I wasn’t sure which sort of dissertation I wanted to do yet, just that I wanted to write an essay but also present visual examples in some sense. 

I thought about making detailed visual analyses from a graphic design standpoint, of graphics made for political campaigns and social movements like Amnesty International, Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, online activist accounts such as Impact on Instagram, artwork by politically-minded artists like Shepard Fairey, and the graphics shared by politicians and political parties like US president Joe Biden and the UK’s Labour and Conservative parties. 

 

From here on, I narrowed down a lead question: “Sociopolitical graphic design: using visual language to advocate social and political messages”

 

I had conducted a survey as one of my primary sources, in which the participants were asked to describe the typical appearance of these graphics (colours, typefaces, and symbolism they typically incorporate) as well as patterns they tend to notice in political graphics, such as the sort of content they usually see in general and other trends they notice. 

They were also asked to give their perspectives on how they believe these visual language styles tend to communicate with the public, and the responses they aim to generate, as well as personal examples of how certain politically-minded graphic pieces impacted them, providing them with knowledge that resonated with them or otherwise connected with them on any other personal level. 

Other perspectives like what attracts them most to these graphics, i.e. bold colours, were also investigated.

 

I had also completed the Ethics Checklist, though I had no such research in mind that would be a compromise to the participants’ health and safety.