Design Context: Semiotics within subculture

Punks

Safety Pin

Parent hood, babies >> Rebellion, Anarchy

Dr Martins

Work boots >> Anarchy

Mohawk

Tribes >> Punk

Black Cat

Pets >> Anarchy

Black Flag

Countries >> Anarchy

Black cat

The black cat, also called the "wild cat" or "sabot-cat", usually with an arched back and with claws and teeth bared, is closely associated with anarchism, especially with anarcho-syndicalism. It was designed by Ralph Chaplin, who was a prominent figure in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). As its stance suggests, the cat is meant to suggest wildcat strikes and radical unionism. The IWW (or the Wobblies) was an important industrial union, and was the first American labor union to recruit and organize women and people of color, and played a critical role in the fight for the eight-hour work day and in Free Speech fights all over the country in the early 20th century. Their most famous and influential years were from 1905 until they were largely suppressed by the Palmer Raids.

The origin of the black cat symbol is unclear, but according to one story it came from a IWW strike that was going badly. Several members had been beaten up and were put in a hospital. At that time a skinny, black cat walked into the striker's camp. The cat was fed by the striking workers and as the cat regained its health the strike took a turn for the better. Eventually the striking workers got some of their demands and they adopted the cat as their mascot.

The origins of Punk in the mid-1970s lay in the realities of disaffected working-class urban youth with little hope of employment, housing, and a meaningful future. The music, fashion and graphic design that emerged during this time was often concerned with political issues such as social injustice and economic disparity.

Usually straightforward, with clear messages, punk graphic design was often in black and white and often homemade using production techniques of cut-n-paste letterforms, photocopied and collaged images, hand-scrawled text. This DIY aesthetic was applied to posters, album covers and low-tech fanzines such as Sniffin Glue, which contained crudely designed pages, graffiti-like insertions and typographic errors, as well as torn-out letters from other sources.

Such ideas gained wider currency in the Punk music scene with record covers for companies like Factory Records and Stiff Records and the emergence of designers like Jamie Reid, who designed the controversial sleeve for the Punk band the Sex Pistols' single God Save the Queen of 1977, showing the defaced head of Queen Elizabeth II.

Graphic designers such as Reid, Malcolm Garrett, and Peter Saville, all closely associated with Punk music graphics, had all attended art school and, with others such as Neville Brody, revitalized graphic design through harnessing the vitality and iconoclasm of Punk to graphic skills and an awareness of Postmodern eclecticism. However, like many radical challenges to conventional lifestyles any threat was removed by the commercialization of the style, as had been the case with hippies and Psychedelia in the previous decade.

Mods

Mod (from modernist) is a subculture that originated in London, England, in the late 1950s and peaked in the early-to-mid 1960s.
Significant elements of the mod subculture include fashion (often tailor-made suits); music, including African American soul, Jamaican ska, British beat music, and R&B; and motor scooters. The original mod scene was also associated with amphetamine-fuelled all-night dancing at clubs.^[4] From the mid-to-late 1960s and onwards, the mass media often used the term mod in a wider sense to describe anything that was believed to be popular, fashionable, or modern.
There was a mod revival in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s, which was followed by a mod revival in North America in the early 1980s, particularly in Southern California.

Scooters

Transport >> Mod status symbol

Target

Royal Air Force >> Mod Fashion

Suits

Employment, Business man >> Mod fashion

Rockers

Rockers, leather boys or ton-up boys are a biker subculture that originated in the United Kingdom during the 1950s. It was mainly centered around British cafe racer motorcycles and rock and roll music.

the more recent rocker // metal culture differs slightly but there are still common symbols used throughout.

Skull
Human head >> Rock Symbol

Lightening bolt
Electricity >> rock symbol

Inverted Cross

St peter >> Anti Christ

Hippies

The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. Both the words "hip" and "hep" came from African American culture and denote "awareness".^[1] The early hippies inherited the countercultural values of the Beat Generation, created their own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution, and some used drugs such as cannabis, LSD and magic mushrooms to explore altered states of consciousness.

VW Camper Van

Transport >> Hippie wagon