Political poster designs and social change in Turkey since 1960: The case of DISK

The design, which is defined as a human talent, points to the history of civilization. The design shaped in the capitalist economic system depending on today's relations of pro-duction also determines economic and social systems. While environmental factors shape human awareness in itself, the design of the messages produced for this purpose can also be carried out in many different ways. In this study, poster designs, which are one of the study areas reflecting the social change processes observed in the economic and social plane, are investigated and the investigation of discourses produced in the trade union struggle is aimed. Trade unions are non-governmental organizations that protect workers' labor democratically and economically and carry their rights struggle to an organized basis. Trade unions in Turkey have undergone radical changes in political and economic aspects from the 1960s to the present day. These changes can also be ob-served through the political visual design products produced by these organized struc-tures. Poster designs are visual design products that include ideological structures in maintaining, spreading and providing continuity of ideologies such as marketing, in-forming, persuasion, orientation and they directly affect the society. The aim of the dis-cussion on the May 1 posters produced by the trade unions is to create a critical per-spective on the design of posters and to determine in academic background. In line with this aim, the aim of the study is to adopt poster designs as an ideological structure like every field where design activity continues. DİSK's May 1 posters constituted the sam-ple of the study in consideration of post-1960 political and social change in Turkey. With the examination of the posters, it is aimed to understand how the working-class struggle in the context of trade union struggle in Turkey has undergone a process of change in theoretical and practical fields. In determining the research universe, it was observed that DİSK was active in all periods of social and class movements in Turkey that started to rise after 1960. May 1 posters produced by DİSK after 1976, which were discussed in the sample, were examined together with social semiotics and semiotic analysis.