If the dissolution of the National Assembly by the President of the Republic left a good number of French people stunned, it still had the merit of awakening the left, now united under the banner of the Popular Front. On the civil society side, when some denounce an unnatural marriage, others rejoice at prospects unthinkable a few days earlier. An enthusiasm that took the form original campaign posters on the initiative of Geoffrey Dorne, a “committed designer”.
It is an immense wave of creativity in the service of the Popular Front that this ex-Parisian who has taken refuge in the Vosges has sparked since Thursday. “For me, design is a profession but also a tool to convey political messages,” explains Geoffrey Dorne, 39. So when the announcement came that the left-wing parties had agreed to conduct the early legislative elections together, the designer wanted to make his contribution to the Front.
“Transmit a positive, joyful, optimistic message”
“The idea was to encourage people to make posters for the Popular Front which would illustrate the measures of the program and to bring them together on a website,” he explains. The site, called 24×36.net, he created in one day and his appeal worked so well that the proposals quickly flooded in. Geoffrey stopped counting at 1,000 posters received for more than a hundred accepted. “The only rule is to transmit a positive, joyful, optimistic message,” he assures. Sorting, because it is impossible to keep everything, is done firstly to avoid the redundancy of puns but also when the “graphic quality is too low”.
Even if the designer suggests a template and a color chart, it must be recognized that the participants have a lot of imagination. “Amateurs, students, anonymous people and graphic design professionals,” lists Geoffrey, all voluntarily motivated by the desire to believe in it. “There’s no question of selling posters or making t-shirts,” insists the creator of 24×36. On the other hand, candidates are free to use the posters for their campaign or for citizens to hold them up in demonstrations.