It’s late afternoon at a sunlit café on a high-traffic street. Young faces stare intently at their laptops while the smell of roasted coffee and the beat of a downtempo groove fills the air. Cups clatter on white modernist tables amid laughter and the buzz of machines grinding beans. The coffee menu reads much like the day’s headlines: East Timor, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Colombia.

Bells on the door jingle as Robin walks in. Sam looks up from a bright orange couch.

Sam: Hey! How’s it going? How are you?

Robin: Excellent. You? How’s business?

Sam: Really good, actually. An identity design we did just got a big award. So that’s nice. What’s new with you?

Robin: Things are good. Let’s see... A poster we did helped turn out nearly a hundred thousand people to that protest last week.

Sam: Whoa! How’d you get involved with that?

Robin: I just heard about the march and got in touch. It was a chance to do something for a cause, something the studio believes in. And, honestly, it was an interesting design challenge.

Sam: Sounds great. But do you ever feel conflicted? I mean, look at those posters about the genocide in Darfur. I’m all for rising to the challenge, but don’t these things just take advantage of the cause by exploiting some tragedy as an excuse to make a clever design?

Robin: Well, if I care about a cause, why shouldn’t I respond and communicate that? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with clever, as long as it helps you get your point across.

Sam: Fair enough, but seriously, don’t you think it’s more effective to support a candidate or donate money to a cause, instead of spending your time making T-shirts and bumper stickers?

Robin: Is that what you tell your business clients?, “Just skip the design, marketing doesn’t make sense. Just wait for your customers to pony up.”

Sam: Well, designing for business is different. I don’t want my studio to be seen as too political.

Robin: C’mon, from a certain point of view, everything’s political, including representing the views and interests of businesses. It’s all about reading a situation and communicating an idea. Politics are made up of ideas.

Sam: That’s a pretty broad definition of politics. And these days politics seem more about money and security.

Robin: So true. And, of course, votes. Really though, what is security if not an emotional response to information? An interpretation of risk or a measure of fears and dreams? Design seems to fit in there.

Sam: Well, I’m not one for didactic, grandstanding work. I like a touch of elegance and grace to my design.

Robin: Why is speaking out and expressing a point of view grandstanding?

Sam: Right, but design never stopped a war.

Robin: Except when it did. Remember that kid in Ohio who dropped a banner at that Clinton event? It made the news and was seen around the world. The response stopped President Clinton from invading Iraq.

Sam: So Bush invaded instead. And the people reelected him.

Robin: And all the anti-war protest helped tip the House and Senate into Democratic hands.

Sam: I’m not convinced. It’s all pretty ephemeral.

Robin: I think it’s all about building momentum. It can take a long time to bring about change. It sometimes takes years of protest. It takes lots of people convincing their friends and neighbors and speaking out. Lots of people work on situations for years. Sometimes it comes to a head, sometimes not. Big social changes look a lot clearer in retrospect.

Sam: I just don’t see the responsibility of designers here.

Robin: Of course people change things, not posters and T-shirts. But you can’t ignore the fact that it’s design that informs, persuades and brings people together. Design makes ideas tangible by shaping reality and society’s sense of what’s normal. And we, in turn, shape design.

Sam: Look, it takes more than a poster to change someone’s mind.

Robin: Well, you’re assuming that all posters are trying to change the mind of the viewer.

I think it’s a lot more like advertising. You can take a narrow view and say advertising is just about selling an idea, a brand or a product to a passive consumer. Or, you can see it as a chance to influence and play off of people’s existing desires and fears, their ideas about themselves and world.

That’s what political graphics can do. Posters don’t just communicate a message, they make an event, image or idea publicly visible. They reinforce myths and narratives and interpretations of ideas. They let people know someone out there shares their views. Posters notify and provoke more than convince. This is powerful stuff.

Sam: Sure enough. I’m just leery of all the self-congratulation. A self-indulgent, self-reinforcing love-in doesn’t move the masses.

Robin: Perhaps it is indulgent. A lot of design is self-indulgent. But I can think of a lot worse ways be indulgent. Creating a sense of unity and cohesion among like-minded people doesn’t sound like a waste of time to me. It sounds like a good start. The intent here isn’t to indulge—it’s to communicate.

Posters publicly assert a community’s voice, put forward its images and narratives, promote collective action, push for social change and gain access to political power players. When there’s no dissent visible in the corporate, or mainstream media, posters and other public graphics are one alternative venue for expression. Who knows? Showing cracks in the “consensus” may convince others to speak out. Next thing you know, you have a movement.