Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State

Steven Heller
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»Iron Fists: Bran­ding the 20th-Century Tota­li­ta­rian State« is the first illus­tra­ted sur­vey of the pro­pa­ganda art, gra­phics, and arti­facts crea­ted by the tota­li­ta­rian govern­ments of Nazi Ger­many, Fascist Italy, the USSR, and Com­mu­nist China. The ico­no­gra­phy pro­du­ced by these regimes is uni­ver­sally reco­gnized as their ›brands‹: the swas­tika and aggres­sive typo­gra­phy of Hitler’s Ger­many, Mussolini’s stream­lined Futu­rist pos­ters and stylish Black Shirt uni­forms, the sto­lid Social Rea­lism of Stalin’s USSR, and Mao’s Little Red Book and kit­schy cera­mic figu­ri­nes from the Cul­tu­ral Revolution.Written by the emi­nent desi­gner and design his­to­rian Ste­ven Hel­ler, who has long collec­ted two and three-dimensional exam­ples from this period, »Iron Fists« focu­ses on gra­phic mate­ri­als such as type­faces, logos, pos­ters, adver­ti­se­ments, children’s books, flags, and medals. As Hel­ler explains, Mus­so­lini fan­cied him­self an art direc­tor and the Nazis had a sophisti­ca­ted gra­phic pro­gram, fea­turing Hit­ler as ›logo,‹ that is remar­ka­bly simi­lar to modern cor­po­rate iden­tity systems.

 

Hel­ler also explo­res the mea­ning of color sys­tems (each dic­ta­tor­ship had a dis­tinc­tive palette), the deve­lop­ment of regime-specific type­faces, and even the slo­gans used to both rally and ter­ro­rize the popu­lace. Del­ving into the history of once-innocent ante­ce­dents in heraldry, color sym­bo­lism, and sacred and secu­lar sym­bols, he demons­tra­tes how these ele­ments were put to dis­tur­bin­gly effec­tive use in sel­ling the totalitarian. (…)


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