Small intervention, big effect

Six doors down she lives, my best friend. It seems like miles. I shuffle along the pavement. Two packed legs. Stiff as if in plaster. Wearing a pencil skirt that reaches to my ankles. As a 15-year-old I love fashion, but I have little money. So: I make a pencil skirt from a white sheet, wrapped tightly around me, fastened with 32 safety pins.

When I accidentally take a slightly brisker step, a safety pin shoots through the air. From behind the living room window, I see the laughing faces of Mandy and other friends. “Oh my, what are you wearing, Essie?!” Mandy calls out as she opens the front door. As I lower myself onto the living room sofa as stealthily as I can, I cannot prevent the entire row of safety pins snapping open.

Discovering the future together

I never realised this memory had anything to do with who I am now, or what I do. I mean, I still love fashion and fortunately these days I can afford slightly more comfortable clothes. But that I still work that way, did not cross my mind. Until recently.

As a communication activist my specialty has become to (help) create movements within governments, organisations, and companies. Movements to promote idealistic and complex change, such as circular living and economy, climate justice, climate mitigation, etcetera. These movements are based on co-creation. On discovering the future together. On equity and equality, and the idea that everyone can contribute. Therefore, I develop communication concepts that are co-creative…

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Make it sticky

…and have a strong look. The latter is indispensable for me. In my opinion, communication must look good (or interesting) to be sticky. To intrigue people, to inspire them, and make them want to participate. All of this requires a different approach to design. An approach that is

·????? democratic

·????? simply applicable

·????? human centred

An approach that allows everyone to tell their own story.

Small intervention, big effect

To do this, I work with what I call LOW DESIGN. That means offering participants simple design, uncomplicated ideas, and interventions that create a cool look easily and quickly. But also: working with materials you already have at your disposal: used materials or materials that are easy to get hold of. For example, white marker on black paper, extremely thick markers, packaging tape, frayed corrugated cardboard or an unfolded cardboard box that has a nice abstract shape. Small interventions with a big effect.

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These days, I also give participants a very limited colour palette as an extra liberating constraint. I started doing this for the first time for the WE program, five years ago, at Tchibo’s head office in Hamburg, when WE celebrated its tenth anniversary. I was hosting an activist poster workshop for the international facilitators and was told that Tchibo staff and business partners would enter the room immediately after the workshop, so the posters had to wow them! As it happened, the facilitators burst into creative flames and made the most beautiful (ánd sticky) posters I could have wished for. Some of which I still use frequently as examples.

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Poster Parade

The most unexpected thing that happened afterwards, was that the poster workshop easily found its way into the factories in the countries where the WE-facilitators work. Zafar from team Bangladesh later told me: “We returned from Hamburg feeling these self-made posters were a direct and accessible way of communicating in the factories. If you have one poster made by a designer, you have to wait for weeks and the factory workers may not experience it as their own. When you do a poster workshop with 30 participants, you instantly have 30 or more different posters that all have a personal meaning to the participants.”

The biggest surprise was that factory workers in Dhaka (Bangladesh) decided to walk into the factory halls after the workshop, silently holding their posters. The other workers stopped their sewing machines and turned their head to see. A beautiful and powerful moment. From then on, the silent poster parade become a core ingredient of the poster workshop. They repeated it in many factories and many countries where the WE program runs.

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Extra challenge

Since then, I have done other workshops for the WE program, such as a manifesto workshop and a zine workshop. On March 15 I am offering my poster workshop again. But, with an extra challenge: we are going to create MINIMALIST ACTIVIST POSTERS. To explore: what is the most essential information (in visuals and text) that we need, to bring across a powerful message.

Again, I will work with low design. Just as I did with my pencil skirt, long, long before I had any idea of the concept.

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Would you like to join the WE Mini-Masterclass on Art & Activism and work with low design? Send an email to [email protected]. And make sure you bring paper, markers, cardboard, and tape in black, white and red.

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