Design as Activism | Be nice to the Lady

03 Design
as Activism

A Nation in Pieces: Recovering Fractured Narratives

An analogue-to-digital collage project using urban space as a stage for confronting social and economic instability.

This series of three bus shelter posters was designed to mirror the fractured state of a society. It draws inspiration from the bold, community-driven social messaging found in South London's urban landscape, and David Hockney's photographic explorations of perspective.

Concept

The posters were developed using original photography captured with a disposable point-and-shoot camera. This method was intentionally chosen for its grainy, unfiltered aesthetic, allowing the rawness and imperfections of analogue film to naturally emerge.

The photographs were taken in Brixton, one of South London's most economically disadvantaged areas, where the cost of living crisis was visibly imprinted on the urban landscape. The collage compositions were then digitally assembled to evoke a sense of fragmentation and societal disintegration, mirroring the instability caused by economic and political struggles.

The Posters

These three pieces are a deliberate collision of imagery and typography, rejecting clean, conceptual design in favour of a fragmented, unpolished aesthetic that mirrors the lived experience of economic instability.

Typography and colour were integral to the project's confrontational tone. The bold, condensed typeface was chosen for its impact and legibility, ensuring that even within chaotic compositions, the message remained direct and forceful, echoing the visual language of protest posters.

Impact

The project merges photography influences with the raw immediacy of street messaging, creating a dialogue between deliberate artistic composition and the unpolished, urgent nature of protest posters in everyday public spaces. Bus shelters were chosen as the medium because they exist at the intersection of these two worlds—a mundane, often-overlooked setting where advertising and public discourse collide.

Merch

The merchandise consisted of a series of T-shirts printed with the project's logo, conceived as a wearable extension of the visual language. The logo itself was developed through analogue processes such as hand-sewn paper, broken glass, and plaster fragments, embracing texture and imperfection.

03.1 Design
as Activism

Don't Look Away: Truths of the Economic Crisis

A politically charged print series using a defiant aesthetics and screenprinting to expose the realities of economic decline.

Nearly 100 sketches and test prints were developed to refine this project's visual language, ensuring the work felt raw and immediate. Inspired by urban protest art, punk DIY aesthetics, and political printmaking, it pushed the limits of analogue design—layering painting, hand-drawn typography, collage, original photography, and repeated xerox photocopying to minimize digital input.

This work was built on the premise that when people encounter something unsettling and visually offbeat, they tend to slow down and engage. That moment of disruption is what makes it effective.

Design Process

From the starting point, we knew that this project's need for depth and texture in a tactile, raw way was beyond digital capabilities. This meant that its execution came with technical challenges, particularly in ensuring cohesion across the posters while using multiple analogue techniques, including screen printing, collage, painting, and photography.

Screen Printing demands that every element work within two strict finishes—halftone or high-contrast black-and-white—which meant every texture, photographic detail, and logo had to be carefully planned, not just for its visual weight, but for how well it would translate into print.

"Game Over for the Era of Cheap"
The artwork was made with acrylics to mimic the glossy, viscous texture of real bean sauce, amplifying the theme of economic decline.

"Dream Collides with Cost Realities"
The collaged newspaper photograph was layered with coloured pencil and Sharpie, evoking a childlike aesthetic to highlight themes of lost innocence and shattered dreams.

"The United Kingdom Can Repair Its Mistakes"
Features an original photograph of a homeless person wrapped in a UK flag, fractured into jagged, crack-like shapes that echo the contours of the Union Jack, reinforcing the theme of national rupture.

Field Driven Research

The inspiration for this series came from an unexpected but powerful source: the "Reduced" signage found in budget supermarkets across the UK. These neon labels signify that a product has been devalued, marked down, and on the verge of being discarded. Their fluorescent colour palette was used to mirror how society treats those in poverty—as disposable, reduced, unwanted.

Screen printing was the natural choice for this project—not just as a technique, but as a statement. Unlike digital processes, it demands deliberate decisions in composition, colour, and materiality, reinforcing the project's emphasis on tactility and intention.

A layer of dark humour runs through the work, subverting the visual language of advertising to reveal something far more unsettling beneath the surface.

Execution & Impact

While photographing the posters, we observed passersby stopping, staring, and taking a moment to absorb them. What sets this work apart from other crisis-related campaigns is its rawness and its commitment to a protest-led, punk-informed aesthetic, in a landscape largely dominated by polished, visually pleasing design.

Through this moment of cognitive disruption, the posters aim to spark conversation, shift perspectives, and prompt people to confront the crisis in ways they might not have before.