Research on Black Lives Matter
http://blacklivesmatter.com/
Logo Designed by Design Action
https://designaction.org/portfolio/black-lives-matter-logo/
Introduction/Justification for Chosen Organisation
My chosen brand/organisation is Black Lives Matter (BLM).Ā One of the reasons why I chose Black Live Matter was a practical one ā itās because most of the source images I had chosen happened to involve images and portraits of black people. I guess this has been a rather unplanned decision, yet Iāve always wanted to include people or humans into visual work (not limited to the work Iāve done only in NM2208). Thereās something about working with human images that makes it so visceral andĀ āout-of-bodyā-ish. Iāll elaborate more on that when I update the blog with my experimentations on the source images themselves.
Another reason why I chose BLM was because they advocate for social change, and the basis of the organisation was rooted in an indignation to fight against systemic injustice and violence. I think art that looks great is great, but I think that art thatās able to send a message, to move people, to move politicians and society, is wonderful.Ā And for someone who hasnāt had much experience dealing with physical arts and crafts, if I could try something like that here in NM2208, that would be a pretty big achievement for me regardless of how imperfect the final product is going to turn out.
#BlackLivesMatter went from a conversation on social media to rallies on the street, and now, an international organisation and global social movement. If this assignment and the forthcoming ones require us to create imagery that are both enigmatic and paradoxical, I would think that a global social movement that was initially sparked by the social injustice felt by an aggravated few would be most suitable.
History, Organisation, and Publicity
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an American chapter organisation advocating for equality and validity for African-Americans. They work towards rebuilding the black liberation movement by campaigning against violence and systemic racism against Black people.Ā It was founded in 2013 by three Black women, Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza, as a hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin. The organisation has since grown into an international network comprising of 26 chapters.
āA call to actionā¦ to make sure we are creating a world where black lives actually do matter.ā
āĀ Alicia Garza, Founder of #BlackLivesMatter
The overall Black Lives Matter movement is a decentralised network that does not operate with strict hierarchy, nor does it have an overarching leader or director. This distinguishes itself from other social justice groups, because organisation is often spontaneous, self-initiated, and undirected. In an interview with Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders of the hashtag and movement, she said:
āWe donāt get (people) onto the streets, they get themselves onto the street.ā
Befor the social movement had garnered substantial social, political, and media attention, it stemmed from the initial use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, which The American Dialect Society even declared as their āwordā of the year in 2014.
On social media, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter started appearing on Twitter and Tumblr in July 2013, following its foundersā initial posts after the trial of George Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch volunteer in Florida who had shot dead Trayvon Martin, 17-year-old African-American, in February 2012. Zimmerman walked away acquitted of second-degree murder.
#BlackLivesMatter, however, was rarely used until the months after the Ferguson protests, which began after the shooting of Michael Brown. Social media activists used the hashtag as a means of getting people to share stories of why African-Americansā lives do matter. It has since been tweeted more than 41 million times to date. It was through such social media activism that activists could generate conversation on the topic of systemic racism and police violence initially before without relying on mainstream news outlets. Through interviews conducted with activists, the primary goals of social media activism were established to be āeducation, amplification of marginalised voices, and structural police reformā.
Mainstream Media and Political Attention
It has since garnered enough attention to be featured in two documentaries, Bars4Justice and Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement, to be the focal point of BeyoncĆ©ās single Formation in her most recent production Lemonade, and to be both mentioned and supported by President Barack Obama, and former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. It also most recently began to be supported by ice-cream brand, Ben and Jerryās.
It was alsoĀ referred to in an episode of Law & Order, and in the finale of the television series, Empire.
Street Demonstrations and Political Action
As the objective of BLM is to effect social and political change, many of their actions target and aim towards garnering publicity and awareness towards the goal of raising awareness and changing attitudes.
Since the deaths of two African Americans: Michael Brown and Eric Garner, the organisation has led many street demonstrations for the deaths of African Americans by police actions, which have garnered it considerable attention from media and the public. More than just street demonstrations, the organisation has begun publicly challenging politicians to state their position on systemic racism and police violence against black people, including those running in the 2016 presidential elections.
BLM also claims to embrace intersectionality, going against typical narratives of nationalism that encompass straight and cisgender male visibility. As it reports on its website:
āBlack Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum.ā
Notably, conversations surrounding #BlackLivesMatter often carry feminist undertones. Twitter users expressed their disdain towards the absent representation of Black female victims of police violence, and used the hashtag #SayHerName to refocus the narrative on this erasure. Researchers who probed into the influence of the movement even emphasised howĀ āthe declaration that āBlack lives matterā does not include women by defaultā. In this forthcoming endeavour to advertise the movement, it should thus be important to continue the narrative through an intersectional lens to ensure the representation of Black women and Black queer and trans folks in the media.
#AllLivesMatter, #WhiteLivesMatter, #BlueLivesMatter and #ClownLivesMatter
The demonstrators started shouting and booing again when O'Malley said: āBlack lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter.ā
āĀ āDemocrats lose control over presidential electionā by Chris Moody for CNN Politics
Several hashtags have either reappropriated the original #BlackLivesMatter movement, or have been started to contest it.
The hashtag and phrase #AllLivesMatter was birthed in response to the BLM movement, contesting the singular legitimacy of black lives, and that human life, in general, is important, rather than a single segment of it.Ā #AllLivesMatter has been staunchly supported and used by sports figures, political figures, and entertainment figures.
Yet, #AllLivesMatter has been rebutted by many public figures. As President Barack Obama has explained,Ā succinctly:
āI think the reason that the organizers used the phrase āblack lives matterā was not because they were suggesting nobody elseās lives matterā¦ What they were suggesting was, there is a specific problem that is happening in the African-American community thatās not happening in other communities. And that is a legitimate issue that weāve got to address.ā
The phrase has been touted to dilute the oppression against Black people, and to dismiss racial discrimination alongside the intention of dismissing racial categories entirely.
White Lives Matter, an organisation that was set up in response to BLM, is a movement that is dedicated to the preservation of ethnic Europeans, claiming that the discursive focus on coloured lives has threatened the continuity of white lives. It has been declared a hate group due to its supremacist and xenophobic principles.
Other hashtags that have sprung up in response to #BlackLivesMatter include #BlueLivesMatter, a pro-police movement that started after the killings of New York police officers in December 2014, after being ambushed. Along with the hashtag, a registered non-profit media organisation, Blue Lives Matter NYC, was set up to help law enforcement officers and their family membersĀ āas they go through hard timesā. The movement was created in response to BLM, though its stance is notably not oppositional of African-Americans, rather in support of police officers.
Most recently, a Clown Lives Matter was planned to take place in Arizona, in tandem with anti-police rhetoric and a movement of the same name. The Clown Lives Matter movement originated from the unsubstantiated reports of clowns luring children into the woods, creating a moral panic that led to violence against unsuspecting entertainers. Thereafter, Students in Pennsylvania State University were reported to have mobilised themselves to conduct aĀ āmass clown huntā. The imagery of clowns has suddenly been associated with one of terror and fear.
Both #BlueLivesMatter and #ClownLivesMatter are exemplary of theĀ āLives Matterā movement that has stemmed from BLM, yet may not be completely in opposition of it. Movements such as White Lives Matter and All Lives Matter, however, have been proven to inevitably dilute the discourse on racism, hence stand in clear contestation of BLM. It is important to note the nuances in such discourse in order to navigate aesthetic and semantic considerations in the forthcoming advertisements.
Constructive Criticism - Response
The BLM logosā text and colours make me feel bold and challenged, as if someone were trying to tell me thatĀ āBlack Lives Matterā with emphasis on the word ālivesā.
Constructive Criticism - Description
The BLM logo is a typographic image with black words contrasted against a yellow background; the colour of the wordĀ āLivesā is inversed, having a yellow colour against a black background. The typeface employed is sans serif and condensed, and is also somewhat geometric in nature, sporting sharpness in both the curves and edges of its letters. The letters are arranged line by line, creating a square image.
Constructive Criticism - Analysis and Interpretation
There is a certain unrest attached to the aesthetic to the image, which feel slightly ironic because the arrangement of letters is rather plain; everything is laid out as per regular text that can be read from top-down like most text that one would see in a document or online. Movement is not created in this image, yet, the colours and contrast thereof create a sense of urgency, especially through the inverted colours used in the wordĀ ālivesā. Possibly, this contrast draws the viewer back to the root cause of the movement ā the loss of lives, and hence, the importance thereof.Ā
Constructive Criticism - Evaluation and Judgment
Whatās really striking about this logo is the sense of urgency created from the contrast of colours, the boldness of the text, and the emphasis on the wordĀ ālivesā created from an inversed contrast of colours.
I might quip that the logo comes off as overly simplistic; for a movement that was fueled by events that were rather graphic in nature, I would also assume that playful and evocative imagery could be employed to create a sense of urgency or irony.
Yet, as the logo is used for a social movement with a non-centralised form of organisation, this sort of simplicity also comes as strategic, since it can be easily accessed and manipulated by the layperson.
The logo nevertheless gets to the point, which could also be intentional of its designers and the organisation which it represents, since the movement already calls for urgency in action and social change, since such urgency would ultimately translate to saving lives.
Website by Haki CreativesĀ http://hakicreatives.com/blacklivesmatter/
Black Lives Matter Facebook PageĀ https://www.facebook.com/BlackLivesMatter/Ā
BLMās website was designed by design firm, Haki Creatives, in the Fall of 2014, after the #BlackLivesMatter trip to Ferguson, MO. The goal of the new website (displayed above) was to ādisseminate a large amount of information while also clearly articulating the networkās political perspective, focused on transparency and authenticityā.
Its Facebook page follows the colours employed in its website and logo closely, establishing a strong sense of recall through consistency. Typography is notably used in most of the images posted on its Facebook page, as noted below in reviewing its previous advertising.
The Movement (http://blacklivesmatter.com/the-movement-series/)
The Movement is was an original web series by Mic, hosted by senior correspondent Darnell Moore, who is the organiser of the Black Lives Matter chapter in NYC.
The series features social activists in America, and their stories fighting for marginalised communities. It was created to also spark conversation that could bypass mass media gatekeepers and political campaigns.
To date, the series has aired 10 episodes, featuring not only BLM, but other activists mobilising for social change for Native Americans, universal Internet access, and even access to marijuana. Intersectionality and race are notably covered within each episode.
Itās noteworthy that even a series that was not produced by BLM themselves promote similar values and ethics on which BLM roots itself ā equality, liberation, and intersectionality.
Previous Advertising (including Facebook Posts)
Previous advertising and publicity strategies have incorporated bold typography and imagery, following the aesthetic of the movementās logo closely.
It is noted that previous images have avoided using the photos of real people, and instead, used powerful illustration and visual communication techniques, such as negative space and semantics to communicate meaning.
https://www.facebook.com/BlackLivesMatter/photos/a.180522288785691.1073741827.180212755483311/312632942241291/?type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/BlackLivesMatter/photos/a.180522288785691.1073741827.180212755483311/180522265452360/?type=3&theaterĀ
BLM as a movement has garnered substantial public attention. Budding from a simple hashtag of indignation, the conversation has grown to influence politicians and media organisations alike.
Its ethics and principles are notably democratic and libertarian in nature, emphasising fair representation, intersectionality, and non-centralised governance, so that Black people all over the world may assume and exercise human agency,
Aesthetically, BLM consistently employs bold typography, illustrations and playful visual messages to communicate oppression, empowerment, and a voice for change. Yellow and black are noted to be the logo and organisationās primary colours.
