Trade Union Poster Design: A Very Mini History
Trade unions world wide have a strong tradition of using posters to communicate with workers, union members and the community more general. 180 years after the first trade union poster appeared posters are still a large part of trade unions communication strategy.
From left: 1830s Miners Advocate UK, 1900 USA and 2009 ITUC.
Throughout those 180 years trade union design has led trends and innovated. Fresh and modern design has been produced and big name designers have worked for unions. Trade union design has also been very insular, self congratulatory, filled with stereotypes and rife with appropriation and copyright infringements. Advances in technology meant more access to printing but also in my opinion led to a backwards looking aesthetic which prevented trade unions from creating their own modern image.
Though they form such a large part of trade union life there is scant written about trade union posters. This essay uses examples of trade union poster design from around the world but concentrates on design from the USA, UK and Australia. Mainly because they are the countries that are the best documented. There needs to be more work done to document and save the trade union design from around the world. If you have links to collections from other places please send them to me atosha@mortartown.com or comment below.
The birth of modern trade unions happened at the same time as modern advertising and poster design was starting as well as a growth in commercial printing. From the 1830s up until the 1950s and 1960s poster design in trade unions closely followed trends and advancements in design and advertising more widely.
1832 from the TUC collection.
A lot of the poster design pre 1960 documents the union movement finding it’s place in the world and defining messaging and image. There are some of the familiar stereotypes and copywriting used language that is familiar to unionists today but there was less design for trade union designers to look back at so there was more room to invent and refine. Much of the early design examples from trade unions is of equal quality of those designs being produced in the top advertising agencies of the time. Trade union design was fresh, evolving and modern. It was relevant to the world that workers lived in.
From left: 1932 USSR, 1935 TGWU UK, 1936 Spain
Technology was such that unions had no choice but to hire printers and designers because there was no way to mass produce posters of there own. It was essential to hire skilled craftspeople to get anything done. As such you had highly trained technicians and craftspeople who had an affiliation to a profession and for the most part abided by the ethical rules of the profession.
From left: 1960s Japan, 1968 UK, 1969 USA
From the 1960s onwards this changed with advances in technology that have continued to today. There were advances in access and cost of screen printing, photocopying and personal computers and printers that meant that every union could be producing there own posters in house with minimal technical skill required. Unions no longer needed to hire designers and typesetters. Lincoln Cushing and Timothy W. Drescher make the point in their book Agitate, Educate, Organise that from the 1960s onwards it was very common for one person to be doing the copywriting, design, art, printing and distribution of a poster. Some times that one person was the client as well. It meant that some of the unwritten design profession rules were ignored mainly because they weren’t known. Copyright infringements, appropriation, poor typography and clumsy layout are featured heavily in the design from 1960 until today.
From left: 1971 UK, 1987 South Africa, 2007 BWI
It can be hard to date the design from this time based on visual style because the style stayed predominately the same. A poster from 1973 is similar to one from 2003.
From left: 2011 UK, 2010 USA, 2009 India
It was also a time when unions began to look inwards and backwards for design inspiration rather than forwards and outwards. Inspiration was no longer found in the daily lives of workers but in the design of unions in the past. This was done with no acknowledgment that these designs were a product of the society of the time they were produced in. And that something that was fresh and modern in 1930 was not going to have the same effect in 1990. This heavy reliance on the design of the past meant that the lines between appropriation, pastiche and copyright infringement was completely blurred.
Three fine examples of ‘the fist’: 2003 Australia, 2009 India, 2009 World Federation of Trade Unions
Many of the strong union images that we identify as part of the union aesthetic were designed by individuals who then had their work reused, often uncredited and unpaid for, up until the point that the images belong to the wider culture. One of the most famous is the image that gets mislabeled as Rosie the Riveter, which is actually the We Can Do It poster, this was a poster designed by a man named J Howard Miller and the poster was designed for the Westinghouse corporation to discourage strikes and absenteeism. For those interested in the definition between appropriation/fair use and copyright infringements should look at this article. It is a controversial subject that is full of legal and ethical grey areas. The use of photos without credit or permission, something that has grown more prevalent with the advances in the internet, is the latest issue that unions need to wary of.
From left: the 1942 original and one of the many reinterpretations.
The backwards looking and retro styles that were so prevalent in union design over the last 50 years has meant that a strong visual language and union aesthetic has been built that is based on the reusing of images and ideas and promotion of stereotypes. It’s an aesthetic that does appeal to a small core of strong union supporters and activists but fails to have relevance to the lives of workers in 2011. The style stands for the wins, losses and struggles of the union movement and that shouldn’t be forgotten or abandoned. In my opinion the style also does a disservice to the vibrant modern unions that we have today, it portrays the union movement as backwards looking, anachronistic and as not fitting into modern society.
For the union movement to grow and continue improving the lives of working people there needs to be a reassessment of the image of trade unions and the way unions communicate.
There is change happening though, in the last 5 years there have been pockets of trade union design change emerging. Skilled designers are beginning to be employed by unions again, this is effected by technology again though as it’s harder for a union secretary to create their own smart phone app, but there also seems to be a realisation that designers are integral in getting messages out in the most effective way.
From Left: 2009 Germany, 2010 Denmark, 2010 USA
The design emerging from trade unions in countries such as Germany, Switzerland and Sweden is once again comparable to the quality produced by designers working for big business.
From left: 2009 DGB Germany, 2009 Freelancers Union USA, 2010 Argentina
There are two books worth getting if you are interested, Agitate, Educate, Organise by Lincoln Cushing and Timothy W. Drescher is about the history of posters from USA unions. British Trade Union Posters is by Rodney Mace. For examples of modern trade union design Creative Unions (I am a founding director of Creative Unions) is a good place to start looking.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Creative Unions, Alexander White. Alexander White said: Essential reading! RT: @atosha: Straight from Mortartown: Trade Union Poster Design: A Very Mini History http://bit.ly/gQvbX7 [...]
Hi Atosha,
For those in Australia, the State Library of Victoria’s Riley Political & Ephemera Collection and Pictures Collection include significant numbers of trade union posters. Parts of these collections are listed in several seperate sources. To search comprehensively you will need to check each source:
1. Search our online Australiana Index by subject or union name. This index includes references to folders of ephemeral materials, boxes of badges, and posters. For best results, include the words Riley and poster in your search: http://australiana.slv.vic.gov.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First
2. Check our online catalogue: http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/ Search by subject to find posters held in both our Riley and Pictures Collections. Some of the posters can be viewed online, like posters produced by RedPlanet, Another Planet, and the Red Letter Press, for example: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/redplanet/0/0/0/doc/rp000052.shtml
3. Check the Riley card index, located next to the La Trobe Reading Room information desk (open from 10am to 6pm).
After checking these sources, contact the Library to arrange a time to come in and view collection items: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/services/ask-librarian
You also asked for the location of collections relating to other countries. I believe that the National Library of Australia hold collections of Timorese and Thai political ephemera, whcih may include trade union posters.
Hope that helps!
Cheers,
Katie Flack
Librarian, Australian History & Literature Team
State Library of Victoria
Thanks Katie,
I’ll be over at some point to check it out too.
Oh for those of you who work for a union remember to send a copy to the appropriate library of the work you do.
[...] Alex has been working on the e-books that we posted about last week and I have been busy writing a very mini history of trade union poster design and also getting my own portfolio of union design up on the internets [...]
Thanks for the nice essay on this very marginalized genre, and for mentioning our recent book on U.S. labor posters. Attached link is another item on the “We can do it” image and its variants. I’m a librarian too, and part of our book was honoring the unacknowledged labor of special collections and archive staff (such as your Katie Flack) who preserve our own culture. Please check it out.