The art of unrest: John Phillips on the power of poster art

Speak to any art director who’s been around the block a few times and they’ll often go misty-eyed when the conversation turns to posters. 

They might even recall timeless classics that inspired them when they were starting out, like Saatchi & Saatchi’s Pregnant Man or Oliviero Toscani’s provocative work for Benetton. 

But what about another type of poster that packs a punch? One that’s designed to be held aloft at demonstrations? One that’s about fearlessly confronting authority with the truth? 

A poster frightens people you want to frighten and unites the people on the same side. It’s both a unification tool and a confrontational weapon.

“The poster opens up a question in a way that engages the viewer in trying to solve a problem,” says the veteran designer John Phillips. “So they’re forced to decide which side they want to stand on.” Phillips was the co-founder of Paddington Printshop in 1975 and has now co-founded Museum of UnRest, a charity harnessing the power of art and design to address social and environmental issues. Posters can be at the very heart of this, raising awareness and driving change.

“The poster [launches] a proposition, often by having an ambiguity between the image and the text, so there’s an open space for the viewer to step into,” Phillips says. “A poster frightens people you want to frighten and unites the people on the same side. It’s both a unification tool and a confrontational weapon.”

ABOVE: Phillips' disarming nuclear disarmament poster from 1979.

Phillips, a jovial character who was born in Sheffield in 1951, describes himself as “a cultural activist who tries to support social justice.” Fifty years ago, his kitchen-table designs for local community projects outgrew his kitchen table. So he launched Paddington Printshop with the vision of being “the artist on the high street, like the butcher or the baker.” He was then the Director of London Print Studio (lps21) between 1989 and 2022. During those five decades, Phillips and his peers created unmissable posters to protest around the big issues of the time, including racism, sexism and local housing. 

It was like creating a minor God. [The Landlord] represented something that people wanted to fight against so they made cartoons about him and built effigies of him.

It doesn’t seem like much has changed in those five decades… England flags hang menacingly from motorway bridges, feminists campaign against sexual harassment, and affordable housing remains in desperately short supply.

ABOVE: The famous ‘Landlord’ poster was instrumental in uncovering the UK public housing ‘Homes for Votes’ scandal.

I meet Phillips at a pop-up exhibition called When design fights back: The Right to Protest Exhibition, curated by Museum of UnRest and hosted in Pro Radix, an independent arts space in London’s Whitechapel. 

Recent posters from a range of designers rub shoulders with older creations on the gallery walls. So Bollocks to Boris and ICE out of Baltimore are sandwiched between a 1977 See Red Women’s Workshop comic strip to highlight instances of everyday oppression and a collection of 1980s anti-apartheid posters. 

As we walk around, Phillips is accompanied by Clive Russell, who curated the first Museum of UnRest exhibition, Good Design Collection. Russell, a co-founder of London studio This Ain’t Rock’n’Roll, helped establish a visual identity for environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion.

The older posters still hit hard. They may be historical documents but their shock factor endures. A 1979 poster by Phillips featuring a baby touching a three-bar electric fire tells us: 'Nuclear power: it’s child’s play'. ‘Send the racists home’, written in childlike scrawl, promotes an early Rock Against Racism event.

ABOVE: This poster was part of the UK's Rock Against Racism movement which organised over 400 concerts in the late 70s/early 80s as a rebuttal to the rise of the National Front.

One of the most iconic, and influential, is We Are A Little Worried About Our Landlord. Designed by Phillips in 1986, it shows a besuited man with a mechanical digger in place of a face, baring alarming teeth beneath a bowler hat. 

This image started life as a postcard, after Westminster tenants told Phillips that Shirley Porter, the leader of Westminster City Council, was planning to sell housing stock to attract more Conservative voters. The Tories had come within 100 votes of losing Westminster and wanted to protect themselves at the next election. 

Paddington Printshop produced thousands of postcards featuring the landlord character, and Westminster residents sent them to the council workers thanks to an internal mole hacking the council’s computer system. The Homes for Votes scandal was eventually unveiled on the BBC’s current affairs documentary series Panorama. It’s just one example of how design can play a part in galvanising people to expose corruption and drive change.

I’ve basically leapt from one thing to the next thing that I know nothing about. That's made my entire career interesting.

Phillips reflects: “It was like creating a minor God. He represented something that people wanted to fight against so they made cartoons about him and built effigies of him, and he was a strong presence in that community. He got on the front page of The Guardian and appeared on the front of Private Eye with [Labour leader] Neil Kinnock.” 

It hangs in the V&A and typifies Paddington Printshop’s output from that era, with its explicit nod to Pop Art. Phillips cites two other sources of inspiration: the protests and civil unrest that rocked Europe in May ’68 and Cuba: “For my generation, these are strong influences,” he says.

ABOVE: This poster for The National Campaign Against the Sale of Housing Estates was a sinister visualisation of those behind cynical profit-driven 'urban renewal' initiatives.

For someone who has helped draw attention to causes and communities, Phillips is reluctant to talk about Paddington Print Shop and Museum of UnRest in terms of branding. “In the arts, we don’t tend to talk about brands. And in the kind of arts I come from, even less.” So how would he characterise his five-decade career? “My operating motto has been ‘if you know how to do it, why bother?’ I’d like to encourage anyone who’s creative never to get stuck in a rut. I’ve basically leapt from one thing to the next thing that I know nothing about. That's made my entire career interesting.”

When you get it right, the relationship between word and image is powerful.

Museum of UnRest is certainly an interesting concept. Phillips is adept at bringing people together, both IRL and online, to create small, themed collections. “We all live in silos, often with similar ideas but never getting in contact. This is a way for different people who have the same concerns about the world to find out about each other, share ideas and find inspiration. Each collection has a different person overseeing it, to expand other people’s networks, and invite other people in.”

This is the antithesis to the social media echo chambers that have become such a prevalent — and, in some instances, sinister — force over the last decade, where users sling verbal punches at people who don’t think like them. 

Above: Phillips was tasked with creating a ‘forceful’ look for this poster which aimed to deter racist National Front leaflets. Within days of the posters appearing the leaflets disappeared.

Phillips laments the lost connection between text and imagery, framing it as a missed opportunity. “When you get it right, the relationship between word and image is powerful. We’ve lost that. People make up witty slogans and go on demos. But when you have a combination of image and text, it can be so much more powerful.” He adds: “Some designers recognise there’s an opportunity to put their work online to be downloaded, but most people going on demos, despite feeling strongly, don’t have the skills or resources to make powerful images themselves.”

Museum of UnRest, he hopes, can plug the education gap. “We’re absolutely dominated by imagery yet we have poor teaching resources. Museum of UnRest can help with this.”

Above: (Left) One of Phillips' many emotive, highly satirical posters calling out inequality in housing. (Right and main image) The Paddington Printshop's output was influenced by civil unrest around the world – from Paris to Portugal to Cuba.

What’s his advice for designing an effective poster? “Use the minimum effort to the maximum effect.” He points to his design from 1977, Paddington Against Racism which uses a striking black-and-white symmetrical design to symbolise unity. As with all his work, there’s a dramatic story behind it. “The National Front had started to leaflet in the area and people came along and said ‘John, can you do something that looks forceful and industrial, as though we’re a force to be reckoned with?’ We had them all around the area within days. The National Front leaflets went away.”

Does he ever get downcast that the problems he was addressing 50 years ago are still around today? “If you were too sensitive, you’d get depressed. But there’s a great phrase,” he says, smiling broadly. “Forget about the good old days, work with the bad new ones.”