20. Januar 2025
In January 2024 the journalists of Correctiv published their research about a secret meeting where members of the AfD party and other far-right groups planned to deport millions of people from Gemany. This brought me to the streeds anti-AfD signs in hand. Via social media my signs found imitators across Germany and inspired people to create their own protest signs, too.
This is the story of how I became a demo sign influencer.
I founded my studio All Things Letters in 2014 and have been very active on Instagram ever since. By investing an incredible amount of time, I have painstakingly reached 22,000 followers.
With around 10,000 followers, I started to think about how I could use my reach. I wanted to address issues that were important to me, but I was afraid of the discussions in the comments and assumed that a clear political stance would put people off.
Because I didn't have an answer to the bigger question of what to do with my reach, I started with a smaller question: »Where can I get good gifs?«
If you want to use my gifs too, you can find them on Giphy and in the gif search on Instagram if you enter ChrisCampe (no space) or All Things Letters.
On Instagram, I never found any lettering gifs that I liked. So I eventually started drawing my own and publishing them on Giphy. There are now so many of them that I’m kind of specialized in white lettering gifs.
In the summer of 2023, I drew a demonstration sign for the pride parade in Hamburg. It said »Yes it’s necessaryr«. Graphically, this sign is based on my gifs: The letters are white because that’s the best way to see them in an Insta story on the dark background of a photo. And I realized that white letters also make a cardboard sign eye-catching.
The analog gif for Pride was the precursor to what has happened to me since January 2024.
I actually meant »Yes, it’s necessary« as an answer to the question that queer people are always asked »Do you have to?« (be so loud, be so colorful, have a parade, tell everyone you’re gay).
The fact that I forgot the comma, however, made the sign accessible to a wider audience, because many thought it was about consent, in the sense of consent: »A yes is required«. Fine with me.
On January 10, 2024 the investigative journalist of Correctiv published their research on the secret meeting of right-wing extremists on so-called »remigration«.
Deporting twenty million people just because you don’t like the color of their hair—are you crazy?
2500 people came to the first demonstration in Hamburg on January 12, 2024. Hamburg has almost two million inhabitants—where was everyone?
For the next demo, a week later, I painted a protest sign. I like language and that’s why I don’t like hackneyed phrases and slogans like »Nazis out«. So my sign just read »No AfD No«.
And because the threat from the far right is serious enough, I painted two more signs to lighten things up. I thought: »People want to sit on the sofa and relax instead of going to a demonstration, so it should at least be a bit of fun.« My additional signs said »no way« and »könnta knicken«.
With these signs I went to the demonstration at Jungfernstieg on January 19, 2024. The demonstration had to be called off because it was so overcrowded. Initially, there was often talk of 50,000 participants, but two weeks later this figure was officially revised by the city government—to more than three times as many: 180,000 people protesting against fascism and for democracy.
Demo sign in the Hamburg suburb Elmshorn—impressively well copied.
On the fringes of this demonstration, PR consultant and influencer Marc Raschke took a photo of me and my signs in passing and showed it in his stories on Instagram.
Marc Raschke has over 100,000 followers and apparently a lot of people saw his story, because a week later a friend sent me a photo of a demonstration in a small town near Hamburg. In Elmshorn, a woman was carrying a copy of my signs. My friend asked her where she got it and she said: »Oh, I saw it somewhere on the internet ...«
At the same time, other people were also repainting my signs and sending me photos of their versions. There were more demos, I painted more signs and realized how many words rhyme with D in German: »AfD? Shit idea«, »AfD? Dude, no way!«, »AfD is so passé«
People have used my signs as templates for their own, colleagues have taken up my signs in their drawings, and the style has also been adopted for other purposes: for example, for the fight to save a public swimming pool in a small town in Lower Saxony.
Protesting on the tower of Hamburg’s church St. Michaelis
In Germany, many words rhyme with »D«.
A drawing of my protest sign by Tanja Esch
My original …
… and Katharina Winter’s version
An interpretation by Heike Haas
My first protest sign against the AfD party …
… and Christoph Babbel’s version
an illustrated version by Franziska Walther
Find the protest sign tutorial here.
Most people probably follow me on Instagram because they are interested in lettering and design. They’re not necessarily political. But I thought if I could grab people by their interest in lettering, get them to paint a sign and go to a demo—then something would really be gained.
So at the beginning of February 2024, I organized a free demo sign workshop at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg and two weeks later I went to the next demo with some of the participants. This workshop led to further demo sign workshops over the course of the year.
Because there was so much interest in my signs, I also wrote a tutorial for my blog. And, of course, I also made another gif from my first demo sign.
Some of my first anti-AfD signs are now in the collection of the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn, Germany’s official history museum, as contemporary historical objects documenting the protests against the right in early 2024.
By the way, this also came about via Instagram. One of the curators at Haus der Geschichte follows me and wrote to me right after the big demonstration in January: »What are you doing with your signs after the protest?«
The curator of the Haus der Geschichte collects the signs from my studio.
For years, I didn’t really dare to speak out. I was too afraid of making myself vulnerable. But when I finally said something, the opposite of my fears happened.
The feedback was good, some people thanked me and said that I was speaking from their hearts. That made me realize: If I share my view of the world, others can recognize themselves in it and this creates a connection.
And that is perhaps my actual work: putting into words how I feel so that other’s can say: »Oh, I know that too.«
»Enough already!«—that’s the feeling I had at the beginning of 2024 because of the far right’s deportation plans and at the beginning of 2025 this feeling is more relevant than ever. A colleague recently asked me what we as creatives can do on social media and beyond against the rise of fascism. A few thoughts on this:
Until the elections in Germany on Febuary 23, my protest signs against the far-right are on display in the beautiful corner shop window of the event and co-working space 17vor. It’s a prime location in posh Hamburg-Blankenese, right on the way as you walk through the famous Treppenviertel down to the river Elbe.
I hope the signs make most people in the neighborhood hopeful—and some angry. For example, the person who pasted pro-AfD stickers over a poster advertising a festival of diversity in Blankenese. Or the person who placed a stack of old issues of the far-right Compact magazine in the magazine shelves of the local library.
And indeed, less than two weeks after I decorated the shop window, there is an »FCK GRN«-sticker (fuck green – the Green party, prime enemy of the AfD) on the window, just like the one on the poster for the festival of diversity. Its shows: the protest is necessary.
20. Januar 2025
In January 2024 the journalists of Correctiv published their research about a secret meeting where members of the AfD party and other far-right groups planned to deport millions of people from Gemany. This brought me to the streeds anti-AfD signs in hand. Via social media my signs found imitators across Germany and inspired people to create their own protest signs, too.
This is the story of how I became a demo sign influencer.
I founded my studio All Things Letters in 2014 and have been very active on Instagram ever since. By investing an incredible amount of time, I have painstakingly reached 22,000 followers.
With around 10,000 followers, I started to think about how I could use my reach. I wanted to address issues that were important to me, but I was afraid of the discussions in the comments and assumed that a clear political stance would put people off.
Because I didn't have an answer to the bigger question of what to do with my reach, I started with a smaller question: »Where can I get good gifs?«
If you want to use my gifs too, you can find them on Giphy and in the gif search on Instagram if you enter ChrisCampe (no space) or All Things Letters.
On Instagram, I never found any lettering gifs that I liked. So I eventually started drawing my own and publishing them on Giphy. There are now so many of them that I’m kind of specialized in white lettering gifs.
In the summer of 2023, I drew a demonstration sign for the pride parade in Hamburg. It said »Yes it’s necessaryr«. Graphically, this sign is based on my gifs: The letters are white because that’s the best way to see them in an Insta story on the dark background of a photo. And I realized that white letters also make a cardboard sign eye-catching.
The analog gif for Pride was the precursor to what has happened to me since January 2024.
I actually meant »Yes, it’s necessary« as an answer to the question that queer people are always asked »Do you have to?« (be so loud, be so colorful, have a parade, tell everyone you’re gay).
The fact that I forgot the comma, however, made the sign accessible to a wider audience, because many thought it was about consent, in the sense of consent: »A yes is required«. Fine with me.
On January 10, 2024 the investigative journalist of Correctiv published their research on the secret meeting of right-wing extremists on so-called »remigration«.
Deporting twenty million people just because you don’t like the color of their hair—are you crazy?
2500 people came to the first demonstration in Hamburg on January 12, 2024. Hamburg has almost two million inhabitants—where was everyone?
For the next demo, a week later, I painted a protest sign. I like language and that’s why I don’t like hackneyed phrases and slogans like »Nazis out«. So my sign just read »No AfD No«.
And because the threat from the far right is serious enough, I painted two more signs to lighten things up. I thought: »People want to sit on the sofa and relax instead of going to a demonstration, so it should at least be a bit of fun.« My additional signs said »no way« and »könnta knicken«.
With these signs I went to the demonstration at Jungfernstieg on January 19, 2024. The demonstration had to be called off because it was so overcrowded. Initially, there was often talk of 50,000 participants, but two weeks later this figure was officially revised by the city government—to more than three times as many: 180,000 people protesting against fascism and for democracy.
On the fringes of this demonstration, PR consultant and influencer Marc Raschke took a photo of me and my signs in passing and showed it in his stories on Instagram.
Marc Raschke has over 100,000 followers and apparently a lot of people saw his story, because a week later a friend sent me a photo of a demonstration in a small town near Hamburg. In Elmshorn, a woman was carrying a copy of my signs. My friend asked her where she got it and she said: »Oh, I saw it somewhere on the internet ...«
At the same time, other people were also repainting my signs and sending me photos of their versions. There were more demos, I painted more signs and realized how many words rhyme with D in German: »AfD? Shit idea«, »AfD? Dude, no way!«, »AfD is so passé«
People have used my signs as templates for their own, colleagues have taken up my signs in their drawings, and the style has also been adopted for other purposes: for example, for the fight to save a public swimming pool in a small town in Lower Saxony.
Demo sign in the Hamburg suburb Elmshorn—impressively well copied.
Protesting on the tower of Hamburg’s church St. Michaelis
In Germany, many words rhyme with »D«.
A drawing of my protest sign by Tanja Esch
My original …
… and Katharina Winter’s version
An interpretation by Heike Haas
My first protest sign against the AfD party …
… and Christoph Babbel’s version
an illustrated version by Franziska Walther
Most people probably follow me on Instagram because they are interested in lettering and design. They’re not necessarily political. But I thought if I could grab people by their interest in lettering, get them to paint a sign and go to a demo—then something would really be gained.
So at the beginning of February 2024, I organized a free demo sign workshop at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg and two weeks later I went to the next demo with some of the participants. This workshop led to further demo sign workshops over the course of the year.
Because there was so much interest in my signs, I also wrote a tutorial for my blog. And, of course, I also made another gif from my first demo sign.
Find the protest sign tutorial here.
Some of my first anti-AfD signs are now in the collection of the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn, Germany’s official history museum, as contemporary historical objects documenting the protests against the right in early 2024.
By the way, this also came about via Instagram. One of the curators at Haus der Geschichte follows me and wrote to me right after the big demonstration in January: »What are you doing with your signs after the protest?«
The curator of the Haus der Geschichte collects the signs from my studio.
For years, I didn’t really dare to speak out. I was too afraid of making myself vulnerable. But when I finally said something, the opposite of my fears happened.
The feedback was good, some people thanked me and said that I was speaking from their hearts. That made me realize: If I share my view of the world, others can recognize themselves in it and this creates a connection.
And that is perhaps my actual work: putting into words how I feel so that other’s can say: »Oh, I know that too.«
»Enough already!«—that’s the feeling I had at the beginning of 2024 because of the far right’s deportation plans and at the beginning of 2025 this feeling is more relevant than ever. A colleague recently asked me what we as creatives can do on social media and beyond against the rise of fascism. A few thoughts on this:
Until the elections in Germany on Febuary 23, my protest signs against the far-right are on display in the beautiful corner shop window of the event and co-working space 17vor. It’s a prime location in posh Hamburg-Blankenese, right on the way as you walk through the famous Treppenviertel down to the river Elbe.
I hope the signs make most people in the neighborhood hopeful—and some angry. For example, the person who pasted pro-AfD stickers over a poster advertising a festival of diversity in Blankenese. Or the person who placed a stack of old issues of the far-right Compact magazine in the magazine shelves of the local library.
And indeed, less than two weeks after I decorated the shop window, there is an »FCK GRN«-sticker (fuck green – the Green party, prime enemy of the AfD) on the window, just like the one on the poster for the festival of diversity. Its shows: the protest is necessary.
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No really,
you should subscribe to my newsletter.
You’ve already subscribed to far too many newsletters, I know. But my newsletter is really great! At least that’s what it says in the spontaneous replys I get each time I send one out.
So if you want to be the first to know what I’m working on, what events Im organizing and what books I’m recommending,