HIV Graphic Communication

This September, GMD Senior Lecturer Siân Cook gave a presentation at the RSA (The Royal Society for Arts, manufactures and commerce) about her archive of UK HIV/AIDS graphic design ephemera.

Review by GMD Senior Lecturer, Monica Biagioli:

When I saw a posting about Siân’s talk at the RSA, I was excited to attend. I had followed her archive project on social media where guests would select works from her archive in a curated series of posts and this was an opportunity to know more about it. How did she start the archive? What was her role in developing works in the collection?

I find talks to be a wonderful way to understand more about a topic. Siân’s beautifully presented cultural study traced the trajectory of the role of graphics in the challenging task of communicating about disease and prevention to an audience often forced into silence and neglect by a society not quite ready to go beyond prejudicial patterns and assumptions. This was a key moment of social design in our cultural history. Mostly unofficial bodies led the way to distribute information and support. Siân’s archive is comprehensive, documenting more than two decades of graphic design. It traces the use of tools from the DIY movement (word of mouth and mail art) as well as more conventional advertising methods such as poster design.

Her thorough and structured presentation underpinned a subject full of emotion as she described a part of her own history and the very many important people it affected. The part of her presentation that resonates most as we start our academic year is how the collection started. One of Siân’s students, a shining light in the graduating class of 1992, with a brilliant future ahead in graphic design, passed away a few months after graduation from complications caused by HIV. The news was shattering. Siân’s response was to embark as a volunteer graphic designer on campaigns and communication. A key driver of her work was working directly with the community not only to understand the audience for her messages but to help shape them. Much of what is taken for granted in current marketing practice was developed during those turbulent and difficult times when getting the right communication to the audience that most needed it was an urgent challenge.”

You can view the UK HIV Graphic Communication Archive website here: https://www.hivgraphiccommunication.com/

Instagram: @hivgraphics