Great protests need great placards. They are an essential part of direct action, hoisted by modern-day standard bearers, proclaiming a stance to the world. But all too often their messages are lost in the throng, amongst earnest messaging and scrawled angst.
For the People’s Climate March in London last Saturday, Naresh Ramchandani and team created a unique set of placards that would be able to stand out from the rest. They needed to reflect how social media has altered protest, allowing dissent to take place online as well as on the streets.
To do this, the placards are made entirely out of the digital world’s favourite and most pervasive language, Emoji. The vast pictorial alphabet was scoured to create a set of four placards that highlight negative environmental behaviours and applaud green actions.
On the day of the march an Earthmojis stand was set up, and placards were passed out to protesters who joined the throng. They were all snapped up in 15 minutes and were paraded and photographed from Lincoln’s Inn to the Houses of Parliament, featuring on The Guardian’s round up of the march.
Climate change is a global problem, and as climate change protests continue to take place across the world to raise awareness and drive change, we will make the Earthmojis placards downloadable and available as a powerful declaration that knows all tongues.
