Lamppost Stickers
Having at last finished my Master's dissertation, I find myself leaving Durham for - well, not the last time, I'll come back at some point, but certainly this is the last time in the near future I'll be spending a significant length of time here. And to commemorate my time here, I've decided to rate some political lamppost stickers I've seen in the last few days.
I'm not a graphic designer or an arts student (unless you count pure mathematics as an art, which isn't that unreasonable a stance I suppose), and I know nothing about colour theory save what tumblr has taught me, so don't expect that much insight.
Sticker #1: New Normal
[ID: A white sticker on a lampost. On it is a red flag, with "Fight for a new normal" written on it in white; below this are some raised fists in red, and below that red text reading "For an ecological society beyond capitalism and the state"]
We're off to a good start here. Good choice of colours, a nice eye-catching statement to draw people in and a more detailed (but still not excessively long) statement explaining what the sticker's about. 7/10.
Sticker #2: Trans Pokémon
[ID: Two circular stickers, one with an image of the pokémon Pikachu in a baseball cap and the text "Pikachu says TRANS RIGHTS", and the other with an image of the pokémon Eevee and the text "Eevee says TRANS RIGHTS"]
A formulaic approach to producing a variety of stickers is an interesting methodology. The use of the images of well-known pokémon to draw people in is also interesting - super effective against people who know anything about pokémon, but not very effective against anyone else. Alas, I must deduct points for the use of eevee in place of the trans icon pokémon sylveon. 6/10
Sticker #3: Mysterious A
[ID: A rectangular sticker, with the background divided along the diagonal from bottom-left to top-right - purple below the diagonal, black above. Superimposed on this is a venus symbol in white, with a capital "A" (also in white) inset into its circle.]
The most important function of a lamppost sticker is getting a message across, and this one abjectly fails to do so to anyone who doesn't already know what it means. Seriously, what the heck does this mean? The colour scheme and the "A" make me think it's something about asexuality, but that doesn't really fit with the venus symbol. Maybe it's something about feminist anarchists, but from what I know of anarchism the 'feminist' bit would be redundant. The only reason I'm giving this any points is that I assume it's meaningful to some people. 3/10
Sticker 4: Antifa Deluxe Edition
[ID: A rectangular sticker, with the background divided along the diagonal from bottom-left to top-right; red below, black above. Superimposed on this is the antifa logo; a black ring with the text "Antifaschistische Aktion", surrounding a black flag and a red flag (the red flag behind the black one) on a white background. In the bottom-left corner is written "black-mosquito.org", the website of the company that makes this sticker.]
Bold colours, historic and well-known logo, plus text that simultaneously communicates what the sticker is about, and that it isn't a solely anglophone thing. Excellent work. 9/10
Sticker #5: Antifa, but Gay
[ID: A variant on the antifa logo. The text in the black ring reads "Antihomophobe Aktion"; the front flag (which is usually black) now has horizontal stripes - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, hot pink and purple, with the purple stripe extending down the flagpole; and the back flag, usually red, is black.]
A variant sticker! A lovely way of communicating both the main message - i.e. there are people here willing to oppose homophobia by any means necessary - and also how the creator feels this attitude relates to the movement whose sticker it is a variant of. The rainbow flag is a bit odd, though - it's got the hot pink stripe of the original pride flag, and the other colours seem to match those of the original, but it's missing the indigo stripe and the hot pink is in the wrong place. Still, a strong effort. 6/10
Sticker #6: Antifa, but Trans
[ID: Another variant on the antifa logo. Here the text on the black ring reads "Anti-Transphobic Action"; the front flag has been replaced with the trans flag - horizontal stripes of light blue, pink, white, pink and light blue - with the light blue stripe continuing down the flagpole; and the back flag is in black.]
Again, love to see a nice variant. This one has the flag right, but for some reason has dropped the German text in favour of English - the German would be "Antitransphobie Aktion", so it's not like there'd be a comprehensibility problem.
The slight issue with this design is that it can be easily defaced, by someone scraping off the "-phobia" part. Fortunately, it can then be kinda un-defaced by scraping off the "anti-" part to just read "trans action".
[ID: An example of such a defacing, with both "anti-" and "-phobia" scraped off so the sticker reads "Trans Action".]
7/10
Sticker #7: Wrong Country
[ID: A rectangular sticker, with the background divided diagonally from top-left to bottom-right, red below the diagonal and black above. At the top in white block capitals is written "Abolish Capitalism"; on the left in a more cursive style is "Für ein Lernen, Lieben und Leben in Freiheit; and in the bottom-left is "www.black-mosquito.org". The right-hand-side of the sticker is taken up by a stylised flower in white, with white grass around its base and the centre of the blossom replaced by a capital "A" with circular arcs between its extremities.]
Here we see an ineffective use of German; instead of using it for a sentence with plenty of cognates so that the primarily English-speaking passersby can figure out what it means, they've used it for the explanation of why they want to abolish capitalism, leaving their sticker bereft of any persuasive capacity.
Also, I know the A is meant to be an anarchist thing, but it just looks like the Avengers logo. 4/10
Sticker #8: Wrong Country, Redux
[ID: A black sticker, with the outlines of four hands in different positions in white.]
I really want to like this sticker. It's charmingly cunning to spell out ACAB in fingerspelling diagrams, presumably so that only those 'in the know' get the message and their opponents don't tear it down. In fact, there's just one teeny-tiny problem with this sticker.
It's in the wrong sodding language.
They've spelt it out in fingerspelling diagrams from American Sign Language, which is in no way, shape or form related to British Sign Language. This sticker would be more comprehensible to people in Paris than Durham, and anyone with a passing familiarity with the history of sign language should know that. I am baffled and confused by the existence of someone who knows enough about ASL to make or buy this sticker, but not enough to know that it isn't the same as BSL. 5/10
Sticker #9: Monochrome Anticommunists
[ID: A variant on the antifa logo; the text on the black ring is "Anti-communist Action", and the flags have been replaced by a black-and-white cartoon of a person throwing a hammer-and-sickle symbol into a bin.]
Here we have a poorly done antifa variant. They got rid of the colour, so there's not that much to draw the eye, and they made the image very difficult to distinguish from an anti-littering sign - seriously, I fully walked past this one before my brain caught up to the fact that "anti-communist" isn't usually written on anti-littering signs, and then I had to go back and have another look before I saw they'd changed the piece of litter out for the USSR symbol. And again, they've inscrutably switched to English - except they've done a worse job of it than the trans variant did, because they screwed up the kerning on "action" so the tops of the c and the t merge together. 3/10
Sticker #10: Checkbox
[ID: A rectangular sticker with a pink background. On the left in black-and-white is a cartoon figure, with shoulder-length hair, stubble, chest hair, a necklace, mascara, a fishnet sleeve on their right arm, and what appears to be a bikini with breast forms over ace bandages. On the right are three checkboxes, with messy cursive writing next to them reading "male", "female" and "f*** you" respectively. In small text on the bottom right is written "Trouble X".]
This is a masterpiece of lamppost sticker design. The buckwild gender presentation of the figure, combined with the rather blunt third checkbox, do an excellent job of conveying the message of the sticker; a transness-as-essentially-revolutionary-and-political vibe recieved by the target audience, and a we're-here-we're-queer-like-it-or-not vibe for everyone else. 10/10
(there were other lamppost stickers I photographed, including other political lamppost stickers, but I think this post is long enough to be getting on with.)
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Am Samstag sollte in Simmering ein Match zwischen dem FC Mariahilf und dem FC Vatikan anlässlich des 20 jährigen Bestehens des FCM stattfinden. Das Spiel fand jedoch nicht statt weil sich der FC Vatikan von Regenbogen-Eck-Fahnen, dem Vereinsschriftzug im Regenbogen Look (siehe Foto), von einigen Fans mitgebrachten Transparenten sowie Pro-Choice Botschaften von drei Spielerinnen beleidigt fühlten.
Einige Spielerinnen des FC Mariahilf hatten um Unterstützung gebeten, deshalb waren einige Dynamas und mit etwas Verspätung auch zwei Sox vor Ort. Weder wurde vor Ort der Glaube der Spielerinnen des FC Vatikans zum Thema gemacht, noch wurden kirchenfeindliche Sprüche vom Stapel gelassen. Drei Spielerinnen hab auf das Selbstbestimmungsrecht über ihre Körper gepocht, der Verein hat die Eckfahnen durch Regenbogenfahnen ersetzt und zwei Transparente mit der Aufschrift “Against Homophobia” und “Antihomophobe Aktion” waren alles was es brauchte um das Spiel platzen zu lassen. Bezeichnend, dass der FC Vatikan diese Botschaften als gegen sich gerichtet wahrgenommen hat und dermaßen gekränkt war um das seit einem Jahr vereinbarte Spiel platzen zu lassen.
Einige Artikel zur Nachlese:
TAZ: Mariahilf!
Der Standard: Eklat in Wien: Vatikan-Fußballerinnen traten aus Protest nicht an
Heute: Eklat in Wien! FC Vatikan tritt nach Protest nicht an
Kurier: Skandal in Simmering: Der Vatikan pfiff seine Frauen zurück
Dynama Donau war vor Ort
Bericht von Birgit Rienzinger: Als der FC Vatikan nach Simmering kam und wieder ging
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