Power to the People
Douglas Rushkoff
Occupy Wall Street is meant more as a way of life that spreads through contagion, creates as many questions as it answers, aims to force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the current economic system is broken.
My affinity with Occupy
Occupy Wall Street sparked a global awakening on September 17, 2011. My friend traveled to Washington, DC, to participate in the Occupy movement. I was inspired by the massive protests taking place around the world. The conversations that emerged about wealth inequality and social ills resonated with me.
Overnight, people were creating art about these issues, and I was drawn to contribute in my own way. The Donkey Mill Art Center in Holualoa, Hawaii, was hosting an Occupy-themed exhibit, so I decided to showcase my work there alongside dozens of other entries.
The clenched raised fist is a universal symbol of solidarity. My designs use this classic image, paying homage to the early 20th-century style with a modern twist.
My posters are available to download under a Creative Commons license. I also adapted the design for T-shirts.
About
I graduated in 2006 from the University of Oklahoma and moved to Kona to work in graphic design. In 2012, I will be offering my design and communication services with a new venture my colleagues and I are launching: CMYK Industries.
I’m honored to serve on the board of the Hawai‘i Island HIV/AIDS Foundation, where I’m excited to contribute my expertise to help make the agency more successful.
I love to keep apprised of technology. My MacBook Pro is the most useful tool I own, I operate my own web server in a data center, and I’m working on my own mobile app.
#Occupy
I believe it’s time to start anew, beginning with a new constitution that enshrines human rights, incorporates FDR’s New Bill of Rights, forms a unicameral legislature, mandates a ranked-voting system, and abolishes corporate personhood. I want to build a world modeled on the vision of Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, in which humanity thrives and poverty is a relic of the past.
Imagine.
The Process
I began by researching revolutionary art and wartime propaganda from the early 1900s.
Already, Occupy artists had begun gravitating toward a clenched fist. It was a common image that linked OWS.
The Obama ‘Hope’ poster had become popular during the 2008 presidential campaign. It evoked the popular movements of the past with a modern touch.
Inspired, I set out to to create something in a similar style. I found an old fist graphic online to based my work on, and I redrew a simplified fist as a vector and began adding the layers and highlights to make a striking image. I then experimented with colors, and settled on red and blue motifs with an alternate white/grayscale version (red, white, and blue being the national colors of the United States). The starburst always emanated from the dominant fist to indicate the power flows from people.
I created the elements in Adobe Illustrator and the posters in Adobe InDesign.
The font is Aachen Std — a bold block typeface that conveys strength.
