For the foreword acclaimed design critic Steven Heller is giving his view on the notion Cause Branding. With “Cause Branding: The Right Balance” he dives into the history of branding, a tool to organize ideas, but one that need to be used delicately. His words prepare the way to the introduction of the book.

“To mobilize and proselytize, activist organizers must employ whatever means are possible to reach their respective masses – demonstrations, marches, sit-ins, civil disobedience, ephemera, bills, posters, mailers, multimedia, video, podcasts and social media, among them. These methods will range from impromptu to deliberate strategies that either mimic their opponents’ tactics or initiate original attention-grabbing feats of their own. Activism is, after all, a campaign, and a campaign demands a concerted level of combativeness through efforts fortified with the most effective tools possible. Over time, the commercialized practice called branding has been weaponized for political causes. As such, it is a proverbial
double-edged sword.”

Read more in BRANDED PROTEST the book.

CONTRIBUTING WRITER
About Steven Heller

Steven Heller is an American art director, journalist, critic, author, and editor who specializes on topics related to graphic design. For 33 years he was an art director at the New York Times. Currently, he is co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author Department, Special Consultant to the President of SVA for New Programs, and writes the Visuals column for the New York Times Book Review. He is the co-founder and co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts, New York, where he lectures on the history of graphic design.
For over two decades he has been contributing editor to PRINT, EYE, BASELINE, and I.D. magazines, writes frequently for Wired and Design Observer, has had contributed hundreds of articles, critical essays, and columns to a score of other design and culture journals. For thirty-three years Heller was a senior art director of U&lc magazine, a publication devoted to typography.
The author, co-author, and/or editor of over 140 books on design and popular culture, Heller has worked with a score of publishers, including Chronicle Books, Allworth Press, Harry N. Abrams, Phaidon Press, Taschen Press, Abbeville Press, Thames & Hudson, Rockport, Northlight, and more.
He has produced or been curator of a number of exhibitions.
Heller is also the recipient of the AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement in 1999, the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame Special Educators Award in 1996, The Pratt Institute Herschel Levitt Award in 2000, Society of Illustrators Richard Gangel Award for Art Direction in 2006 and is the 2011 recipient of the Smithsonian National Design Award.
BRANDED PROTEST the book,
now available online and at your local book store.
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