Diego Lozano: Designer Behind 'ICE Out of Our Communities'

Interviewed by Sonary Amachree

I: When did you first get the instinct to combine graphic design with advocacy? 

DL: I feel like it started in middle school. We were studying World War II propaganda posters and how there was an influx of posters in the US. Some were pretty racist: anti-Japanese, anti-German, and all that. It would depict them in certain ways, but I gravitated more towards the design and the shapes. 

In high school, I had a World War II class, and for some reason, I decided to make a propaganda poster. It was kind of cheesy: I had the US on fire, and it just had these swastika looking UFOs shooting at the US. I forgot the message, but it was like, “Do not let them do this to our country.” 

And joining the immigrants' rights movement, with another friend and my brother, our first instinct was, “There’s no good designs.” I think we were just young and hypercritical of things. We’d tell each other, “The DREAM ACT didn’t pass because there were no good designs!” That was our way of thinking about it, and so that was our mission—to ensure that campaigns had good designs. Obviously, our philosophies have changed since then; there were good designs back then. There’s a lot of reasons why the DREAM ACT didn’t pass, but because of that, we’ve always—or I’ve at least always tried to make sure a lot of the campaigns that I’m part of, or advocacy that I’m part of, have clear graphics, design philosophies etc. You can have great advocacy but terrible design, and sometimes, if the advocacy is powerful enough, it can carry the campaign. However, sometimes, if the design is more powerful than the advocacy, it can lead to outcomes, both good and bad. 

I: You talked about it a little bit when you said, “The DREAM ACT didn’t pass because of bad design.” You don’t think that anymore, but you still think design plays a heavy role in how advocacy reaches people. Can you explain that role?

DL: I’m not going to say any candidates, but—specifically here in Phoenix—some folks have lost their races when they should have won. I don’t want to blame it on the designs, but they didn’t have their designs in check or anything like that. From that, it just shows how they don’t have anything else built within. They were already in a position of power, and they still lost—they should have won. That’s why you need to have all of your branding and identity in check, and it has to grow with you; it’s not a second, last-minute, or a side thing. As you’re growing as a candidate, organization, advocate, or whatever, your branding also has to grow with you because people see that. That’s the only way they see how this person grows.

I: So, design helps campaigns connect to people. 

DL: Yeah. It shows you where you’re at. At least subconsciously, it shows you where you’re at. And for me, I can instantly recognize it. For those who aren’t into design, they can subconsciously feel it. There’s a stereotype that if you have a great logo, website, and all that, that means they’ve got everything. Sometimes, that’s not the case, but they don’t have to know that. Which, again, could be a bad thing too: When you have great design, you’ve got great graphics, but it doesn’t reflect the person at all. 

Those little things might not seem like a whole lot, but they play a big part in communication, and if they're working in conjunction with everything, they play a big role. It shouldn’t be a separate thing. 

The thing that’s made my work successful is that I understand the politics, the advocacy, and the people. Understanding the people you’re working with and what they’re trying to say also plays a big part. That’s an important skill to have as a designer.

I: How did the posters come together? 

DL: It’s wild. Sometimes, I don’t have a process, but there often is. The first style I was going for was definitely the—I think we call it rótulos, which is a hand lettering style in Mexico. Kind of similar to the bodega lettering in Zohran Mamdani’s campaign posters. The rótulo style is typically hand-painted at stores in Mexican markets or little convenience stores in Mexican markets. Even here in Phoenix, places in LA, and a lot of Mexican-owned businesses adopted that style. That was the style I was going for. It’s usually big, bold letters, and one of the typefaces was called Liquor Store. First, I lay it out in black and white, and then think about the color afterward. Then I played around with the type, seeing how I could make each word pop out. I added some symbols: the ICE OUT OF COMMUNITIES has an evil eye, which we used for the La Migra watch logo. The evil eye is meant to protect us from evil energy, but I also used it as a way to say, “We’re also watching.” If ICE is in our communities, and they’re taking people, we at least know what’s happening. 

That’s the biggest thing: there were maybe two weeks when we didn’t know where they were. Now, we’re at a place where even if we can’t catch them, we at least know where they’re going or where they’ve been. 

I: There are two versions of the poster. What was your intention behind differentiating them? 

D: We wanted to create two posters: one that’s more political and one that’s not. It might be considered political, but it’s not. We want to make things that are more accessible and not always a political message. We want to go back to creating things that are easy for folks to have, and that’s why the messaging for both is a little bit different. The ICE OUT OF OUR COMMUNITIES poster is, by default, a little bit more politically charged, and that’s why I used darker colors versus the FAMILIAS JUNTAS LIBRES, where I used brighter colors. I used shadows under the type, which a lot of rótulo painters use to make messages pop. I used brighter colors to make it more friendly, more accessible, and something that people would want to put out. Because it’s families, you can’t fuck with that. I do think more people gravitated towards the ICE OUT OF COMMUNITIES poster, but both were still a hit. 

I: Both versions of the posters are bilingual. 

DL: Sometimes I don’t think about it. When it says ICE OUT OF OUR COMMUNITIES, people don’t actually ask for a translation. Versus, if you see a poster saying, “FAMILIAS JUNTAS LIBRES,” people might ask, “What does that mean?" And that’s why I decided to put an English one. Honestly, sometimes my thought process is, “I could put something here.”

I: You said FAMILIAS JUNTAS LIBRES was meant to be the less political version, why did you choose Spanish to communicate that? 

DL: There’s just something about Spanish, you can say it in English, but in Spanish, there’s more rhythm. I don’t want to say urgency, but you can feel the love within the language: you can hear someone say this; you can hear family members say this; you can hear people chanting. That’s something about Spanish that doesn’t translate into English. That’s not to say it can’t happen in English, but there’s some sense that the message feels more familiar—it feels right. We’re in a place where a lot of people—even if they don’t speak Spanish—might understand what it means. Did you understand what it meant? 

I: Yeah, I saw libres and thought liberated. 

DL: Also, it just fit better in Spanish, too. Which is not always the case: sometimes I have to design a poster in English, and then I have to in Spanish; the Spanish version ends up making it longer. That mostly happens if I’m doing information flyers, but this was one of those cases where the messaging was straight to the point in Spanish. 

I: Does the design flow from the messaging, or does the messaging change around the design?

DL: For this one, at least the ICE OUT OF OUR COMMUNITIES and FAMILIAS JUNTAS LIBRES, it all worked together. But, there have been instances in the past where I would get something like, “Hey let’s make a poster that says this.” It just would not flow, or it was too long. I would do my best, or even try to change it, but then I couldn’t for reasons beyond my control.

I: How have you navigated that tension? 

DL: Sometimes you just have to accept it. Maybe I’ll try to compromise, and be like “Okay, it will look better if it’s this or that.” Or, I try to emphasize some words if it’s too long by bolding the words that really hit. If they don’t accept it, for me, it’s about conserving your energy. There are other fights; there’s the bigger picture. As long as the work is moving forward, it’s not giving up—you at least rested your case. Even if they don’t accept it, you at least explain your reasons why. That’s an important thing as a designer: say it. Don’t be like, “I’m not going to do it if it doesn’t go my way.” Don’t take it personally.  

I: You’re an artist, working in a space that asks you to communicate to the public in a straightforward and accessible way. What’s that like? 

DL: I’m definitely in a much more—I don’t want to say privileged—but blessed place where I create messaging based on what the folks I'm working with are saying. I don’t actually come up with it. They come up with, and I’m like ‘Dude, no, say that again. That’s what we need to say.’ Especially as of recently, we just roll with it and it hits. Everything that you’ve seen recently it’s just because of what I’m seeing and listening to, and just witnessing from the office or the spaces that I’m in. I don’t know if I’ve had that freedom before. 

If I’m working for an organization that’s working on some kind of issue, you have to listen to the folks who are impacted. Not a lot of people do that. 

I: Listen to people impacted by these issues? 

DL: Yeah. 

I: What happens as a result of that? 

DL: The work doesn’t click. You can tell that it’s an external agency creating the work, and they’re not actually in the field with them. That’s the difference between designers and agencies versus me: I’m actually in the field, or the battle with them. They’ll create things, but you can tell there’s no connection, you can tell there’s a disconnect. 

I’m a little bit privileged to know and be in places where I understand where I’m at, where they’re at, and they get where I’m coming from, too. There’s synergy there. I don’t go to places if I don’t connect with them. 

I: So, when you’re designing or photographing something, what’s most important is your connection to it?

DL: Yeah, it really is. With photography, I can expand the narratives way more when I know everyone’s role and this person’s background. I’m not trying to be a savior or a person obsessed with this issue. If I happen to know their stories and background, it makes the work much more powerful. Somehow, that knowledge shows up when I’m designing something or taking a photo—those small details come up. 

I: Were the posters a response to the raids, or a project you guys had in the works before they started? 

DL: No, the messaging was always in our brains. It was definitely in the time between what we saw was happening in LA, and then getting word that it might happen in Phoenix the following weekend. The urgency sometimes does push us to come up with something. A lot of the messaging comes from a weekend of brainstorming, and the posters were done in like two days. 

I: Tell me more about that weekend. 

DL: My friend and I were in a WhatsApp chat, and she said, “Yo, we need to make posters. How about with this messaging?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I like these two.” That was it. Sometimes, it's just as simple as that. Creativity comes out in urgent times. 

I: Do you ever feel the pressure of your work? For example, the ICE alert posts you designed probably saved people from getting detained. 

DL: Yeah. I’m definitely in a better place where I do what I can. We know, and we’ve prepared ourselves for ICE taking our folks. After 10 years of doing this type of work, you kind of have to learn to let go that you won’t be able to help everyone. Doing the small amount that you can and doing it for a long time, you’ve already done a lot more than most folks have. It’s a message to myself: there’s more battles ahead. Yeah, we’re gonna lose some, and mentally I’ve prepared for that.  

I:  Why do you think the poster connected with the community so well? 

DL: Again, it was the timing. Puentes really seized the moment. It was a cool design, and it wasn’t inaccessible. It was when all the raids were happening across the country, and we were heavily communicating on our socials. We noticed that people wanted to help out, and giving them something as simple as a poster gives them something to do. A lot of people were asking, “What else can we do?” We thought, “Here’s a poster, so you can show that you support immigrants and your space is a safe space.”

Thank you so much to Diego for giving us an insight to his designs and the impact of those designs. Equally, thank you to Puentes AZ for all that they are doing for the community and, hopefully, the U.S. at large.

Visit their Instagram @diegonacho

@puente.az