It was just over 60 years ago that Adolf Hitler and Benito
Mussolini, two of the world's most powerfully imposing
leaders, died and their regimes crumbled. One of the most
illuminating facts about this dark era of history is the way
in which these tyrants, and others like them, used graphic
design as an instrument of power. But how did these regimes
succeed in influencing the minds of millions? It is in the
visual language the imagery, the typeface, the color palette
that the answers truly take shape.
Phaidon
Press is pleased to announce the publication of Iron
Fists: Branding the 20th Century Totalitarian State by
Steven Heller, the first illustrated survey of the
propaganda art, graphics, and artifacts created by the
totalitarian governments of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and
the Communist regimes of the USSR and China. The book sets
the disturbingly powerful graphic devices in historical
context.
The infamous symbols produced by
these regimes are recognized universally: the swastika and
gothic typography of Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's
streamlined Futurist posters and Black Shirt uniforms, the
stolid Social Realism of Stalin's USSR and Mao s Little Red
Book. Author Steven Heller, a world-renowned design
historian, who has long collected two-and-three-dimensional
examples from this period, reveals how these symbols were
used in a wide variety of propaganda, from posters,
magazines and advertisements to uniforms, flags and
figurines.
In addition to using logos and
symbols, all of the leaders researched in this book
deliberately cultivated certain personal characteristics
(Hitler's mustache, Mussolini's baldness, Lenin's goatee,
Mao's smile), in an attempt to transform their corporeal
selves into icons. These regime personalities were blanketed
across public venues, from monuments to postage stamps. The
Nazis, for example, installed an intricate graphic program
that featured Hitler s face as a ''logo,'' a system
remarkably similar to modern corporate identity creations.
By integrating color images of artifacts
with archival black and white photographs, Iron Fists
offers unique insight into how these regimes were effective
in using graphic design to further their causes. In the
section on Fascist Italy, for example, there are numerous
reproductions of stylized posters, magazines and handbooks
designed to excite impressionable youth. Heller then
connects this printed propaganda with historic photographs
of Italian children dressed as men prepared for battle stoic
and serious their small hands clutching guns instead of
toys.
Divided into four sections by regime,
Heller also explores the color systems (each dictatorship
had a distinctive palette), typefaces, and slogans used to
both rally and terrorize the populace. In result, he
demonstrates how these elements were used to ''sell'' the
totalitarian message. The first extensively illustrated book
on the subject, Iron Fists will have an obvious
appeal to graphic designers but will also be an important
contribution to the study of the history of the totalitarian
state.
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