ABSTRACT
Graphic design is the new rock ‘n’ roll. In the last 15 years, musicians, DJs, actors and journalists have been superseded in the fashion hierarchy. Graphic designers are the guerrilla fighters of capitalism, battling to align corporate objectives, stylistic innovation and interrogative creativity. Visual media have the potential for revealing, masking or solving social problems. White space is cut up, shredded and swamped with colour and punctuated with fine lines. Corporate types buy a design to sell goods, ensuring that visual creativity and freshness is tempered by a calm compliance with the capitalist order. As Peter Saville acknowledged, ‘you realize why the men in suits say they’re not interested in innovative creativity. It’s because they can’t afford to be.’1 Neo-liberalism requires graphic designers to sell (out), not slice up, their politics.
