Can graphic design be an effective tool for cultural and political agency, or does it predominantly exist to obscure the machinations of capitalism? I’ve often found design’s historic complicity with exploitative, corporate agendas hard to reconcile. My practice represents an effort to divert from this seemingly preordained path of consumerism to realign graphic design with its alternative lineage of radicalism. Whilst the idealistic belief that novel aesthetics alone can change the world is often viewed with scepticism after the countless examples throughout history of the capitalist appropriation of countercultural signifiers, I am much more interested in the designer’s active role as facilitator. What practical skills do designers possess that can be used to lend legitimacy to causes, distribute information in more egalitarian ways or co-ordinate pluralistic projects that connect disparate strands of subculture?
This ideology underpins how each project is intended to function in the world. One prominent example is Lune, the hybrid record label and publishing house I have been designing. As a non-hierarchical collective of experimental musicians, artists, and writers, it aims to exemplify prefigurative tactics of co-operative working and creating. These include amassing a tool library, providing free access to culture via the commons and adhering to complete operational transparency. The project’s imagery coalesces around a speculative, post-apocalyptic, flooded island, in which Lune is framed as a utopian syndicate of scavengers.
This ideology underpins how each project is intended to function in the world. One prominent example is Lune, the hybrid record label and publishing house I have been designing. As a non-hierarchical collective of experimental musicians, artists, and writers, it aims to exemplify prefigurative tactics of co-operative working and creating. These include amassing a tool library, providing free access to culture via the commons and adhering to complete operational transparency. The project’s imagery coalesces around a speculative, post-apocalyptic, flooded island, in which Lune is framed as a utopian syndicate of scavengers.
