Clive Russell
Growing up through kidulthood in the ‘80s, my only experience of politics was Thatcher; my only positive political experience was anti-Thatcher.
I first found my anti-Thatcher voice through my family and shows like The Young Ones. My father, a shop steward, was deeply disillusioned when the Electricians’ Union refused to strike with the miners. Later, when I realised an Art Foundation was my only way forward, I discovered other voices.
Paddington Printshop was one of them —though at the time, I only saw posters I liked without understanding the deep community work behind them. Still, it convinced me that ‘non-commercial’ design existed, a space distinct from fine art, which never felt accessible to a working-class lad like me.
Fast forward through a fake Elvis concert in Leeds, a typographical poetry journal, a publishing job, and whoring myself out to shit advertising and design agencies, I now find myself firmly in the collaborative, non-commercial design space.
By ‘non-commercial,’ I don’t mean unpaid—though I sometimes work for free, like for the Brixton Pound or Extinction Rebellion. It means creating work not driven by profit or intellectual copyright, but for everyone to use, enjoy and reimagine. It’s Anti-Anti and very Pro-Pro. Take Ocean Rebellion, which we started in 2020. Using modern news feeds and spectacular, performative press photography, we’ve raised awareness about ocean degradation. Some of these ‘posters’ have reached millions worldwide, popping up in news articles across the globe.
‘I still like to design ‘proper’ posters and the ones I like to do are mostly screen printed, just like Paddington Printshop’s, and I’ve recently designed the Museum of Unrest site and curated the ‘Good Design’ collection.’
