In the Verbal Intervention workshop, students explore the interrelationship between language, humor, and visual design. They are invited by author and designer Melanie Schwarz to use creative writing as a tool for developing conceptual and satirical poster designs. Through joint exercises in satirical, poetic, and essayistic writing, the participants learn to sharpen visual concepts through pointed phrasing and to translate social issues into concise visual and linguistic forms.

The workshop opens up an interdisciplinary perspective on text for designers by presenting writing not as a mere addition to content, but as an integral part of the design process. Text becomes a form of expression, writing becomes design, humor becomes a form of communication, and graphic design becomes a visual translation of political and social content.

Melanie also presents her own work “Ridendo Formare Verum” (Shaping Truth through Laughter), which examines the aesthetic and communicative interaction between satire and graphic design, as well as the role of female perspectives in political imagery. Students gain insight into humorous and satirical aesthetics—from Klaus Staeck’s political posters and Barbara Kruger’s text-based works to the feminist interventions of the Guerrilla Girls and the post-digital forms of Internet Ugly. All these artists demonstrate how humor, exaggeration, and verbal communication can function as means of political design.