacked on top of the solid foundation of sustainable energy suggest a move towards the political mainstream anchored by their origins as the alternative vote which is, in Bristol and Brighton at least, becoming an increasingly viable one. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1AL3PFlf0sW0YupSdRFXv-yBy9ZY7JZtvxUr0FA3VGarXNvYsalG9n0qlXu-Z6KANaw7KohNYhyphenhyphenGjDhqozB51j6A_F6RSKxKKfXu-HcFAHJ7NcXjDq58y29BA8ZTZIuftVDXLy9Xzres/s1600/04_Lucas_Bennett_Manifesto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1AL3PFlf0sW0YupSdRFXv-yBy9ZY7JZtvxUr0FA3VGarXNvYsalG9n0qlXu-Z6KANaw7KohNYhyphenhyphenGjDhqozB51j6A_F6RSKxKKfXu-HcFAHJ7NcXjDq58y29BA8ZTZIuftVDXLy9Xzres/s1600/04_Lucas_Bennett_Manifesto.jpg" height="282" width="640" /></a></div>
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Clegg and the Liberal Democrats’ party political broadcast slogan urges voters to ‘Look left, look right, then cross’. Their manifesto launch was presumably intended to position them as the centrist alternative, but the effect is more ‘anything goes’. The brick-work, glow-stick lighting, exposed rigging and hand-printed panelling gives the impression that Clegg might have inadvertently stumbled onto the set of a Saturday morning children’s show. Meanwhile pressing the rhombus form into service as part of a brightly coloured bricolage of policy pledges looks unfortunately pick-and-mix: an unwelcome reminder for the party-faithful of the way key manifesto commitments were unceremoniously dropped by the party in coalition. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwv4sVPi60c42VrOTKCdTLHkPoo5DLCBAbTVw-pimUSTT7FdbYsAD5puP3ivWe2Kuf9aFFK12CXEJPKz8xMX3wQrKoxscWa2byzhBEj5Tgs-ePEdDgCXGeO54GG3GQiNUz5ewUAtszoOA/s1600/05_Clegg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwv4sVPi60c42VrOTKCdTLHkPoo5DLCBAbTVw-pimUSTT7FdbYsAD5puP3ivWe2Kuf9aFFK12CXEJPKz8xMX3wQrKoxscWa2byzhBEj5Tgs-ePEdDgCXGeO54GG3GQiNUz5ewUAtszoOA/s1600/05_Clegg.jpg" height="216" width="640" /></a></div>
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While Clegg may soon prove to have lost swathes of his core vote through his coalition compromises, it seems he’s found a friend, stylisticly at least, in Jim Murphy and the Scottish Labour Party. This time the plackards are off the walls and held aloft by an impressively thorough display of diversity. The type maybe ranged left, but those on that side of the political spectrum might struggle to identify any connection between this and the brooding bugundy of Milliband’s launch. Maybe if the data projection wasn’t being drowned out by the ambient lighting things would be a little clearer. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbUTbEaOgqkJGkc7yQvmbhb3OzJX5ohnMHTNz-qAy_f2WVbAfF3vz1rBXptMqdgTbHgt5JEl_BykMefyAJKgzzbjSEh7bW7fP9gBPyRHf7XLuWG9BNuUUAABI5xP17nzzN9BcSDS_UUi0/s1600/06.1_Murohy_LRG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbUTbEaOgqkJGkc7yQvmbhb3OzJX5ohnMHTNz-qAy_f2WVbAfF3vz1rBXptMqdgTbHgt5JEl_BykMefyAJKgzzbjSEh7bW7fP9gBPyRHf7XLuWG9BNuUUAABI5xP17nzzN9BcSDS_UUi0/s1600/06.1_Murohy_LRG.jpg" height="346" width="640" /></a></div>
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However, while any substantive connection with his colleagues south of the boarder seems to have been lost in Murphy’s presentation, it is perhaps the most engaging of the seven considered here. While the crowd behind him might appear a little hand-picked, they do, at least, look like they’re having a pretty good time. The combination of the line-up, the brightly lit hall, wooden flooring and coloured signs and t-shirts suceed in fostering a sence of inclusivity, enthusiasum and atmosphere. Murphy himself, despite the regulation suit and tie, seems casually charismatic. <br />
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And yet, polls predict that Muphy, by the end of this election campaign, is likely to have lost nearly half of the 42 per cent share of the Scottish vote his party’s held since 2010. Their seats could well be slashed from 41 to just one. Having arguably won on static images of manifesto launch events, Scottish Labour could be the biggest loosers in this campaign. Reassuring evidence perhaps that, while the media-focused activities of our politicians might suggest otherwise, presentation isn’t, to the electorate at least, everything. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Henrietta Ross works for Soapbox, a studio which specialises in design for policy, research and advocacy organisations. </span></div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-72217965173719318472015-04-28T18:26:00.002+01:002015-04-28T18:29:00.134+01:00Anatomy of a Political Poster: Miliband in Salmond’s Pocket<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By Benedict Pringle</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJmSiQvH3C5G6-L8KiIKMwvYaUWGrXa-HAMtyD4WzCOpeNsOYf7Ndr9e4IHvV8hdf8TqwF0lxFd8mmT8Zm7QS7SGC56DaTUhDKkEfGODhmZwHTp3qEdnzaS4Bqc-3OFjjE2cfnuJ2bvwI/s1600/4d476e3e-f3a2-441c-b636-fd711ab8b669-bestSizeAvailable.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJmSiQvH3C5G6-L8KiIKMwvYaUWGrXa-HAMtyD4WzCOpeNsOYf7Ndr9e4IHvV8hdf8TqwF0lxFd8mmT8Zm7QS7SGC56DaTUhDKkEfGODhmZwHTp3qEdnzaS4Bqc-3OFjjE2cfnuJ2bvwI/s1600/4d476e3e-f3a2-441c-b636-fd711ab8b669-bestSizeAvailable.jpeg" height="384" width="640" /></a></div>
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The first feature of a good political poster is the presence of intellectual clarity.<br />
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Achieving intellectual clarity might sound like a simple task. However, when you consider that the accepted rule of thumb for the length of a poster headline is 8 words, the job becomes more daunting. Have you ever tried to make a compelling argument on a complex issue using fewer than 8 words?<br />
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What makes the poster featuring Ed Miliband in Alex Salmond’s pocket so impressive from an advertising perspective is that they have managed to bring to life the possibility that a vote for Labour could help usher the SNP into Downing St without even using a headline. <br />
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The second feature of a good political poster is the creative impact.<br />
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The Conservatives have got everything right in this regard, brilliantly juxtaposing two characters to create a deeply provocative image. <br />
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They have made Salmond look powerful and authoritative by dressing him in a sharp blue suit and matching tie. His facial expression is calm (even smug) and comfortable; have they perhaps retouched his skin to make it look like he’s arrived back from a holiday in warmer climes?<br />
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Miliband on the other hand is made to seem like a young, confused boy. He carries a stupefied facial expression and is wearing a white shirt that looks like it has been washed too many times, paired with a Just William-style tie.<br />
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In a world where almost anyone can make something that resembles a campaign poster it can be easy to devalue the skill required to create a brilliant piece of political advertising.<br />
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But craft and care has gone into this execution. They have delicately balanced a huge number of variables and in doing so have produced the most memorable political poster for over a decade.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Benedict Pringle is a political advertising obsessive; it’s an unhealthy fascination with the grubbiest part of the dirtiest business. He writes the blog <a href="http://politicaladvertising.co.uk/">politicaladvertising.co.uk</a> which analyses political advertising from around the globe and regularly appears in the media as a commentator on political marketing. </span></div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-79630601132343968352015-04-20T18:50:00.000+01:002015-04-20T20:19:21.288+01:00Portraits of Hardworking People: How Manifestos Picture Us<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
By Jon Abbott<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj61ghF0rb8uo6zOh6ju-vu-N3Xd5Bik8w7205C0VFRD6PeEh_l5H-tQwdiL33eaVsuwAwcgksBwQIfgAqEjMLle-LJ28x1XHpucUCT1E9Ua4KeV-Il51Tyywdq_XoMv9TQGuB1zK4qvLU/s1600/Hardworking_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj61ghF0rb8uo6zOh6ju-vu-N3Xd5Bik8w7205C0VFRD6PeEh_l5H-tQwdiL33eaVsuwAwcgksBwQIfgAqEjMLle-LJ28x1XHpucUCT1E9Ua4KeV-Il51Tyywdq_XoMv9TQGuB1zK4qvLU/s1600/Hardworking_01.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">Source: Conservative 2015 Manifesto</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhVtL8WmNDUgJUTD7iWr_cYM4mKO1TrZQGa_cG1bgIW32BehBYY7D9l01ClBR4nQe4iBQ3SM3IxZJndJqhzlnWSQqVLT_rxToaTh1KGP0ixdYWnp-7P-J3chFQjbKV4JKvF4D5JJiSdkA/s1600/Hardworking_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhVtL8WmNDUgJUTD7iWr_cYM4mKO1TrZQGa_cG1bgIW32BehBYY7D9l01ClBR4nQe4iBQ3SM3IxZJndJqhzlnWSQqVLT_rxToaTh1KGP0ixdYWnp-7P-J3chFQjbKV4JKvF4D5JJiSdkA/s1600/Hardworking_02.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">Source: Labour 2015 Manifesto</span></td></tr>
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As the two leading parties rush to the centre ground in a bid to convince the few swing voters, a bizarre game of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32303134" target="_blank">cross-dressing</a> has taken hold: the Conservatives have rebranded as the party of working people and Labour are touting themselves as the party of economic responsibility. The homogeneous rhetoric is being backed up by manifestoes that employ a visual language so similar its uncanny.<br />
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The medium of the day is photography but there’s not an Instagram filter in sight, because these are <i>honest</i> images of <i>hardworking</i> people. But hardworking doesn’t simply have to mean economic work – we all know how challenging life can be when trying to bring up a small family. Of course, not an irresponsibly large family or a family with ugly teenagers but a young family, preferably with one child (two at a push).</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDv6O_3rmeui62uAPJGAQuOvy43aXkLALV_1RR1KbF8lA7abi1NhzK2joKd7e6wiTg6r-R4kpSBszdAuvjZCAoZdRdt9VSkbVIDp3c7qLX9TZB5du_lBsUv6UU8PIcbVxpuhfNz8ud208/s1600/Hardworking_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDv6O_3rmeui62uAPJGAQuOvy43aXkLALV_1RR1KbF8lA7abi1NhzK2joKd7e6wiTg6r-R4kpSBszdAuvjZCAoZdRdt9VSkbVIDp3c7qLX9TZB5du_lBsUv6UU8PIcbVxpuhfNz8ud208/s1600/Hardworking_03.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">Source: Conservative 2015 Manifesto</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2yAJpSIzcYV8XTWNgVbC5UeFMkIRVE-HT_dMLGjClXbUEstSla3Scjpgy6h3Sayyg0MPiRZ6XwIdQAjCfLIZT6Vjgg4U6LmNsllQ4AK8ClqZavXnPKSl6xmmO-n02EVnKt_VyylhL3bA/s1600/Hardworking_04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2yAJpSIzcYV8XTWNgVbC5UeFMkIRVE-HT_dMLGjClXbUEstSla3Scjpgy6h3Sayyg0MPiRZ6XwIdQAjCfLIZT6Vjgg4U6LmNsllQ4AK8ClqZavXnPKSl6xmmO-n02EVnKt_VyylhL3bA/s1600/Hardworking_04.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">Source: Labour 2015 Manifesto</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg14lnGL-R0RNePZVgcVrd6pSP9_xYXc99xy9WRoVftKys7foDu_L4hJBRF4Ws9-16I4-egBxwdbpdrLg7W0DXtW_6dZ-r66YlAMrLszClI2N3CMx8jesVr0hsO_xttIa_NMrWg0jh17Mc/s1600/Hardworking_05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg14lnGL-R0RNePZVgcVrd6pSP9_xYXc99xy9WRoVftKys7foDu_L4hJBRF4Ws9-16I4-egBxwdbpdrLg7W0DXtW_6dZ-r66YlAMrLszClI2N3CMx8jesVr0hsO_xttIa_NMrWg0jh17Mc/s1600/Hardworking_05.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">Source: Conservative 2015 Manifesto</span></td></tr>
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To give them some credit, there is a slight difference in approach. The Conservatives have gone for the action shot, providing a window onto the quotidian tasks of hardworking people: talking, herding, screwing, smiling, soldering and choosing. Labour, on the other hand, have plumped for static portraits of hardworking people, equipped with the tools of their respective trades: the hard hat, the paint brush, the comb and scissors, the pen, the glasses. Perhaps the only hint at ideology is conveyed through their choice of healthcare professional – the bourgeois doctor versus the proletariat nurse.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWCBA2qoOoguahCll-iQliOU_bu55GOuVNRGe1VLnGj3PiKHoGU71HMqjNpGsMnZyHVzh3bJ-fkE3WRyTPqEi6j-hS79UaodjPmimkiuKb9b98TFW6otbcSrCmP04oV9fLSDEaeWiEM2E/s1600/Hardworking_06.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWCBA2qoOoguahCll-iQliOU_bu55GOuVNRGe1VLnGj3PiKHoGU71HMqjNpGsMnZyHVzh3bJ-fkE3WRyTPqEi6j-hS79UaodjPmimkiuKb9b98TFW6otbcSrCmP04oV9fLSDEaeWiEM2E/s1600/Hardworking_06.png" height="640" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">Source: Labour 2010 Manifesto</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3LbeT5WAZzJ4u4vP0mUQf0MAKGWcSz7JbjESrvQNESie09ss4yd38Rp0MFasW8KJTNNRfnuNs3a2urvag8jGDqqronsbCU1Bfce2BNUW4lUh5TwLuqolLUWqlvhs3B1dfI9T8iES5qbA/s1600/Hardworking_07.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3LbeT5WAZzJ4u4vP0mUQf0MAKGWcSz7JbjESrvQNESie09ss4yd38Rp0MFasW8KJTNNRfnuNs3a2urvag8jGDqqronsbCU1Bfce2BNUW4lUh5TwLuqolLUWqlvhs3B1dfI9T8iES5qbA/s1600/Hardworking_07.png" height="640" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">Source: Conservative 2010 Manifesto</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiShqRLVmX-Cf0dd-rfSy4VqoqCzp-qt_e1bVTjLGfcGO4KUQ9T8DyTvXhlq4A5F-mYfl9QxM-2ciZgYaXF1Ye5Ece7vRC11A2pS1QDIFzsWHCBz-ikfoiMtQ7V4_qbp_TjwcZI8airxFQ/s1600/Hardworking_08.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiShqRLVmX-Cf0dd-rfSy4VqoqCzp-qt_e1bVTjLGfcGO4KUQ9T8DyTvXhlq4A5F-mYfl9QxM-2ciZgYaXF1Ye5Ece7vRC11A2pS1QDIFzsWHCBz-ikfoiMtQ7V4_qbp_TjwcZI8airxFQ/s1600/Hardworking_08.png" height="640" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">Source: Conservative 2010 Manifesto</span></td></tr>
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If we look back the 2010 election manifestos, the visual languages were again similar but perhaps a little more divergent than 2015. Bright colours and child-like illustration elucidated Labour’s core policies whilst the Tories utilised info graphics and graphic sloganeering to communicate to their concept of the big society (whatever happened to that?).<br />
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With the two largest parties producing manifestos that are barely distinguishable from corporate annual reports, and their leaders espousing trite soundbites, is it any wonder that their share of the <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/generalelection/voter-dealignment-disillusion-and-the-implications-for-the-may-2015-election/" target="_blank">vote is in decline</a>? If there are positives to be drawn from this woeful homogeneity then it must surely be that the freshly vacated fringes are now occupied by smaller parties with something a little more distinctive to say.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://twitter.com/_jon_abbott" target="_blank">Jon Abbott</a> is a senior designer at Barnbrook, one of the most well-known graphic design studios in Britain, operating in the fields of art, culture and commerce.</span><br />
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-58883235798230021062015-04-18T15:36:00.002+01:002015-04-18T15:36:33.760+01:00Poundstretcher: The UKIP Logo Is A Postmodern Vortex<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
By Eddie Blake<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRGi1lIhWXM6QVyrb_ktgFiH10ns6stD1Gky840VT-NQ4cl1RxOK_2iya6qtVje8dopiknenARo3Hsz21giI1oQCuGUdbmh61fbD-3JfnDCEQWwtNLY4QydUjSlVfNZJSy29phzTJkpXw/s1600/ukip_badge_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRGi1lIhWXM6QVyrb_ktgFiH10ns6stD1Gky840VT-NQ4cl1RxOK_2iya6qtVje8dopiknenARo3Hsz21giI1oQCuGUdbmh61fbD-3JfnDCEQWwtNLY4QydUjSlVfNZJSy29phzTJkpXw/s1600/ukip_badge_0.jpg" height="436" width="640" /></a></div>
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It is a slab of ancient olde English heritage rendered in lush 21st century purple. The purple is pretty pure. A kind of deep purple; a power chord of a colour. The colour-symbol combination delivers the most formidable logo on the UK political scene.<br />
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In general, party logos are the epitome of committee-designed vacuity. Fulfilling the brief of saying something vaguely positive to the widest possible audience while saying nothing negative to the rest of us. Amongst the sea of neutered symbols lies a robust and unwavering logo. A logo that seems to come from a simpler time, a time before the endless media savvy focus groups.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz_pKkI3iEh4NCdk_dYPwbi7Dk73k9rCHrWHCRVg0I0o-hzCU6OmtS53DHXJQV1VyaI22n7P4mVzVl4eqERmZwmaKRbOCOkKziajEFUBB22wRGJmAFtTPfbCc5cxHe_SfwD17OWBYVvuM/s1600/_74280317_1997-01-26_farage_ukip_formation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz_pKkI3iEh4NCdk_dYPwbi7Dk73k9rCHrWHCRVg0I0o-hzCU6OmtS53DHXJQV1VyaI22n7P4mVzVl4eqERmZwmaKRbOCOkKziajEFUBB22wRGJmAFtTPfbCc5cxHe_SfwD17OWBYVvuM/s1600/_74280317_1997-01-26_farage_ukip_formation.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nigel Farage back in 1997</td></tr>
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<span class="s1">The UKIP logo is only beaten in longevity by the Liberal Democrats </span><span class="s2">‘</span><span class="s1">Bird of Liberty</span><span class="s2">’</span><span class="s1">. After an initial flirt with the red white and blue </span><span class="s2">‘</span><span class="s1">Star of Bethlehem</span><span class="s2">’</span><span class="s1">, UKIP landed on the pound sign logo in 1998. Although the logo has had many iterations over the years, the pound sign has been a constant. It is a symbol which draws sustenance from years of service. The purple pound has long outlived its </span><span class="s2">‘</span><span class="s1">single issue</span><span class="s2">’ </span><span class="s1">reason to be, and now remains a feature in the political aesthetic landscape, like a sentinel watching over the very soul of the UK. It is the vessel for some deep myths about our shared identity. </span><span class="s3">The symbol is a constant reminder of a past jeopardy </span><span class="s4">– </span><span class="s3">the danger of losing sovereignty </span><span class="s4">– </span><span class="s3">an imagined near miss. It is a metonym for a myth about us and them; Anglo-Saxon freedoms versus continental tyranny.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBCq9FJnelEsVTgCApwZg8wXfonmuvjn-t592btgpCMMhx60WkuTAxHLFkxYaxLCcF7g4oOwpEJE6Pagl9INMNCh8EdYaMrdGz9Sx5L8-945p8vkqGZ5XH-dgWTvzmTG9QIB4fc7wgbu0/s1600/NeonLogo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBCq9FJnelEsVTgCApwZg8wXfonmuvjn-t592btgpCMMhx60WkuTAxHLFkxYaxLCcF7g4oOwpEJE6Pagl9INMNCh8EdYaMrdGz9Sx5L8-945p8vkqGZ5XH-dgWTvzmTG9QIB4fc7wgbu0/s1600/NeonLogo.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHQvnF9xBpVzwkxBuR_IjrpGoK2dpHUnJddjGYXGij9kyAr3dGjVKUjnOqnYiyBqgVzLEpaQ-AQEBM-WteNqKHTqudz5bH3eLNhKUzrk5QCxbvujRcnz_Dv6qGKPr8reKgChrmlOyIrHc/s1600/UKIP-Logo-PURPLE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHQvnF9xBpVzwkxBuR_IjrpGoK2dpHUnJddjGYXGij9kyAr3dGjVKUjnOqnYiyBqgVzLEpaQ-AQEBM-WteNqKHTqudz5bH3eLNhKUzrk5QCxbvujRcnz_Dv6qGKPr8reKgChrmlOyIrHc/s1600/UKIP-Logo-PURPLE.jpg" height="320" width="307" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiigBMLlJvmESaoMQunZQ2n84ndOmRKsob0LAoKGZRaK1StDX2F2cabMIC8q-K1O2_lesZxFTuR0TDaGkyTum8l0EwgDQCvIPuf5GvbJMdK2gM-7E_IYPEDOf8AZ94-SJQvwSrRiq7KUi4/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiigBMLlJvmESaoMQunZQ2n84ndOmRKsob0LAoKGZRaK1StDX2F2cabMIC8q-K1O2_lesZxFTuR0TDaGkyTum8l0EwgDQCvIPuf5GvbJMdK2gM-7E_IYPEDOf8AZ94-SJQvwSrRiq7KUi4/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Discontinued official UKIP logos</span></span></div>
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But since the government officially ruled out entry to the Eurozone in 2007, the loss of the pound as currency has been well off the political agenda, so why has the UKIP pound sign persisted? Perhaps because it is just so good at getting the message across.<br />
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The message is clear: UKIP understands the bargain basement issues. It provides Policies 4 U. In 2012, in a slick piece of PR, the party claimed it was axing the logo. UKIP said it was, ‘dropping the pound sign because the battle had been won and Britain was not going to replace sterling with the euro.’ They went on to say, ‘<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9543841/UKIP-axes-pounds-sign-logo-saying-it-has-won-the-battle-to-save-sterling.html" target="_blank">Our pound sign has been a fantastically simple image. But now it […] represents a battle honour and not a forward looking aspiration for a party that wants to represent an independent UK</a>.’<br />
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We can only assume this public announcement was a stunt – they knew they were onto a good thing. Their ‘fantastically simple’ image works, persistent like a sleazy dipsomaniac. Even though it is a reminder of their pressure group roots, the bulbous pound sign is too useful to ditch. <br />
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A good logo is a conduit for layers of unspoken meaning. In this case, perhaps it conceals some unspeakable meanings as well. The currency reaches back through centuries of history, right back to the homely world of the Anglo-Saxon hoards, connecting us English to those simpler times. Awkwardly, the symbol itself is descended from the Roman libra (hence the adapted ‘L’); the name ‘pound’ is an adaptation of the Latin phrase ‘libra pondo’ - ‘a pound by weight’. It was imported to Britain by southern European immigrants. <br />
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The whole point of being conservative is that you really, really don’t want to move on. Even when you are imagining a transformative and traumatic change you prefer to call it continuity. The UKIP pound logo is the product of an eerie combination of an imagined deep past and a discount sofa future. It combines seeming immutability with a no-nonsense Poundstretcher aesthetic and thus produces an unbeatable logo. <br />
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UKIP seems to pride its self on anti-design: from the logo which was obviously designed in MS Paint by someone deeply immersed in the oeuvre of Alan Partridge, to the swivel-eyed bacchanalia that constitutes their promotional literature. It’s exactly this anti-design which aligns so well with the more alienated edges of our nation. Pound shops, slot machines and shiny suits. If ever there was a magic bullet for a certain idea of English identity, the purple pound sign is it. There, in one package, is a condensed combination of both the history and the contemporary image of the nation. <br />
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Purple has been used in the past to signify the political centre ground: A safe consensus driven space between the red left and the blue right. (For more read <a href="http://electoaesthetics.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/purple-reign.html">here</a> in Finn Williams piece from last time around <br />
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Perhaps UKIP’s purple stems from their origins a non-political single interest group. Maybe it was just what was left over once all the main parties had laid claim to the rest of the spectrum. UKIP purple is straight down the line. In numbers: #70147A ; RGB - 112, 20, 122; CMYK- 0.082, 0.836, 0, 0.522. Swirling around that heady world of single-issue Eurosceptic parties around the turn of the last century was a lot of purple. Kilroy knew the score. He kept to the universal appeal of the political purple. His party, Veritas (“The Straight Talking Party”), took on almost exactly the same hue. Businessman Sir James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party went with a classy Maroon and Cream, more in tune with its west London roots. <br />
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Labour shifted from the ‘Red Flag’ to the ‘Red Rose’. The move was overseen by Mandelson himself. The Conservatives changed from the red white and blue ‘Torch’ to the strangely green tree. The later addition of the Union Flag was in part the brainchild of the disgraced Andy Coulson, who felt the British flag should be involved somehow as a nod to the disillusioned Tory right, meeting the improbable brief of being both patronising and menacing. Do UKIP have a media savvy monster sitting waiting for the right time to change their logo, or are they just sitting there in the comfortable knowledge that they have pitch perfect semiotics.<br />
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I doubt anyone decides where to place their X solely based on graphic design. But if you are impressed by complex semiotics and budget graphics UKIP will make you vote so hard your pencil will break.<br />
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The UKIP logo meets the ambivalent postmodern brief of being both banal and scary, both referential and new. The pound sign logo succinctly encompasses UKIP: Dangerously slick PR nous straight out of a car-boot sale.<br />
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/eddieblake_now" target="_blank">Eddie Blake</a> is a senior designer at Sam Jacob Studio . He was previously part of Studio Weave where he worked on a wide range of schemes. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">He studied at the Mackintosh School of Architecture in Glasgow followed by the University of Westminster, where he continues to be a visiting critic. He has also written about architecture for the Architects' Journal, Blueprint and Vice Magazine among other publications.</span></div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-64074365322833878172015-04-18T08:07:00.001+01:002015-04-18T08:15:18.601+01:00Vote Art! Vote Often!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://pleasedonotbend.co.uk/">Fraser Muggeridge</a>, graphic designer to the art world (and to <a href="http://www.samjacob.com/">Sam Jacob Studio</a>) has sent over these images he made with Jeremy Deller as part of the <a href="http://www.voteart.co.uk/" target="_blank">Vote Art</a> project that aims 'to encourage people to take part in the democratic process.'<br />
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Remember, you can still register to vote till the 20th April <a href="https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMBJtIeC6XdfNjnysZ9Nn70X4hxiGDOWzWbgxva5GtsoIDXCLIOeWh3bUZJF5OwUdYQbwWaP_lDHu0OqVxAcBoj9EehcbpHDVf3I8_It7Y2p_PVAgTVBYQn0lTKzslK-cZc88_fYWsFNE/s1600/frasermuggeridgestudio_JeremyDeller_Vote_postcard_01_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMBJtIeC6XdfNjnysZ9Nn70X4hxiGDOWzWbgxva5GtsoIDXCLIOeWh3bUZJF5OwUdYQbwWaP_lDHu0OqVxAcBoj9EehcbpHDVf3I8_It7Y2p_PVAgTVBYQn0lTKzslK-cZc88_fYWsFNE/s1600/frasermuggeridgestudio_JeremyDeller_Vote_postcard_01_1.jpg" height="454" width="640" /></a></div>
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Heres' more on <a href="http://www.voteart.co.uk/">Vote Art</a>: "'Vote Arts is an arts initiative inspired by the theme of democracy that aims to encourage people to take part in the democratic process.<br />
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Vote Art will work with artists Bob & Roberta Smith, Fatima Begum, Janette Parris and Jeremy Deller, plus one other artists to be identified through a national competition. You can find all about the artists <a href="http://voteart.wix.com/voteart#!artists/c21ov">here</a><br />
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The project will create five new pieces of artwork that will be exhibited on 10 commercial billboard sites near art venues across England; on 10,000 postcards to be distributed to 10 arts venues throughout England and on social media platforms including a dedicated website, social networks."</div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-72340709676535154802015-04-17T14:21:00.005+01:002015-04-17T17:48:08.752+01:00A Tale, Told By An Idiot<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
By James Taylor-Foster<br />
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<span class="s1"><i>Picks up a framed photo of Margaret Thatcher and pauses in contemplation.</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Francis Urquhart: Nothing lasts forever. </span><i>Looks to camera. </i></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Hunting alongside his labrador outside his country estate.</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Francis Urquhart: <i>Looks to camera.</i> I have hopes of high office, I must confess. But first things first—we have a General Election win.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>House of Cards</i>, Episode 1 (1990)</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">Frank and Claire Underwood</td></tr>
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House of Cards first aired on Netflix in 2013 and, two years and thirty nine episodes later, Francis Underwood is President of the United States of America. His trajectory has been marvellously sensational, suffused by a terrifying edge of authenticity. As one MP (John Dalberg-Acton) famously said, ‘all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ It makes for great TV.<br />
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Amidst the backstabbing, murderous, lust-infused plot line of corruption and uncontrolled ascent, how many UK voters realise that this piece of fiction was born out of something closer to home? The original House of Cards was penned in 1989 by author, playwright, former MP, and Life Peer, Michael Dobbs — first advisor and later Chief of Staff to Margaret Thatcher. The original Underwood was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Urquhart">Francis Urquhart</a>: a ruthless, cold and aggressively driven governmental whip whose sole purpose was to rise to the pinnacle of the British political amphitheatre, set amidst the menagerie of a post-Thatcher political void.<br />
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Over two decades later Hollywood called, and Francis’ transatlantic counterpart - played by Kevin Spacey - emerged as a fictional superstar. The appeal of the theme maintains its currency because theatrical entertainment is so closely aligned to political performance. Underwood’s trademark monologues to camera is a technique known among thespians as ‘clocking the audience’. Breaking the fourth wall and feeding the viewer with dramatic irony compels the audience to empathise.<br />
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It’s also something that Shakespeare, master of the early political thriller, often exploited. Think of Macbeth (or Frank Underwood). Although he has murdered and usurped, the audience is still compelled to sympathise with his actions against all reason. Even as Lady Macbeth (or Claire Underwood) enters the throws of insanity, the audience pities her in spite of her malevolence. And why? Because Shakespeare provides insight into their ambitions, doubts and fears. In essence, the audience is made to feel complicit in their actions and aligned to their twisted political motivations.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">Francis Urquhart / House of Cards</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG0oFvwLEj28knK6FQ8DGkeC5Oa10exA9amwOxjGfIwO2OFX4wY154G_NyW61NdC9xKKP3NKEZfLTWZBIjc-r0X6inOwH7LtWDCyEKR_UxxOAogIiXrtiEdLvIg2YP5QKm3fRC_KiY3DE/s1600/Miliband-Nod-_jtf.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG0oFvwLEj28knK6FQ8DGkeC5Oa10exA9amwOxjGfIwO2OFX4wY154G_NyW61NdC9xKKP3NKEZfLTWZBIjc-r0X6inOwH7LtWDCyEKR_UxxOAogIiXrtiEdLvIg2YP5QKm3fRC_KiY3DE/s1600/Miliband-Nod-_jtf.gif" height="360" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Ed Miliband / Leaders Debate</td></tr>
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It’s the night of the 2015 Leaders’ Election Debate, hosted by ITV. As <a href="http://electoaesthetics.blogspot.nl/2015/04/the-gameshowification-of-political.html">Adrian Shaughnessy noted on this blog</a>, the ‘gameshowification’ of the event is strangely palpable. The dramatic opening music is accompanied by a shining silver title sequence, which shatters to the beat of an orchestral crescendo. All the while a camera pans around a glistening studio, each podium lit in its party colour.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ITV Leaders Debate / Titles</td></tr>
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During introductions, the spotlight turns to the potential leaders. They either smile at one another or look authoritatively toward the seated audience. In any case, they’re acting. When his name is called Ed Miliband silently turns to the camera and smiles. It’s an unintentional, disconcerting allusion to the emblematic Urquhart-cum-Underwood’s glance: as if about to break into soliloquy about what he really thinks about that chap wearing mustard yellow trousers on the front row.<br />
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Here, the anatomy of the show begins to take form. One by one, the camera hovers before a candidate and gently zooms toward their face as they make an opening statement. In turn their speeches, meticulously written and slightly over-rehearsed, are relayed to screens across the land. Watchwords such as ‘votes’, ‘fairly’, and ‘deficit’ form the backbone of these orations, keenly interspersed by the informal personal pronoun — mostly ‘you’, ‘I’, and ‘we’.<br />
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As is the case in so many political performances, it boils down to faith. How believable is the staging? How well delivered is their recital? In most cases, the key points of their speeches have been heard before and so the audience watches and waits, hoping that this time the candidates will forget a statistic or carefully phrased policy. Based on the human details of these fragmentary performances, many will cast their vote.<br />
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<span class="s1"><i>‘It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.’</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Macbeth</i>, Act V, scene v</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It’s all just pantomime.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.james.tf/about" target="_blank">James Taylor-Foster</a> is a writer, researcher, editor and architectural designer working between the UK and The Netherlands. James writes and lectures on art history, and is the author of the international bestseller Monet: Colour in Impressionism (2011)*. He is an Editor at ArchDaily, the world's most visited architecture website, and writes on contemporary architecture for a number of journals and magazines. He consults and undertakes freelance research in this capacity for small practices.<br /><br />James is an in-house practice researcher and publisher at Mecanoo architecten in Delft, Editor of LOBBY Magazine (Bartlett School of Architecture, London), Guest Lecturer at Manchester School of Architecture, and co-leads an independent research team based in the UK studying a neglected aspect of the architectural discourse. </span></div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-80362702220232963432015-04-13T13:49:00.001+01:002015-04-13T13:49:26.073+01:00Cut Boris Johnson's Hair<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By Jonas Berthod (with help from Andrew Brash)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifHjuuG9D_6guStvLlQM2pkZo4W2J58l8CyrDhdCWq8cA2CCuYeS0fwCj7mAhv3PN70icOJflw98sIpTKjFQ-EG4FQizVXCO7kGFFsX7-Bjt1Vj-GfO0sljFrQkDjWr8wyiDPs_dL1HDc/s1600/london-mayor-boris-johnson-accidentally-lighting-his-hair-on-fire-with-the-olympic-torch-331.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifHjuuG9D_6guStvLlQM2pkZo4W2J58l8CyrDhdCWq8cA2CCuYeS0fwCj7mAhv3PN70icOJflw98sIpTKjFQ-EG4FQizVXCO7kGFFsX7-Bjt1Vj-GfO0sljFrQkDjWr8wyiDPs_dL1HDc/s1600/london-mayor-boris-johnson-accidentally-lighting-his-hair-on-fire-with-the-olympic-torch-331.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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One of Boris Johnson's most deceiving political moves resides in plain sight: it is his hair.<br />
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Presented to the public like a pledge of friendliness and good-heartedness, his dishevelled hair—that he half-jokingly assures cutting himself 'with nail scissors'—is a constant source of public and media obsession (the thatch extraordinaire even earned its own Twitter handle, @Boris_Hair). <br />
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Perhaps Johnson isn't unlike Samson, his strength residing in his hair. (On a side note, the mayor seems to share Samson's unabashed interest in women.) I wonder if is is the case of all politicians, considering all that talk around Cameron's bald patch and Osborne's new haircut. <br />
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In any case, what Johnson really wants is for people to focus on his logo-like hair extravaganza. It is just one facet of 'Brand Boris', a persona he reportedly started developing at Oxford University. His disorderly look is a careful construct, shaped with wax, ruffled before rushing on stage, rumpled as he gets on TV sets. <br />
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That the seemingly innocuous tuffet is in fact nothing more than a PR toupee should come as no surprise. After all, in our times of constant exposure, there are not many politicians who would dare speaking a word—let alone grow a moustache—without consulting at least their press secretary. And English hair politics it is nothing new: they have a precedent with the Roundheads of the English Civil War.<br />
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What is perhaps more revealing of our times of constant PC is the strategy Johnson decides to embrace. By appearing bumbling, he is insinuating that he is too busy to take care of his look: he has a city to run, after all, and the tousled do turns into a proof of his efficiency. <br />
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Simultaneously, with his forwardness, Johnson is distancing himself from the politicians of the establishment, whose Photoshopped appearance and polished stances are now perceived as untrustworthy. <br />
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The straight-talking, normal-acting middle class white man character is also embraced by Nigel Farage: his sempiternal pint is to be taken as a token for his supposed normality, breaking away from the accepted image of the well-meaning politician, who neither drinks nor smokes. (Take that, NHS: the politician who had a rant about 'HIV tourists' bases his political campaign on promoting a lifestyle that costs you billions.)<br />
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Perhaps this approach is modelled after Jeremy Clarkson, who benefits from massive popularity. After all, not that many public figures can boast as supporters the (albeit shortly) hunger-striking daughter of a Prime Minister. His personality perhaps appeals to the public because of a continuous refusal to conform to political correctness. And when he retreats behind humour and temper to justify actions which would be inexcusable for any other public figure, he might only be putting forward the fact that he is just 'a normal person' prone to making mistakes—just like his audience is made of 'normal', 'average' people who also make mistakes, drink pints and have bad hair days.<br />
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Similarly, by acting a buffoon, Johnson is coming across as a friendly human—perhaps even the kind one would enjoy as having as neighbour. In any case, he seems charmingly harmless: his apparent detachment from the establishment and rapprochement with figures of 'normalcy' is reassuring to the 'normal' voter. <br />
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Another interesting aspect about Johnson's approach is how he manages to turn the usually bland PR manoeuvre into a joke—which simultaneously allows him to take distance from it, thus taking ownership of the usually perilous operation. This is evident not only with his look, but also in his interviews and speeches. For example, when asked by Guardian journalist Elizabeth Day whether he cried easily, Johnson cleverly juxtaposed his forced exposition with the neutralisation of the interviewer's agenda—all thanks to irony:<br />
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“Sorry, should I be more emotional?” He calls out to his press secretary on the other side of the room. “Camilla, is it good to be more of a blubber or less of a blubber? What are the readers of the Observer going to want?” <br />
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However, behind the peacock-like public persona hides a charged agenda. In that sense, Johnson uses his hair like a screen masking his ambitions, a tactic he constantly comes back to—with his ministerial ambitions, for example, or when he masquerades his real interests behind seemingly patriotic public positions.<br />
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In a sense, Boris Johnson has perfectly understood how our 140 characters long approach of understanding the world works. By using his hair as a shortcut for his persona, he takes advantage of the media and the public's little interest in the subtlety of the world, giving them panem et circenses instead. <br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jonas Berthod is a designer and researcher working between London and Switzerland. He runs an independent practice dealing with his overlapping interests in design, research and teaching. He is a lecturer in Critical History of Design at ECAL, Lausanne.</span></span></div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-45292881964692424212015-04-08T15:43:00.000+01:002015-04-08T15:43:07.494+01:00The Gameshowification of Political Debate<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
By Adrian Shaughnessy<div>
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For the major commercial TV networks, the prospect of another month or so of political journalists debating the mathematical intricacies of the deficit does not make for the sort of steroid pumped schedule-filling TV that they want. Nor are the media sales teams energised at the prospect of a few more weeks of showing party political broadcasts – the ricin of TV ad sales. <br />
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What the TV people really want is the gladiatorial spectacle of power-hungry politicos fighting each other to the death. They know the modern TV audience wants political blood. TV viewers want to see ambitions thwarted and careers derailed. They want ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. What better way to provide this than adapt politics to the game show format? <br />
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No one does the game show better than ITV – masters of the Quiz Format and Lords of the Shiny Floor. And so when seven of our would-be leaders agreed to debate in public (The Leaders Debate, 8:00pm, Thursday 2 April 2015), it was fitting that they should do it on ITV – home of Mr & Mrs, The Price is Right and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. This was electioneering with a Saturday night TV gloss. <br />
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Over seven million of us to tuned in to see our plucky contestants dressed and styled for primetime TV: men-of-the-people suits for the gents; department store tailoring for the ladies. Hair and make up was attended to in the established ‘mild embalming’ style of TV make-up departments. Amongst the female contestants, only Natalie from Australia failed to take the opportunity to introduce a bit of colour into her attire – on the other hand, Nicola from Scotland and Leanne from Wales seized the opportunity to inject a defiant note of celtic-fringe redness. Only Nigel from Kent’s wardrobe hinted at swagger – his ‘patriotism’ brashly semaphored by his pinstripe suit. You felt that he’d be happier still in his signature velvet collared overcoat. But the lights, Nigel – very hot under those lights. <br />
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The set design was ITV-lite. Restrained, tasteful even, with just the reflective qualities of the shiny floor to convey glamour – not to mention subtle reflections of the party political colours. There was even a hint of Kraftwerk with the streamlined lectern like-podiums. As the ITV website informs us, it was ‘a TV set not just with a bigger number of podiums than ever before for a UK election – but with colours which don’t scream “Labour”, “SNP” or “Green” or any of the seven hues of the political spectrum taking part.’<br />
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The website advised us in advance of the ‘little things’ to watch out for: ‘Yes, Farage is a few paces away from Cameron – and Miliband is too – but close up cameras will catch every twitch.’ Bad luck anyone hoping to pick up on any policy revelations – but there was plenty of twitching to occupy us. <br />
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The contestants were kept in check by a an efficient Quiz Mistress. More medical orderly than affable hostess, Julie Etchingham ruled with buttoned up rigour and curbed the male contestants appetite for shouting over each other. <br />
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Seven million people thought this was watchable television, so we can assume there will be more of the same. But let’s also apply game show rules and introduce penalties for failure: points deducted for an evasive answer and a lie get’s you booted off the show. That would be a ratings smash to gladden the heart of a TV mogul. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Archer SSm A', 'Archer SSm B', serif; line-height: 19.6000003814697px;">Adrian Shaughnessy is a graphic designer and writer based in London. He is a senior tutor in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art and a founding partner in </span><a href="http://www.uniteditions.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #30919c; font-family: 'Archer SSm A', 'Archer SSm B', serif; line-height: 19.6000003814697px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Unit Editions</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Archer SSm A', 'Archer SSm B', serif; line-height: 19.6000003814697px;"> a publishing company producing books on design and visual culture. </span><em style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Archer SSm A', 'Archer SSm B', serif; line-height: 19.6000003814697px;"><a href="http://www.uniteditions.com/shop/essays-scratching-the-surface" style="color: #30919c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Scratching the Surface</a></em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Archer SSm A', 'Archer SSm B', serif; line-height: 19.6000003814697px;">, a collection of his journalism, has recently been published</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Archer SSm A', 'Archer SSm B', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.6000003814697px;">. </span></div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-9246560955176688662015-04-03T00:00:00.001+01:002015-04-03T14:06:58.869+01:00Pink Herring<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
By Maria Smith<br />
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<span class="s1">As Selfridges launch a gender-neutral fashion campaign, Sweden add a gender-neutral pronoun to their dictionary and Yvette Cooper pledges to look into gender X passports, the first televised election debate centred around Kay Burley's pink dress. Oh dear. The world said she looked like she was hosting a cocktail party, like she was going to a Wetherspoon’s hen night, and like she was ovulating.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Pink seems to rile people up in a very special way. The drama with Labour's pink election battle bus last month illustrated this perfectly. Harriet Harman created a pink bus to travel the country to talk to women about women’s issues and oh how we went wild. It was so much fun hating on the pink bus: so much permissible indignation. Too much perhaps, perhaps revealing that what we’re really cross about is something not quite so permissible.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">My suspicion is that the colour of the bus is a Pink Herring and our excessive anger is actually about whether or not it’s even ok to talk about ‘women’s issues.’</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Countless commentators made the comparison with a Barbie bus and many of us are keen to distance ourselves from typically girls’ toys. </span>But hidden behind 'I don’t even like pink toys' is there: </div>
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<span class="s1">'I don’t feel that I live in a world rife with sexism and I’m starting to worry that going on about it all the time will become a self-fulfilling prophecy'?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Many felt it was insulting and patronising. But hidden behind 'It’s condescending to assume that all women like pink' is there: </span></div>
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<span class="s1">'I want to believe that women differ from each other as much as people with brown eyes differ from each other and I’m deeply uncomfortable with the thought that as long as there is a concept of gender we are inherently grouped and will have a raft of commonalities'?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Several critics took issue with the underlying assumption that women like pink. But hidden behind: 'pink shouldn’t be exclusively for girls' is there: </span></div>
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<span class="s1">'I feel that issues of work-life balance, maternity pay, or domestic violence should be issues that we all worry about, and billing them as women’s issues besmirches them as special treatment for the weaker sex'?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It’s difficult to say these things without fear of coming off a bad feminist. It’s difficult as a Gen Y to talk about gender issues without seeming ignorant and ungrateful to our foremothers. It’s easy to rage against pink. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Pink is never neutral. We can't wear pink without meaning it. Pink has become such a loaded colour that whether we choose to wear it or not we are inevitably making a statement about our attitudes and even values. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">This happens in two main ways: 1) Wearing pink; and 2) Not wearing pink. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">If we’re feminine and adorn pink – as Kay Burley did – then not only do we risk being told we look like we’re out on the pull, but if we surprise people by then saying something intelligent we gain easy and often immense power. That power is not only troublesome because it’s borne out of low expectations associated with femininity, but it’s also dangerously addictive. But damned either way, if we’re masculine and avoid pink, we’re still supporting the dominance of masculinity over femininity, which though arguably less problematic than male over female, is still perpetuating the patriarchy. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Pretty Woman, starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, was released 25 years ago this week. The poster showed Gere in a black suit, his tie tugged over his shoulder by a smiling Roberts in a pink crop top, black mini skirt and patent thigh highs. The title of the film stands next to the pair like a third protagonist in the hottest of pinks.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSjb0_yh4b1t4EPL5WyaPepbOiezZTbBmngFzrQWD7v47Mu8dPeOKUbo6izqVXtNFqLEubYGHsPk387KBMkSwvM7kMt3ywNdFGR0nNLRnI2OtYP-Ju3IzoysH7a2x_ZzxLkHNPzhWBIfU/s1600/13-easter-eggs-and-slip-ups-to-celebrate-the-25th-anniversary-of-pretty-woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSjb0_yh4b1t4EPL5WyaPepbOiezZTbBmngFzrQWD7v47Mu8dPeOKUbo6izqVXtNFqLEubYGHsPk387KBMkSwvM7kMt3ywNdFGR0nNLRnI2OtYP-Ju3IzoysH7a2x_ZzxLkHNPzhWBIfU/s1600/13-easter-eggs-and-slip-ups-to-celebrate-the-25th-anniversary-of-pretty-woman.jpg" height="640" width="426" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">A quarter of a century later and story of a girl deemed beautiful enough to be worthy of class ascension by a rich businessman feels dated to the point of nostalgia. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Now we have Frozen, whose use of pink The use of pink is interesting. The message in the film about true love in sisterhood provides a strong counterpoint to the Pretty Woman school of power games, but Anna still wears pink. Sure, it’s a dark purpley hue, but is there a conflict between the empowering message of sisterhood and the use of stereotypical pink to create a brand that appeals to the little girls the message is intended to reach. Maybe there isn’t. Maybe this means pink is being reclaimed now.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Anyway, Harriet Harman said the bus was magenta, while Gloria de Piero called it cerise. Kay Burley tweeted that her dress was coral. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Also in the news this week, these two mysteriously turned up in Portland, Oregon. One day, we will live in a world where we can all adorn pink as joyfully and casually as these chicks.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Maria Smith is a founding director of <a href="http://www.studioweave.com/" target="_blank">Studio Weave</a></span></div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-47942868775468801962015-03-24T09:52:00.003+00:002015-03-24T09:52:46.679+00:00The Kitchen As Political Theatre<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuQ78FIAgo9s12D_5MObxAHP3lwLyF76XNXrNSh2_R2NnddlbXrcEaQBNB_AVFMvsfJGhrCakBBg2TbVzvJLIXYq2Ye2mjgh6Y2gOKU63EfM5X1S25ggmb2zgBBccanNFIouhlowVoDNI/s1600/kitchen_3230635b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuQ78FIAgo9s12D_5MObxAHP3lwLyF76XNXrNSh2_R2NnddlbXrcEaQBNB_AVFMvsfJGhrCakBBg2TbVzvJLIXYq2Ye2mjgh6Y2gOKU63EfM5X1S25ggmb2zgBBccanNFIouhlowVoDNI/s1600/kitchen_3230635b.jpg" height="398" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Miliband second kitchen</td></tr>
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<br />So far its the kitchen that's emerged as the most important political space of the moment.<div>
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First, we had Ed Miliband filmed at home in what transpired to be only one of his kitchens. What wasn't filmed was apparently a bigger affair downstairs. As Ed tried to explain later "The house we bought had a kitchen downstairs when we bought it. And it is not the one we use. We use the small one upstairs"<br /><br />Sarah Vine, columnist for the Mail (and Tory chief whip Michael Gove's wife), described the Miliband's (second) kitchen as “bland, functional, humourless”, comparing it to “Communist era” housing. (Here's her <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2990810/Why-kitchen-tells-need-know-mirthless-Milibands-s-suggest-Ed-Justine-not-fact-aliens.html" target="_blank">full article</a>)</div>
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<br />Meanwhile Ed hit back at Prime Ministers Questions. To a Cameron jibe about kitchen cabinets, Miliband replied "I thought he might mention kitchens ... At least I paid for my kitchen unlike the government chief whip.” A reference to the fact that the Gove kitchen was apparently paid for by taxpayer money.<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtreNtMFx87avIKYCOQtKdI7JUmcET_JKKFjMNXchgRuqOOxtdTuU334rwR-O10IYdR2BPlgQbAlIdy8iZHj5ILdXDevw3Ld9h8IjoPpq-lAvuBsxap1npI7IGSmcF7Sqd9edSBa1qP9Y/s1600/v2-david-cameron-sandwich.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtreNtMFx87avIKYCOQtKdI7JUmcET_JKKFjMNXchgRuqOOxtdTuU334rwR-O10IYdR2BPlgQbAlIdy8iZHj5ILdXDevw3Ld9h8IjoPpq-lAvuBsxap1npI7IGSmcF7Sqd9edSBa1qP9Y/s1600/v2-david-cameron-sandwich.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cameron showing The Sun how he makes a sardine sandwich in the Downing St kitchen</td></tr>
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<br />At the same time, Cameron was inviting The Sun into his 'well stocked' Downing Street kitchen where he was filmed whipping up a quick ‘Sardines a la Cameron’ lunch as part of his day-in-the-life of a PM movie.<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJgiDNzDumF3VAUvrBlm7yJAsxXQtKnqxnCVFHo2G0HOaUs4JXuyusCZtA8z5booJmvcvwNrevJmnWnMjxVLEqrLQ_TyhFg5MgTfsDJPYRuu6laIGsbIdPW2ZBChUrwkB1c7YpzTQ07zg/s1600/8884f56a-a4d1-4207-8197-5ec945f1faa6-1020x612.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJgiDNzDumF3VAUvrBlm7yJAsxXQtKnqxnCVFHo2G0HOaUs4JXuyusCZtA8z5booJmvcvwNrevJmnWnMjxVLEqrLQ_TyhFg5MgTfsDJPYRuu6laIGsbIdPW2ZBChUrwkB1c7YpzTQ07zg/s1600/8884f56a-a4d1-4207-8197-5ec945f1faa6-1020x612.jpeg" height="384" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cameron's country kitchen</td></tr>
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<br />Now, we have Cameron inviting the BBC to his Witney constituency home filmed for the interview where he seemed to get ahead of himself a little by claiming he wouldn't stand for a third term as PM.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBRr8nm21fHlXRjVFnjQMz7t0KBdi4Bxr4gakwy1BH5K66lL-XJXJsrsWzfDeNshEqWtuAFQvP6OAfP74YaAZRNfGL8qfka4NDBfKOHHsKgv4ikAQhvdFlMdAT3TIg98qwa_2qxlgHUw/s1600/tumblr_mo77dwE6Cx1rw3fqbo1_1280.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBRr8nm21fHlXRjVFnjQMz7t0KBdi4Bxr4gakwy1BH5K66lL-XJXJsrsWzfDeNshEqWtuAFQvP6OAfP74YaAZRNfGL8qfka4NDBfKOHHsKgv4ikAQhvdFlMdAT3TIg98qwa_2qxlgHUw/s1600/tumblr_mo77dwE6Cx1rw3fqbo1_1280.png" height="470" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nixon & <span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">Khrushchev's Kitchen Debate</span></td></tr>
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<br />Is all this kitchen action accidental? Surely not. We only have to think of the famous Kitchen Debate between Nixon and Khrushchev back in 1959 to see how the image of domesticity acts as the perfect ideological theatre for political ideas. <br /><br />In the current proliferation of kitchen photo-ops its not the explicit political argument that's at stake but the semiotics of kitchen design which is the political argument. In other words, the kitchen has assumed the role of staging the authenticity and humanity of our politicians. </div>
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Why? Well, they have co-opted the heart of domestic life in a desperate attempt to look like real people - people like us, with, y'know, real kitchens. That's why they all look - in what should be the most natural and relaxed of places - completely awkward. And why their kitchens seem to be doubling, becoming phantom-like, less real and more like the staged kitchen of the American National Exhibition. </div>
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Except in that case the kitchen was an deliberate piece of cold war propaganda. It showing a kitchen full of the promise of technology and convenience, a kitchen staging an idea of the domestic future. </div>
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This batch of political kitchens however are simply trying to stage the present.</div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-12306529321273547722015-03-21T16:14:00.000+00:002015-03-21T16:15:06.959+00:00In Praise Of The Polling Station: Analogue Non-Design<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By Hugh Pearman<br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyKm2tUuQzFZUFY7_nbgM2UHq2nsFdGo6J1Bq0reaqburPv3-_OI7uRb1g8wXzcRoGz-YkrS1il7Hu2VnbOPYbfvaKsxFRwMicOOuqsui9F4JtJKj8P3226UqfSlIGbDeVmWQTkmIsSnY/s1600/2696.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyKm2tUuQzFZUFY7_nbgM2UHq2nsFdGo6J1Bq0reaqburPv3-_OI7uRb1g8wXzcRoGz-YkrS1il7Hu2VnbOPYbfvaKsxFRwMicOOuqsui9F4JtJKj8P3226UqfSlIGbDeVmWQTkmIsSnY/s1600/2696.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />“Nobody has ever asked me that before,” said the surprised person at the Electoral Commission. I’d called to ask about polling booths – those flimsy softwood-and-plywood folding arrangements, each equipped with its stubby pencil on a string, at which one stands to vote in UK elections. They appear to be precisely designed: room for just one person, the side screens discouraging overlooking, each one a tiny lectern at pretty much the right height, linked either in cruciform pattern or in rows. Ultra-basic but utterly fit for purpose, they have not changed in my lifetime – with the important exception of a low one now being mandatory at all polling stations for those needing it - and, so far as I can tell from archive photos, go back much further. Are there national design guidelines for these? Does a factory somewhere make them, or are they knocked together by local municipal workers from a manual? <br /><br />The polling station is a kit of essential parts, like a field hospital, erected inside another building. Also like a field hospital, it is governed by very exact procedures, and is capable of coping with sudden rushes of people interspersed by longeurs. You won’t find many people exercising their democratic right at an average polling station at, say, 11 am on election day. Particularly not local elections with their low turnout. But the system is there to handle everyone. It’s also designed to be packed up quickly in an emergency and reopened elsewhere. Like stalls at a fete, when it rains.<br /><br /><br />The six essential parts of the kit are:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwMUWbPfhNEXSDcMDeu-KRTNgfEWTThE07L2KKSnR2pgSwygQq21gyaCtuAcFMvAmS1Hk_APx420AInxYXWQaZSEJPaFTgQUe-X_iYdxp1lG1K86P9Y1Vx_1XrWV4vB6E_WpFz24JPeS0/s1600/Polling_station_sign.jpg"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwMUWbPfhNEXSDcMDeu-KRTNgfEWTThE07L2KKSnR2pgSwygQq21gyaCtuAcFMvAmS1Hk_APx420AInxYXWQaZSEJPaFTgQUe-X_iYdxp1lG1K86P9Y1Vx_1XrWV4vB6E_WpFz24JPeS0/s1600/Polling_station_sign.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />1. Notices. I have no idea what font it is, but the paper signs announcing POLLING STATION, usually crudely printed in black capitals on white paper, sometimes painted on wood, always make me think of Clement Atlee, Stafford Cripps, and postwar Austerity. Sometimes there are black arrows and “Way In” signs printed on other bits of paper to direct you to the right door. Once inside, other notices tell you what to do and there’ll be an enlarged version of the ballot paper with all the candidates’ names on it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Trestle tables. Generally available in the school halls and community centres where polling stations are set up, so pressed into service. You need a minimum of three – one for the two poll clerks (a paid Presiding Officer and assistant, working a 16-hour day) one for the polling agents (observers appointed by the candidates), and a “sundries table”. Plus something to put the ballot box on. <br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigrv3te3L2jZh5uBpIMuzgw5nulUGDU4uwnwJI5ZWpQJ5xZLjSfTTzrSUJvHmirhwPIgHn1OvDykdaGUl4a3Jg7LWWoYNrNAI9qir-eqp9zf3G6Bj0vv6FgMjY6wFNf-jWO-si_Kd5ltw/s1600/UK_Polling_Booth.jpg"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigrv3te3L2jZh5uBpIMuzgw5nulUGDU4uwnwJI5ZWpQJ5xZLjSfTTzrSUJvHmirhwPIgHn1OvDykdaGUl4a3Jg7LWWoYNrNAI9qir-eqp9zf3G6Bj0vv6FgMjY6wFNf-jWO-si_Kd5ltw/s1600/UK_Polling_Booth.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />3. The polling booths. These must be set up so that they are well lit and so people outside can’t look in and see how other people are voting.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGlba5JNR55BrzbPbYt-Kp-Z_8FItFWpYAkyj511lwxhHQJMrD0hfs57TSYWhbx7RO13PX4MRZinCQYpP6O1rvoQ0xGYb8yAcYlwkk_XowegjJuDI2XTp8QmUazuTqgzQ1IN9z3V0D7uc/s1600/4583274425_1919afba4c.jpg"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGlba5JNR55BrzbPbYt-Kp-Z_8FItFWpYAkyj511lwxhHQJMrD0hfs57TSYWhbx7RO13PX4MRZinCQYpP6O1rvoQ0xGYb8yAcYlwkk_XowegjJuDI2XTp8QmUazuTqgzQ1IN9z3V0D7uc/s1600/4583274425_1919afba4c.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />4. String. Essential to fasten the mandatory thick soft-leaded pencils to the booths. The Electoral Commission guidelines have a checklist which includes: “Is the string attached to the pencils long enough for the size of ballot papers and to accommodate both right-handed and left-handed voters?” Though you don’t HAVE to use the pencils, you can bring your own pen.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK9rXcLvNNtbSCPK0xc3XpLxcWVssYCs2bazdyRj5ReuDuDpzD0YN6rFLsCvaqSm7_jLwn3io3HuoA_gbeVcAPa4FrUeaqcqNjHE-oyYBFUd43LQ8jCsJkf17PvXJTF9MDm85jnHr871c/s1600/Ballot+box.jpg"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK9rXcLvNNtbSCPK0xc3XpLxcWVssYCs2bazdyRj5ReuDuDpzD0YN6rFLsCvaqSm7_jLwn3io3HuoA_gbeVcAPa4FrUeaqcqNjHE-oyYBFUd43LQ8jCsJkf17PvXJTF9MDm85jnHr871c/s1600/Ballot+box.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />5. The ballot box. Disappointingly, these seem to come in many varieties and materials but for me they really have to be large, battered, black-enamelled metal boxes. There are various kinds of seals – legal pink ribbon is good though plastic closures are now more common. There’s a pleasing ritual, just before the 7 am kick-off, when the Presiding Officer has to show everyone present that the box is empty, before sealing it. Except for the slot, obviously. After close of play at 10pm, the slot is sealed too, for the box to be transported to the count. You’d expect fleets of security vans nationwide but no: it seems the back seat of the Presiding Officer’s Ford Fiesta is just fine.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9KRDMcsFQAk94H_AbaH93Uw_13eCkzqjem9MIWRpUiO1p3_CEjJzHtk__aVakhSfLoZkAg7L3eXtLSrqKQeMVdijHhpldjNvFdd8QBR88rDxCKnz7-4oCu25eBwSNuq3UB9m3y5DkLyA/s1600/Empty+polling+station+-+note+mandatory+chairs.jpg"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9KRDMcsFQAk94H_AbaH93Uw_13eCkzqjem9MIWRpUiO1p3_CEjJzHtk__aVakhSfLoZkAg7L3eXtLSrqKQeMVdijHhpldjNvFdd8QBR88rDxCKnz7-4oCu25eBwSNuq3UB9m3y5DkLyA/s1600/Empty+polling+station+-+note+mandatory+chairs.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />6. One or two chairs available so that any voter needing to can rest. <br /><br /><br />I treasure the ceremonial of polling day, which is a series of short walks and satisfyingly simple actions. Everything about it seems a form of historic re-enactment. First, the walk to the polling station. There will be an assortment of people outside, perhaps with party rosettes (rosettes! Antique knightly badges only otherwise seen on prizewinning animals at livestock, fruit and veg shows and the like). These people are called ‘tellers’ and want to know who’s voted so they can chase up the ones who haven’t. But they are only semi-official, must remain outside, and you are free to ignore them, grandly.<br /><br />Inside, you proffer your voting card, are scrutinised by the two officials and carefully marked off on a register, then are handed your ballot paper. You move to the polling booth with its rough shelf, to mark your X. You fold the paper and progress to the ballot box, post it, and exit. The process is rapid but feels important, as it should. <br /><br />Security is there in the form of a bored police officer outside, but apart from a very few well-publicised cases of intimidation, we all know that this is not usually where electoral fraud takes place – it’s in the postal voting and the handling of full ballot boxes and the town-hall counting where things can go awry. A polling station could be a target for attack but we have no experience of that yet in the UK. So we trust the reassuring, unchanged and distinctly functionalist set-up.<br /><br />Enjoy this throwback analogue low-tech procedure while you can because presumably it won’t be long before we’re all voting online. That’s recommended by the Electoral Commission, will be much more convenient for everyone and will most likely greatly increase voter involvement. Then again, you can just imagine the whole system being hacked and crashing on the day.<br /><br />Finally the amused press officer at the Electoral Commission got back to me on my polling-booth question. No, she said, there appears not to be a standard recommended design. Anything will do so long as it meets requirements for privacy and accessibility, it’s left up to the local authority Returning Officers. Nonetheless there seems to be this typical wood/plywood product. All I can tell you is that somehow they cost about £90 each to make and that Cornwall County Council, looking to save money, has trialled £15 snap-together cardboard ones instead.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hugh Pearman is editor of the RIBA Journal, architecture critic of the Sunday Times, and visiting professor in architecture at the RCA. He likes design that doesn't try too hard.</span></span></div>
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Here is the excellent documentary 'Journeys with George' by Alexandra Pelosi and Aaron Lubarsky that followed George W. Bush for more than a year on his campaign trail to the presidency in 2000. It exposes the mechanics of electioneering, the way events are stage managed for media and the relationship between the image and reality of modern political rhetorics</div>
Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-77358660795323187992010-04-11T20:34:00.063+01:002015-03-21T16:07:32.814+00:00"No digital effects have been used on this poster"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By <a href="http://waywardsentiment.blogspot.com/">Crystal Bennes</a><br /><br />It used to be that if you wanted to deface an election poster you had to go and do it the old fashioned way: tote a makeshift tool kit of paint, brush and ladder, risk life and limb to crawl up the billboard and get to work redecorating. This however is the future and the future is new media. In the first general election since the rise of Twitter, Facebook and social networking, there's a whole new world of online guerrilla graffiting out there for the taking. Anyone with an internet connection and a little imagination can attract – especially if the graffiti goes viral – a far wider audience than a couple of kids tagging up posters with cans of spray paint on the side of the M25.<br /><br /><br />Not that the battle for campaign posters isn't also happening on solid ground. Indeed it is. All the hallmarks of street art - ripped posters, paint splodges, thick black marker, stencilled swear words - are present and accounted for in cities and towns around the UK. In Bolton a graffiti artist has gone to the trouble of climbing up to one of the Conservative posters only to do nothing but stencil 'CUNT' in chunky, black, serifed letters on Cameron’s forehead, an interesting juxtaposition.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb162/cbennes/Wayward%20Sentiment/?action=view&current=DCcuntinBolton_andythepoi-1.jpg"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEjUP2blAjbIB0IgTAlrYCQ1uyeeMS6GiqdaQ00TLDE0HPSeebnU4ElhsiEp04lnPppCojDCDQWPYQqiqDNDXgM7mroI1I_x_YBAxVV_n4Khzp9JcrO8eaX2cqZMG2c2rhMHfdJm6ndvrgSg89EO9k5EdtICMK1Gp6eN2PSlKsDx6G0jKwwJKX7fW-q9m0-bSQepVQUV4tX3JwraQSiW7Q79yUbP0A=" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><br />(photo by andythepol)<br /><br /><br />Technically this approach is more polished than a simple swipe of spray paint, but it’s not exactly going to win an award for wit or subtlety (though I’m beginning to wonder whether there’s really any place for subtlety in guerrilla election aesthetics). Not that wit and the presumed spontaneity of the DIY approach can’t prove to be a happy marriage. Here’s a nice example from Exeter:<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb162/cbennes/Wayward%20Sentiment/?action=view&current=ToryExeterPolo_TundiTurunda-1.jpg"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEjvu4JEKSDeqfao6f5NxeBe0-Mm-CMU0aaihI5UWaa9bAzSZcO2BuT3eCG4CAoaI5tAv-7i1qYCzDIwouE4q8UcaMX3bMMN-8r5pnUAP1ykxM5f0ruEmhDB7i2b2kMrZ6xEcZUVST54MaQJRU2NHijxs2pIkeP7nFkOhu5vwL5Nbib4XsKqOgD-FwGmoau-Q4tqEOzpm1yzzxNQds5kT0yLRjJFYNXF=" width="640" /></a><br /><br />(photo by Tundi Turunda)<br /><br /><br />This poster is part of the third, “I’ve never voted Tory”, poster series in which first-time Tory voters explain the reasons for their ideological shift. Take ideological shift with a grain of salt as the original three posters list, “we’ve got to mend our broken society”, “we need to sort out the economy”, and “I like their plans to help families”, as their reasons for giving the Tories a go. It all sounds a bit like the rhetoric of a one-night stand: I never normally have sex on the first date, but hell, I like your tie. Your place or mine. Some enterprising individual has picked up on the rather insipid nature of the rhetoric on the original posters and has replaced, “but we’ve got to mend our broken society” with the inspired though hastily spray-painted scrawl, “but no one else knows the rules to polo.” That it's tagged in thick black spray paint brings a bit of menace to a poster with an otherwise faux-PC patina (the woman on the poster is black, of course, so double the minority points).<br /><br /><br />Unlike the unadulterated versions of the Cameron poster (replete with aforementioned vacuous rhetoric) where we might say the medium is the message, the message is the message in the case of the tagged up posters. This is not a sophisticated aesthetic attempting to rival the original design, but a raw, rough-around-the-edges sensibility that's clearly more interested in getting the message across but also in exposing what we can all see to be the stylistic vacuity of Cameron's smooth as a baby’s butt face.<br /><br /><br />But for every fifty visually naive alterations to the original poster, a more unique approach to electoral street art can be found in which the artist demonstrates a real flair for the artistic and political appropriation of, not only the message, but of the medium as well. Infamous East London graffiti artist, Dr. D has made quite a striking alteration to the now ubiquitous Cameron poster, white-washing the majority of the image, leaving only Cameron and his baby blues staring back at us. Instead of the expected, “I’ll save the NHS”, Dr. D has printed “suck my goldman sachs” in all lower-case, banker-blue lettering - the same sans-serif type (Franklin Gothic Demi, for the curious) as the original poster.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb162/cbennes/Wayward%20Sentiment/?action=view&current=DrD_Cameron_Motthehoopie.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiCKU8__P4mUI0g524mx3OiNxSltRCI0qyNvRUUDpkXX1YctEUxCZFJq3nSmSf4J9UN94wDDnjPLA_QRWnYX-bIMAynmBERdZuvliya3WjOQPSsHg5sHqS_x-jmA9WDz6NiotBcr-PvfzR24iCc6vApvqBxXPl_zGmVZKz_sajgqPTiVWlk1sIrHI1AxI1gtCJqN3uT2HzsAftt-nfH0NM7nQ=" width="480" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />(photo by Motthehoople)<br /><br /><br />Dr. D has exhibited her street art in galleries so it's no surprise that form is as important to her as function. There is no doubt that this is a more intellectual and sophisticated approach than simply tagging up a poster, yet it feels somehow less immediate, less visceral, and less violent than the DIY feel of angry black spray paint. <br /><br />The most fun to be had in this guerilla warfare, however, is online. This is the real battleground for the 2010 election, where digital “tagging” and manipulation can lead to the instantaneous mass distribution of subversive political ideas. What makes the proliferation of online manipulations so powerful is that while they share the same aesthetic as the original posters, the messages are dislocated from the political language we assume will appear. When the new M&C Saatchi ads for the Conservatives attacking Gordon Brown were revealed at the end of March, it wasn’t even a matter of a few hours before Labour supporters had spoof ads all over the web. While the slogans on these spoofs naturally tend toward personal mudslinging, the more interesting ones often take a different approach. One rather amusing spoof took issue with the fact that Cameron had sacked his previous ad agency only to run back to ever-dependable Saatchi for the current set of blame-Brown ads: its strap line reads, “I changed my ad agency. I can change the country.” It’s rather amusing that design should come to find itself in the political firing line of public consciousness, especially given that the attack is not for any aesthetic misdeed but because a particular design agency has come to be seen as intimately linked to the Conservative establishment. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb162/cbennes/Wayward%20Sentiment/?action=view&current=changeadchangecountry_TomFreeman-1.jpg"><img border="0" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEg08CU9J7oQ6rjjbL5Bg0Jw_ODdmTfL9_xnMXiAiZqj3LOxYNG83_YrbwvtY6JCtEeyj6kqH1KSkdIERRqWw6e3Wg7s0zBsWidd4pXo2JmkNWn1SvVgswjqEz6rYbJDwgEwt6qgwvThA7wvp9gexhRQsVbP1OB55AqkV_9QrPnOfsGNKGTkx_N8llmrDUZLd6G87fP5e8zildweVIqQm3hDIoXQp_swTJbFLHo=" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />(poster by Tom Freeman)<br /><br /><br />There's plenty more where that one came from, though those who are on better terms with Photoshop push the visual language of the poster to its extremes. Many spoofers have singled out Cameron’s airbrushing in particular as worthy of satire: on one poster a picture of a character from Avatar has been swapped with the picture of Cameron, coupled with the strap line, “No digital effects have been used on this poster.'” <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb162/cbennes/Wayward%20Sentiment/?action=view&current=avatar_ianyates-1.jpg"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEjB_82Nasn-aaF7cXwZiI47_-mXUebtycLHtk9JKBTu4tEbwRVUWebZCODt-g2YAxjvLO3Zq1uecVQBsNvZJO4mpn-bTrPT_11nKgcSeSsmog7dfgx8x8F_GbvxFisHP0OJ4aT_rMue9ojlXC-a2bi7aLjiM1oMrQ2IF2M5R_DRczxRRAGLpEOvUeVYRl9kQIz9rRKCkdXSRH1B=" width="640" /></a><br /><br />(poster by Ian Yates)<br /><br /><br />Another spoof insists that the poster has not been airbrushed. Ask Maggie, here, it reads next to a photoshopped Thatcher face cut and pasted onto the body of a well-endowed and much younger woman.<br /><br /><a href="http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb162/cbennes/Wayward%20Sentiment/?action=view&current=airbrushedforchange_andytoots-1-1.jpg"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEjNDVJ1OsOanoa_57Vwdc_oFiBoiJdGvLxaFvn6g09XoA_nirSN2SiI12A3oiNyFUKYSLSIsxh3afQIfR1Xq77MlBUcnPNgQvABqBPs_rcTtwymnro3Ye09avMURebjlkDyzkxSo7XMLubI5fWilXPP4fo10WXvQO3ozL8sfp0SeOCOd-5wQa5Bl-SDWj0vl7oyTsVKnsiNhxajyOwzAb95be2AwH8o1rWbXQ=" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><br />(poster by Andy Toots)<br /><br /><br />Clearly, many Britons are more interested in the falsity of the visual language than of the political message being pandered. Indeed a whole garden industry has sprung up around the digital manipulation and spoofing of the Conservative election posters. You could waste hours amusing yourself at <a href="http://mydavidcameron.com/">http://mydavidcameron.com</a><br /><br /><br />What is perhaps most remarkable about these spoofed and graffitied posters is that the guerilla efforts mock not only the message but the medium as well. As a previous <a href="http://electoaesthetics.blogspot.com/2010/03/david-camerons-face-as-pink-fleshy.html">post</a> claimed, the medium has become the message. As voters in this age of no-policy politics, it is the visual that we are meant to identify with. Surely this explains why so few guerilla taggers and photoshopers create original, never before seen, artwork for their mocktastic efforts. Unless the visual language is the same, the subversion is meaningless.</div>
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Adrian Shaughnessy<br />
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Since voting in elections has become about as popular as holidays in North Korea, <a href="http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/">The Electoral Commission</a> has decided that public money needs to be spent persuading us to re-acquire the habit of putting crosses on ballot papers.<br />
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A modest, unpretentious <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/ElectoralCommission1#p/a/u/2/Civ_zk5JNcw">TV commercial</a> is currently reminding us not to allow anything to get in the way of performing our democratic birthright to appoint the person of our choice to represent us in Parliament. Like forgetting to register to vote.<br />
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The story of a young, independent, dog-owning female called Liz is offered to us as a warning. A modern everywoman, Liz is dressed in Gap and lives on her own. We know this because why else would she take her dog to a polling booth? (Are dogs even allowed in polling booths?) We see her<br />
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emerging from a grim looking block of flats. A sub-Amelie mandolin and piano soundtrack accompanies her as she sashays through the local park. She could be taking part in a low-key yogurt commercial. Brimming with democratic intent she arrives at her nearest polling station<br />
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Yet before she can fulfil her electoral duty, she walks Marcel Marceau-style into an invisible glass wall and lands on her back. Poor Liz. She allowed something to get in her way; she neglected to register to vote.<br />
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On their website, The Electoral Commission announce themselves to be an independent body set up by the UK Parliament, “Our aim is,” they say, “integrity and public confidence in the democratic process.”<br />
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Integrity and public confidence, eh? Hardly words we currently associate with our governing class.</div>
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Of course, our reluctance to vote might be caused by any number of reasons: the fact that the insides of polling stations look like sets from an episode of Dad’s Army, for example. Or it might be because of those annoying people with rosettes who ask us for our voter’s roll number as we leave the polling station. A more likely reason, however, is the massive zeitgeist-weighted feeling that all politicians are greedy “cabs for hire” without a shred of integrity between them.<br />
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Will this ad persuade people to register? Perhaps. But I think it will take more than sassy Liz and her dog to shift the abscess of public disillusionment with politics from the national consciousness</div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-68719092550622564882010-04-03T22:28:00.018+01:002015-03-21T16:13:02.984+00:00Purple Reign<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As Labour and the Conservatives trade insults and policies in the grapple for the middle ground, Britain’s political hue is blending from red and blue into a suave shade of purple.</span><o:p></o:p></span> <br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">Traditional associations of red with socialism and blue with conservatism go back to the <i>bonnets rouges</i> of the French Revolution and <i>True Blue </i>English protestantism. The same spectrum of political allegiance now applies for most of Europe – the one big global anomaly being America where Democrats are associated with blue and Republicans with red. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">Purple always held associations with imperial or holy power. The cost of the Tyrian dye made in Lebanon meant the colour was only available to the elite.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">But purple entered the political mainstream in the 1980s when it became synonymous with the Dutch Purple (or ‘Paars’) Government, a coalition of the red social-democratic Labour Party and blue right-wing liberals the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy. The Purple Government was based on the innovative Polder Model of consensus policy, a ‘third way’ acclaimed and later borrowed by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">So when Tony Blair pitched New Labour at the middle ground during the 1997 election campaign the backgrounds used for speeches and party political broadcasts predictably faded to purple.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">Over the last decade, Labour’s political palette has swung between rabble-rousing red and appeasing purple in response to the government’s fortunes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">In 1998 John Prescott balked at the background of his Party Conference speech saying "Purple? The imperial colour of Philip of Macedonia. I can't have that, can I? Change it!" <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">Since then the annual Labour Party Conferences have been conducted in front of a smouldering twilight gradient that shifts between lilac, violet and cabaret red depending on the speaker, illuminating Labour’s message with a powerpoint-like purple haze.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi65Viw_Jd3L4Le-lRV7EKkFu0dEkLaZ_tzCr23giPkteCBvFbaDQw9NN57Do-AeKVzfW4tSMnQnsusGStFQOyjxzhEPtts0cxvGHddaq0IlYEfwxfQRPGlIA-U-qemvpTUoWoxtp9R-Ceb/s1600/PurpleReign_1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi65Viw_Jd3L4Le-lRV7EKkFu0dEkLaZ_tzCr23giPkteCBvFbaDQw9NN57Do-AeKVzfW4tSMnQnsusGStFQOyjxzhEPtts0cxvGHddaq0IlYEfwxfQRPGlIA-U-qemvpTUoWoxtp9R-Ceb/s400/PurpleReign_1.jpg" height="384" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5456031131189880786" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">Brown re-branded Labour’s red rose in mauve when he took over from Blair in 2007 – then backtracked to a more traditional red following opposition from party faithfuls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_gdrI4bHh1oXQbsEpJj6GPcDa_J-Xna7Rpar_4bG4d6nv9lkTka22N_9D3gkwnyhUWiPEINakEOFtExCW47n_1Q5nd6WbD3Cf2WScrCDH9LtcAA4KOFF_8xuXvFeAsxxemRIX2x-kna5s/s1600/PurpleReign_2.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_gdrI4bHh1oXQbsEpJj6GPcDa_J-Xna7Rpar_4bG4d6nv9lkTka22N_9D3gkwnyhUWiPEINakEOFtExCW47n_1Q5nd6WbD3Cf2WScrCDH9LtcAA4KOFF_8xuXvFeAsxxemRIX2x-kna5s/s400/PurpleReign_2.gif" height="505" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5456030946653549842" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">For Alistair Darling’s 2010 Budget Labour’s front bench turned out in uniform purple – perhaps a conscientious effort to avoid an ‘In the Red’ headline.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWCJIpqyLHc5eDgP1357XJERbZ4tMXZe6JjJjv8oZKQKZE4sf5HF3UOvKUsLAyklCLrNMUA8U7ZtpLA7-4Se3dkSUPEHXVVwMArtODWy3OcdrhnwM2cte43pvnaGaUyXEeYlXdltZL1GTh/s1600/PurpleReign_3.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWCJIpqyLHc5eDgP1357XJERbZ4tMXZe6JjJjv8oZKQKZE4sf5HF3UOvKUsLAyklCLrNMUA8U7ZtpLA7-4Se3dkSUPEHXVVwMArtODWy3OcdrhnwM2cte43pvnaGaUyXEeYlXdltZL1GTh/s400/PurpleReign_3.jpg" height="449" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5456030661965700370" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" width="640" /></a></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">The Conservatives were slower to catch on to the game of stealthy graphical expansionism. In 2006 they claimed the eco-ground with a re-design of their logo as a scribbled green tree, keeping the blue but making it less banker more blue-sky-thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">Since then the Tories green streak has extended to David Cameron’s ties. But recently Cameron too has started to adopt purple as an attempt to woo floating voters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">A survey of recent ties shows Cameron stays towards the violet end of the spectrum – though he’s not afraid to venture into a lustrous mauve. Nick Clegg tends to lean towards lilac. Whereas Brown’s neck-ties are more variegated, ranging from lavender to magenta.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWDOvcj55FK8xnHUb7NqTxjD4qQ-CLiZjOt6ouxOsYMHRwT8W86UAOfYaYtcZMser33APR8xrCvKNH4vi1C8NtRLqyW7XfqDd1LgJAmYd6uz7BJF6iVGasv6G6LzU_VwGkpzxNq5SGZFZp/s1600/PurpleReign_4.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWDOvcj55FK8xnHUb7NqTxjD4qQ-CLiZjOt6ouxOsYMHRwT8W86UAOfYaYtcZMser33APR8xrCvKNH4vi1C8NtRLqyW7XfqDd1LgJAmYd6uz7BJF6iVGasv6G6LzU_VwGkpzxNq5SGZFZp/s400/PurpleReign_4.jpg" height="134" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5456031795660341938" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" width="640" /></a></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">The purple reign of UK politics is the target of the Liberal Democrats’ new marketing campaign launched on the eve of April Fools’ Day. Marketing agency Iris has beautifully undercut the one-upmanship of Labour and the Tories by inventing a satirical campaign for the <a href="http://www.labservative.com/">Labservatives</a>, a bogus party which recasts the big two as a single flawed hegemony.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 100%;">The graphics are a bastardised blend of Labour red and Tory blue, with fuzzy bland sans serif statements promising ‘more of the same’. Lines like ‘Familiarity Breeds Consent’ are cleverly cloaked digs that echo Pim Fortuyn’s <i>Puinhopen Van Acht Jaar Paars</i> (The Ruins of Eight Purple Years), the explosive book that effectively demolished the Dutch Purple Government when Fortuyn used it as the agenda for his political campaign in 2002. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 100%;">But there is a danger that the subtlety of the Labservative message will be lost on the majority of voters. The obliqueness of the campaign inadvertently reinforces the Lib Dems’ position at the fringe of the mainstream. By continuing to concentrate on the weaknesses of the big two rather than their own strengths, they may be condemning themselves to obscurity.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">Fortuyn was assassinated 9 days before the Dutch General Elections, but went on to be posthumously elected to the House of Representatives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">In the absence of a bright alternative of any colour, perhaps Britain will end up voting in a purple advertising campaign.</span></div>
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William Perkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03031645600426911662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-87689962229837063732010-03-30T23:47:00.000+01:002015-03-21T16:13:34.936+00:00Ask The Chancellors<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Ask The Chancellors sets the three would-be Chancellors in a studio debate. It's part of a new role that TV is playing in the UK general election - later we'll see the party leaders doing the same for the first time. </div>
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The idea of introducing the televised debate as part of the election campaign – common in many other countries – comes it seems from the increasing disinterest that the electorate seem to show in politics and politicians.</div>
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So Channel 4s 'Ask the Chancellors' is an interesting development in the platforms of debate in the UK. It becomes a new type of space –somewhere between game show and the debating chamber of the House of Commons.</div>
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The show opened with an overview showing the three candidates each behind a podium on a stage (arranged left, centre, right according to traditional political leaning), facing an audience with Krishnan Guru-Murthy as the host. </div>
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Already the traditional spatial arrangement of British political debate is skewed. Instead of the opposing benches of the House of Commons, politicians relationship to the audience is frontal. And it seems to leaves them looking slightly awkward. </div>
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The most immediate visual effect is the sheer amount of purple. The whole stage is bathed in washes of non-partisan lilac.</div>
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The platform – in the design vernacular – "floats". That’s to say, it's raised slightly from the studio floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From underneath, it throws out a bluey-UVish light like a souped-up Vauxhall Astra.</div>
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Suspended somewhere over to the right, behind George Osborne, was a large floating oblong like an overscaled fluorescent light fitting. </div>
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Behind them a series of panels form a screen – the kind of thing you'd see in the makeover of a 60s office block, suggesting efficiency, contemporayness, openness, clarity. Here though its projected with three C4 logos and highlighted with more lilac spotlights. </div>
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The podia themselves are strangely flimsy things –a cross between the dispatch box and a game show. But is not a podium you could thump as you make a point without it collapsing.</div>
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Perhaps the most affecting moment is when the camera shoots across the line of the candidates as one addressed another directly, rather than addressing the camera or the audience. Suddenly, the space becomes visceral, and intimate – the lens collapsing the space between them suddenly forcing an aggressive intimacy more familiar to a boxing weigh-in.</div>
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Of course, it’s a little ridiculous to be examining a no-doubt hastily assembled studio set for a profound semiological text on the nature of contemporary politics. But, perhaps the fact that its most obvious quality is a generic emptiness is an interesting attribute in itself. Of course it has none of the gothic spookiness of Westminster. But equally, it has none of the Day Today overblown drama of the contemporary news studio, or even the clubbish setting of Sunday political talk shows. Does this apparent expediency attempt to suggest transparency – that the medium itself isn’t anything more than a means of transmitting information in an innocent manner? </div>
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Whether TV is the answer to electoral disinterest is open to question – especially at a moment when TV itself has been fragmented by multi channels and platforms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was apparently watched by only 1.7m - 2.1m viewers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One other thing ... tell us about that tie Krishnan</div>
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-21323272725850085692010-03-29T13:31:00.000+01:002010-03-29T13:33:13.240+01:00The Typology of Swingometers in Brief<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">It may only come out for one evening every 5 years, but nevertheless, the swingometer is perhaps the most definite design object of any election. It acts out democracy in front of our eyes, as if the reality of counting votes isn't real enough.</span> </span></span><br />
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A brief history of BBC Swingometers from 1955-2005<br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Election 1966, BBC Swingometer</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
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Election 1970, BBC Swingometer<br />
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Election 1974<br />
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Hopefully, Swingometers will be a subject we return to again soon.Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-58802411791625527862010-03-29T13:09:00.000+01:002015-03-21T16:13:52.250+00:00David Camerons Face as Pink, Fleshy Semiology<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This piece on the first round of Tory pre-election posters was first published in </span></i><a href="http://iconeye.com/index.php?view=article&catid=1:latest-news&layout=news&id=4326:review-david-camerons-face&option=com_content&Itemid=18"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Icon</span></i></a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">I can’t quite describe the visual effect that struck me while driving around the Vauxhall one-way system. Suddenly, on a gigantic billboard, a huge, glowing image of David Cameron burst into the landscape.<br />
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Through my windscreen, his massive fleshy face stared at me with a Mona Lisa smile that seems to both care and sneer. His visage, with £50,000 of photoshopping, appeared three-storey huge. Suit and shirt but no tie and a slight tilt to the head. A touch of ruddiness to his cheek suggesting the Englishness of Home Counties outdoor activity. A hazy background suggesting a public-private initiative-type space: AHMM education or Penoyre & Prasad healthcare. A few simple elements: just face and whiteness and simple type that reads, Jenny Holzer-style, "We can’t go on like this" (the kind of thing you say compassionately to a lover you no longer love, but don’t want to hurt). Cameron’s image seems instantly clear. But also entirely foxing.<br />
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The image marks the start of the Conservatives’ pre-election campaign. And it’s a strange campaign that seems to distill the current state of British politics. Traditional political rhetoric has evaporated into soundbites, focus groups and neoliberal consensus. Politics has become an aesthetic project rather than a verbal one. Positions are not set out in words, but expressed through hyper-sophisticated images.<br />
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In Cameron’s face, the distinction between form and content seems to have collapsed. There is no message apart from the medium. The form is the content. Here, the differences between the politics of design and the design of politics dissolve into one another. In contemporary politics, there is an absence of argument. In its place we have image. Politics has become totally aestheticised.<br />
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Cameron’s poster presents what seems a transparent window to the image of a real live human being. But it’s not really a picture of his face, and not really a picture of a human being. It’s an ideological construct played out in flesh and airbrush. Face here is not a function of biology or physiology. It’s pink, fleshy semiology.<br />
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The poster has a blank quality, flat and still as though it were a pool reflecting the world back at itself. Its image is slippy like ice, so that it falls from your hand when you try to grasp it. Its effect is a ghostly haze; an apparition of meaning that vanishes if you fix your gaze on it. It possesses an intense but unfocused sincerity.<br />
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To set this poster in relief, we might note how it differs from other recent forms of political communication. For example, Shepard Fairey’s celebrated posters for Obama’s election campaign used a retro technique that explicitly recalled counter-cultural image-making from previous generations. The nostalgic visual language is overcoded with red, white and blue patriotism and slogans that are banal-positive with an Orwellian touch: "Hope", "Change" and so on. Form and content head in opposite directions.<br />
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In Cameron’s massive and mass-produced visage we see image-politics matured to a point where it is confident to express no slogan, policy or allegiance to any ideology, or even any sense that he is the leader of a particular political party. Empty of traditional politics, it fuses techniques of image-making in a way that strangely seems to synthesise art and life. Design and politics become the same thing – as complete as any constructivist could dream of.<br />
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We are as suspicious of design as we are of contemporary politics. In both, the perfect surface – the image – represents the artificial and the superficial. But in the collapse of one onto another, it’s just possible that two wrongs might fuse into a right.<br />
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Instead of mourning the loss of wordy political rhetoric or design as a zombified aestheticism machine serving the military-industrial complex, we might recognise that profound and very real political discourse has shifted to the image world. In doing this we might recognise design’s potential as a radical surface to act out the politics of the 21st century. And that, ironically, this vector might reconstruct design as the political agent its modernist forefathers told us it could be. </span></div>
Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900454318701320417.post-3517829687743491522010-03-29T00:35:00.000+01:002015-03-21T16:13:57.515+00:00The Aesthetics of Politics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
According to prevailing opinion, there's not much politics left in politics, the difference between left and right having become a hazy blur of neo-liberal spin. Personally, I'm not sure I subscribe to this view entirely. But it's certainly true that the language of politics - and especially politics in election campaign mode - has become ever more visual.<br />
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Rather than dismiss this non-verbal political rhetoric as shallow spin, here at Election Aesthetics we think it's imperative to take the visual rhetorics seriously - to examine their techniques, meanings and intent. Over the course of the coming months, we'll be looking at the aesthetics of politics as it plays out over the election campaign.<br />
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Sam Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04641439952951833566noreply@blogger.com0