Environmental hero or climate rebel : an iconographic study in environmental activist design

This paper uses Panofsky’s iconographic method to analyze images and texts belonging to two environmental activist organizations: Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion. The purpose of the analysis is to gain an understanding of how design is used today to engage people in environmental activism. Two theories will be used to conduct the analysis; the first one is the theory of strategic activism which involves differentiating between radical activism and conventional activism. The second theory is Hall’s theory of representation which will be used to gain knowledge of how the organizations represent people in their imagery. The analysis show that Greenpeace show signs of conventional strategy and Extinction Rebellion show signs of radical strategy in their imagery. Lastly, I will discuss if the activist strategy shown in the organizations imagery correlates with their actions