Evolution of Graphic Design through Social Movements: A Visual Communication Analysis within the Black Panther Party and the Black Lives Matter movement

Abstract

The existence of visual communication has always been possible due to the humankind’s need to move forward, and the phenomenon that represents this need the best are social movements. In order to realize how revolutionary design is – compared to any other campaign – a graphic analysis that searches for the application of Gestalt theory and visual rhetoric is enough to realize that popular designs are as valid as any other graphic campaign. This reminds us that the two elements you need to start communicating via visual canvas are to see reality not as a whole but by fragments, and to be aware that form follows function; thus, all art that is created for the people, and not in the sake art itself, is Design.