Campaign Against the «Durchsetzungsinitiative»

About

No, against the inhumane enforcement initiative, Nein gegen die «Durchsetzungsinitiative», 2016;
The campaign against the 2016 enforcement initiative was commissioned by the non-party committee “Urgent Appeal”. In a crowdfunding campaign, which can be mentioned as exemplary for future campaigns in the political context, the committee raised more than one million Swiss francs within one week and thus enabled a series of campaign measures against overpowering party budgets of the opponents and initiators of the enforcement initiative.
In a broadly based design process, a striking language and a motif were sought that is independent, stands out from the established communication strategies, has the visual power to leave its mark on the public space even with small print runs and communicates unambiguously. Pictorial elements, symbols such as the Swiss cross in various modifications, tilted, colourless grey/black, breaking apart, rotated by 45° to form a poison sign or pictorial motifs from the opponents’ camp, were developed, checked, put to the test and controversially discussed. The turn to a purely typographical realisation of an exclamation “No”, arose out of a capitulation to the image or the use of a collective symbol. The formal aesthetic staging of “Nein, No, Non” followed the rules of pictorial typography. A sign with the character of a logo, easy to understand, which actively and aggressively expresses the general indignation and political powerlessness in its formal language, seemed honest and appropriate.

Awards

100 best posters Germany, Austria, Switzerland 2016
Exhibited at the Design Museum London for the exhibition Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008-18
Nominated for the Swiss Design Award 2016