Over the next eleven months (and doubtless beyond), The Daily Heller, Debbie Millman and a host of guest contributors will display and examine through a variety of media and formal approaches, the essence(s) of democracy—as manifest through design—and how there has been a consistency of spirit through the signs and symbols used to portray this precious virtue over time and place.
We will start with American democracy. This is not an attempt to be chronological but to exhibit, as we find them, the artifacts that remind us to preserve and celebrate democratic ideals—and uphold the Constitution. By the end of this tense election year we should have what amounts to an archive of diverse objects that represent how designers view(ed) the democratic experiment.
These pieces will be random at the outset but as they build, they’ll grow into a visual dictionary of democracy. Contributions are welcome. It will be fascinating to see what “brands” democracy, and for whom.
These advertisements for The New York Times, created in 1940–41, echo warnings of the threat of hard-right thinking today. Democracy needs a free press. Although there has always been partisan editorial pages, journalism is meant to be fair and balanced—in 1940 especially, when America was under attack from within. Anti-democratic forces under various banners were infiltrating state and national government, the courts and the law. These cautionary ads were not just handsome pieces of modernist collage but calls to action. It is not entirely clear who designed them: George “Kirk” Kirkorian was the Times promotion art director from 1939–1941, when he took a leave-of-absence to work for the Office of War Information (OWI). Shirley Plaut, the first woman promotion AD at the Times, replaced him until war’s end. Then he returned as art director until 1953. It is possible that she, who worked in a modernist style, did the ads with Kirk as AD, or on her own. Either way, they are splendid examples of graphic design in the service of democracy.
