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Monday, 15th March 2010

Resource of the Week - Designing Democracy

Resource of the Week - Designing Democracy
By Adrian Janes, Contributing Editor

2009 saw the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This was but one of the most dramatic of a whole series of breakthroughs by political movements across Central and Eastern Europe which brought down the reigning totalitarian regimes. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a focus for design of all kinds, has placed online Designing Democracy, an excellent international collection of political posters produced by various opposition groups and organisations.

The posters come from several countries including Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia (as it was then), Poland and Romania; the period covered is from 1980 (when the trade union Solidarity was born in Poland) to the early 1990s, by which time Western-style elections had been held throughout the region. These changes can now also be seen as precursors to a more general reunion of Europe, not least in the shape of the European Union.

Each poster is carefully catalogued, noting the publishing organisation, artist, country and year of publication and media used. They are all complemented by a concise description which both places the poster in its political context and tries to convey something of the intended meaning. For even after a mere two decades, such commentary is vitally necessary to remind the older viewer, and teach the younger, of a state of affairs which already seems hard to imagine.

The posters on the initial page are only a taster of the whole collection. To see the rest, type “pro-democracy” into the search box here. There are three settings that can be chosen: All records; Only records with images; Best quality records including image and detailed description. The greatest quantity of images is generated by the first setting, and the least by the third. It appears that the main difference in quality between the two is the extent of the commentary given, as the standard of cataloguing is consistently high throughout. Incidentally, when the collection is accessed in this way it is usually necessary to click on the ‘Download PDF version" link to see the commentary.

One of the problems to which the Internet has arguably contributed is a tendency towards the ephemeral and a disregard for history. But collections such as Designing Democracy constitute a powerful response to such criticisms.

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