by Maya Drozdz

On September 11th, the world stopped and we realized, even in the initial moments, that nothing would ever be the same. Suddenly, graphic design seemed trivial. In my role as an educator at Herron School of Art | IUPUI in Indianapolis, the critical priorities I had been trying to impart on my students seemed trite at best. A critique of ubiquitous iconography in our consumerist culture? In the face of death, who cares? A dissection of the power of corporate branding? What difference does it make? Or does it?

Suddenly, what mattered were these people, not these students, their personal beliefs and values, not their formal skills or aesthetic sensibilities. Class discussion now naturally centered on politics, ethics, and religion, without my trying to steer design into a context larger than itself. What seemed most important and, indeed, really the only thing for my students to do, was to channel their personal fears and discoveries into their work, to give voice to internal concerns and form to newfound ideas.

The result is a cornucopia of very personal stories that transcend the merely autobiographical, an attempt to give of oneself and to earnestly expect the audience to do the same, in order to find a meaningful common ground in which graphic design can be more than window-dressing but can truly act as communicator, mediator, and even atriculator of the undercurrents prevalent in our collective psyche. In short, what emerged in my students' work was a critique of precisely the issues I'd been trying to stress, only this time from a very personal perspective.

In a clear insider's critique of capitalism and its by-products, Damon Flanagan designed and packaged the American Dream, a faux product-driven campaign critiquing so-called American values. In doing this, he questioned not only "our" values but his own as well. The campaign also raises questions about what we view as American rights and how they have been exploited. Using the icons of status targeted at, and coveted by, different groups, Damon tapped into the fantasy and yearning spurred by capitalist culture and the values it teaches to its populace. In his campaign, Damon has pinpointed and uncovered the misguided, commerce-driven American dream.

Similarly utilizing the visual language of commerce and retail advertising, Amy Royal designed a seething poster narrative accusing the audience of happy ignorance and complacency. Through the juxtaposition of image and copy, she has created a dialogue between the happy young people and the bitter accusation made against them. The cheerful colors and clean sanserif typography serve to underline the critique.

Christina Cline also tackled the ad world, taking on the machismo and adrenalin-ridden language of violent computer game advertising. Her copy sells this adrenalin rush ["If your heart isn't racing yet, check to see if it's beating at all"], while the images play on the connection between adrenalin and sex[iness], and the truth of war in a book versus the truth of real war. The repeated paper airplane, unfolded in the middle panel to reveal itself as a page from Tolstoy's War and Peace, serves as the link between the reality of recent events and the sophomoric fantasy of fighter-pilot computer games.

Picking up on the connection between male bravado and the search for the ultimate adrenalin rush, mural artist/design student Ben Long created a series of large-format [at 6'4", exactly Ben's height] painted panels that pay homage to the supergraphics of the 60s and 70s. His deceptively simple graphic language plays on the seeming neutrality of supergraphics: a field of orange, a repeated missile icon and the words "ego," "rage," and "gone" as shorthand for the role of human nature in contemporary war tactics.

Taking a different approach to reductive graphic communication, Jon Sholly rewrote the classic children's story The Pig and the Wolf to better suit our current situation. The book is a dead-pan play on the Golden Books we grew up with, down to the goofy, themed binding and the hilarious "other titles available" list in the back. The story itself is a parody of the complicated nature of the political upheaval with which we are faced and the sad fact that, no matter what, there are no real winners in this war. The pig eats the wolf but realizes in the end that perhaps the conflict was misguided after all.

The "we're not your father's..." campaign by Jason Higgs also explores the role of pointed humor in graphic design. The posters manage to bring to light the silliness of our ubiquitous pop culture icons, while ostensibly serving as a threat to others. The potency of his campaign lies largely in the dubious heroism of the icons he has chosen to represent: Microsoft's Bill Gates, Cartman from South Park, and Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars.

Amber Limerick's triptych is based on her experiences of cultural difference on a trip to Ireland. What she noticed at the time was that everyone wanted to "be like us," which she protested, at least in her mind. Following her initial confusion and identity crisis when dealing with the September 11th catastrophy, she now feels a sudden sense of patriotic pride and, in some way, understands and supports this desire to "be like me." Her posters tell this linear narrative using Russian-inspired but multicultural babushka dolls [courtesy of Pier 1 Imports, of course], ironically all enclosed within an American doll. By reconfiguring the dolls and therefore the codes of their ethnic dress, Amber has taken charge of her own cultural heritage, as well as others' perceptions of the American ideal.

Closer to home but on a similar quest toward self-understanding, Eric Murray's triptych investigates his suburban upbringing. With a nod to Adbusters Magazine, his posters expose the fallacy of his middle class family's facade of perfection, by highlighting the cost of services required for the maintenance of his workaholic parents' lifestyle.

By way of contrast, Jason Murdock's posters expose and exploit his own college athlete personna. The claim is that his personality is intrinsically tied to his running ability: he talks like a runner, looks like a runner, and thinks like a runner. He is competitive, cunning, and strategic in even the most mundane aspects of his life.

In probably the most intimate and vulnerable attempt at connecting with the audience, Jennifer Bartlett wrote and designed a book for her brother, who is in the Marines. Her investigation of his room and his letters to their family become parts of a meditation on the shifting meanings of patriotism in her and her brother's minds, as well as on the frightening reality of her "little brother" as an integral part of this war. Jennifer's voice becomes our voice, her brother the stand-in for our own loved ones whose lives are being profoundly affected by the situation at hand.

The students took this opportunity to look around and also within to find points which need exposure, and to graphically bring out these relevant issues. This gave their work a critical, but also a personal, edge. Whether tackling the macro [global politics, retail advertising], or the micro [family], the work resonates with its audience because it comes from an honest, internal need to communicate.

By its very nature, design has the power to distill, articulate, and persuade whether it is in the service of commerce or revolutionary politics, or anything in between. This is why, as designers, we need to hold ourselves accountable for the cultural meanings our work produces. It is naive and irresponsible to pretend that our professional role within society is limited to neutrally conveying information or merely satisfying client needs. We need to demand more than that of ourselves and of society at large. These third-year Visual Communication student projects are but a few examples of this active design ethic.

Design has a voice, whether or not we consciously use it. If we do not use it, we have chosen a dangerous passivity toward our work and curious detachment from our world. By harnessing the power of this voice, we can do our part, however miniscule, to make our world a better place. Rather than cynically assuming, with our cool, postmodern sensibilities, that the Utopian ideals of, say, the Bauhaus or Constructivism are outdated or old-fashioned, we can accept the responsibility and challenge of a design ethic that is wide-awake and watching, one that passionately stands up for what it believes.