MOVE is a set of light, recyclable and low budget protest accessories designed explicitly to help protest movements reach a better visual coherence during marches and rallies, and help them project their brand in a unified and controlled way. It’s basically a conflation of the standard corporate branding processes and applied - with an uncanny shift of the same lingo - to protest movements. In other words, you can file this under “concepts that could either give Slavoj Žižek a stroke, or end up in one of his books”.

The centerpiece of the MOVE set is a flat-pack cardboard megaphone, which can be easily customized by “the client” - i.e. the association organizing the protest - with the help of the designers, and then built on-site by participants. According to the MOVE website, the megaphone has already been used by the “NYC branch of the Democratic Socialists of America — using eye-catching signage to help their message pop in unison”. I am not sure how happy the Democratic Socialist of America would be about having their chapters referred to as branches, like a bank or any other capitalist institution.

Starting from the initial megaphone concept, designer Alexia Cohen, Will Crum and Lassor Feasley developed other white-label protest devices, such as sky lanterns that can be customized with the movement logo. According to another “case study”, these lanterns helped the Black Lives Matter movement, “embroiled in a false characterization as a violent and unruly movement” to “emphasize the origins of its purpose” thanks to “evocative imagery of a lantern vigil”.

MOVE also came up with a “mobile customization station”, described as a great tool helping protesters unify their message properly, “by giving them blank foldable swag to write, stamp and collage their messages”. Because you want them to freely express at your march, but let’s face it, those makeshift stick-and-cardboard protest sign mostly suck, and above all, they don’t really look nice and stylish on camera, let alone on Instagram. After all the revolution might not be televised, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t brand it and market it properly.