Social Skills

A Q&A with Ennis Carter on Design for Social Impact, PSA propaganda and the storied past of all those WPA posters.


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Published: Oct 22, 2008

City Paper: Why exactly did you start Design for Social Impact in the first place, and The Social Arts project 10 years later?

Ennis Carter: I started Design for Social Impact because I wanted to apply what I had learned to a broader range of public-interest issues. I wanted to branch out into women's issues, arts issues, more direct social-justice work, etc. I did find that other organizations were not only needing good-quality design/advertising, but that they were actively searching for a way to get it on tight budgets and quick turnaround times. There was a definite need for a graphic design/communications/promotions organization that understood what it meant to be a grass-roots and/or nonprofit organization, [understood] that time doesn't wait for social issues, that there is never enough money to go around for important causes [and] that it takes creativity and tenacity to create good communications for groups that are struggling to just make payroll, much less promote their organizations to the fullest. That's the original impetus behind Design for Social Impact.

The Social Arts was established in 2006 after our 10-year anniversary. I set that up because we wanted to have a vehicle to present our own work. We continue to provide design/communication/promotion for people and groups in the progressive, public-interest community. But we are now big enough to call attention to issues ourselves in our own creative way. I wanted to have a more direct way to apply artistry and activism to issues I cared most about. I think there are lots of social artists.

CP: When you started these organizations, did you think there was something lacking in public awareness of design's social utility?

EC: What I think is sometimes missing is the direct connection to the public. That's why we take a grass-roots and experiential approach with projects we do through The Social Arts — the ActivisTour as part of the Fringe Fest; Posters for the People Expo Festival; last year's Bike Part Art Show in conjunction with a new organization we helped establish called SpokesPeople.

CP: What social issues have you guys most impacted?

EC: I hope we've helped make an impact on a lot of different fronts. I firmly believe that we are just a part of the puzzle — that we work alongside good grass-roots organizations to help them tell their story in really effective ways. Good design gets attention, but at the end of the day, the groups that we work with have to carry through and deliver good policy and social services.

CP: What about modern protest art/poster art? Are there enough participants or venues?

EC: Posters are still very much a part of our visual and informational landscape. There are less public places that they are allowed to hang, though. They either fall into paid advertising space or into the category of "guerrilla marketing" — i.e. OBEY, School of Rock. I might be wrong, but it seems like there are less public places where we all come together and might have an opportunity to see the same messages. We don't have to go to the post office as much, we don't have to go to City Hall as often, we don't have just a handful of central markets where we shop and conduct business. Especially people who live in the suburbs and do much at the mall or over phone/Internet instead of interacting on a communal level. Unless it is advertising for commercial products, we don't often see the same reinforced public messages. I still think posters make a mark. The question is whether or not there are posters that promote social issues as a mouthpiece of the society. That's what the WPA posters did — as government propaganda — and what "social artists" do when they try to carry a sentiment of culture, or the society's needs. On a different note, even in the comforts of our own home, television and Internet options are so varied. When I was a kid, PSAs were still very much a part of how I got information and understood my values. And everyone else saw the same thing I did because we only had five stations. Those are virtually nonexistent now. Instead we have a higher potential — with YouTube and hundreds of cable stations — but less propaganda that is singularly focused. That has a benefit, but also can create an overload.

CP: How do you think the recent political campaign and all those tame but effective Obama/change posters change the game?

EC: On pure aesthetics and impact, the posters catch attention. They might seem tame in their message, but not in their execution. They boldly represent a person and an idea as heroic. They carefully reference a tradition of presenting a leader in a stark and powerful way. They present Obama as an icon. That is a big shift from the typical photo-driven, personal look at a candidate. By doing that, the campaign materials say, "We stand for something bigger than just this man." It's a classic way to inspire people to rally behind the campaign because it is about ideas, not just a person. By doing that and combining with what might seem an innocuous message, they actually elevate the message to a stronger position. The words HOPE and CHANGE take on a strength simply because graphic design made it so. That is a very powerful example of why I chose this track for my activist work. Many might critique that as being hollow and simply driven by style. But that puts too much responsibility on the promotional materials to deliver substance. The audience has to dig deeper to learn more. The candidate and his operation have to deliver that substance. Propaganda is only about promoting the value of an idea and encouraging people to act in a way that supports that idea. It can't be responsible for how people rise to that idea. Putting that into the mix puts too much responsibility on symbols (that can be subjective) and underestimates the ability of the public to absorb information and make decisions for themselves on the best course of action.

CP: I understand that many of the WPA posters you found were manufactured in Philly. Tell me a little bit about their excavation and if any of the artists were Philadelphians. I understand that the faceless/creditless-ness was necessary to the nationalism of it all but ...

EC: There are many Philadelphia posters. We found over 35 that weren't duplicated in the Library of Congress in the Art Museum, over 20 in the Historical Society, over 25 in the Free Library. That's a lot by our standards. They were dominantly silk-screened, although some were hand-painted (a process that was used early in the project before silk-screening became the mode of production). We do know the names and some information about some of the artists. Katherine Milhous was an illustrator who became a WPA poster artist. She also headed up the project for a period of time. Her work focused on Pennsylvania Dutch cultural arts and she did many "destination" posters for Pennsylvania and places like Ephrata. My favorite poster "Work with Care" and many others were woodblock pieces done by an artist named Robert Muchley. Our focus has not been on finding out the deep history of these artists, but he is one that we have found record of. He lived near 12th and Pine and worked in the WPA Philadelphia poster division. Another is Richard Hood, who headed up the poster division in Philadelphia and then on a state level. Again, we have really focused on the posters themselves. Not just because of the faceless/creditless nature of nationalism, but of that quality in the field of graphic design and advertising. As a citizens initiative, also, we are doing this ourselves, with no government or grant support. Given the time and resources available, we consciously decided to focus on finding posters and letting them speak for themselves as a snapshot/window into the history of the era. As we grow, we hope to learn even more and hope that people will find us as a result of our current efforts to add to our knowledge base.

CP: So what do you like?

EC: Anything by Albert Bender. Anything by Robert Muchley. Anything by Richard Halls. Anything that allows for very simple yet beautiful ways of representing human beings and nature.

CP: What do the best of these posters have as their strengths and defining qualities — what made them great protest and social functional art?

EC: That equal balance of striking visuals and strong messages. The purpose of a poster is to catch the viewers' attention and to get them to retain the message of that poster. If a piece doesn't have both of those qualities, it isn't really a poster, in my opinion. That's why we didn't include all of the many different silk-screened or other graphic arts of the WPA, of which there is quite a bit. Because in our work, those two elements are inextricable. The best and strongest posters did that very well.

CP: How is your WPA Living Archive going so far?

EC: We are very excited to have the most comprehensive list of posters created under the WPA. Our virtual archive will be launched on October 24 and we estimate that we'll have well over 2,000 posters to display from places all across the country. With the federal government considering the Library of Congress collection of 935 a sufficient record of the project, we are so happy to be able to present more than double that amount.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)