It’s time to participate in Banned Books Week, today through Oct. 11. But in truth, every day is a good time to let the board members of local libraries, schools and institutions know that censorship is un-American.
Just in case you do not know about Banned Books Week, the New York–based studio Thought Matter, known for advocacy and design citizenship, created a “Free Speech Ain’t Free” kit for distribution throughout NYC bookstores. It includes:
A poster channeling Benjamin Franklin’s “Join or Die” cartoon, one of the earliest political cartoons in American history.
A postcard that depicts a canary in a coal mine, symbolizing how censorship heralds the erosion of freedoms.
A bookmark that carries the message “Be a Threat. Read What They Fear.” It ties together motifs of the coiled snake, a free speech manifesto, and the broader fight against censorship.
I asked Jessie McGuire, managing partner at Thought Matter, to address the history of banned books, the posters, and why freedom and censorship do not mix.
All photos courtesy Thought Matters
We all know the dangers of censorship, which is anathema to democracy. What is the purpose of organizing this event at this time?
Censorship is not theoretical. It is happening in real time. As designers and as citizens, we cannot afford to sit out the fight. Censorship has never been abstract; it has always been a living cultural force. Our motivation in creating this limited-edition screenprinted poster is to reclaim national symbols that have historically mobilized patriotism and dissent, and to confront the uncomfortable truth that “freedom” is neither inevitable nor free. Just as Benjamin Franklin’s “Join or Die” serpent demanded unity against tyranny, our phrase “Free Speech Ain’t Free” insists that expression requires vigilance, risk and, at times, defiance.
This isn’t our first confrontation with power. In 2017, we redesigned the U.S. Constitution as a reminder of what it protects. In 2019, we created posters for the Women’s March, using design as a tool of solidarity in protest. We took to the streets again during the 2024 election with a larger-than-life mural in support of women’s reproductive rights, and rallied New Yorkers ahead of the Prop 1 vote.
Over the past decade, we’ve transformed our studio into a laboratory of imagination for civic engagement, anchoring design’s role in the future of democracy. We believe that design is never neutral; it’s deliberate, it has consequences, and it shapes who gets seen, heard and remembered.
What is involved with attracting and mobilizing your participants?
We see our “Free Speech Ain’t Free” posters not as collateral but as physical carriers of meaning rooted in print culture. They invite people to step into the visual language of dissent and carry it into their communities, classrooms, homes and conversations. At our CENSOR THIS! event in May, over 200 co-conspirators confronted the reality of censorship through a live demonstration of creative resistance. Through screenprinting, rebellious installations and more, they felt what it means to have stories erased. We carried that urgency and that demand into Banned Books Week.
The enthusiasm [the participating] bookstores have expressed in taking a stand against censorship proves that communities don’t want to sit on the sidelines as their rights are eroded. People are hungry for material that doesn’t just warn about censorship, but arms them with tangible symbols of resistance.
Why did you select the specific imagery that is used for your printed materials?
National symbols are not static relics but transformable tools. By riffing on the militaristic phrase “Freedom Isn’t Free,” we expose the contradiction in a society that is quick to honor military sacrifice, but hesitant to protect cultural freedom. That tension feels especially urgent after last week’s speech at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, in which the president spoke of quelling ‘the enemy from within,’ casting domestic cities as battlegrounds. We believe symbols are collective property. They belong to all of us, not just to those who weaponize them in the moment. Reclaiming them is part of our role as designers: to transform visual language into a sense of belonging, imagination and resistance. Print matters because it endures. It can be carried, passed hand to hand, or pinned to a wall. In an age of surveillance and algorithmic control, the tactile represents real-world defiance. Posters are physical reminders that resistance is lived in the everyday.
Aren’t you just preaching to the choir? Or is there a larger audience you are expecting to influence and inspire?
Why preach in the liberal bookstores of New York? Are the converted talking to the converted? History reminds us that even the Bible, one of the most printed, defended and fought-over texts ever, has been banned and censored time and again. If that book isn’t safe, nothing is. That should be a cautionary tale to anyone who thinks their bookshelf is immune. From scripture to storybooks, censorship has never discriminated. It comes for saints and students, poets and prophets, classrooms and communities. Anyone who believes their reading is untouchable is ignoring the weight of history or, worse, placing trust in the wrong hands.
So yes, we are in the bookstores, and yes, we’re preaching. But belief requires practice, and freedom requires defense. Every generation has to pick up the fight again, no matter how obvious it feels in the moment. As a design studio, that’s where we come in. Our work isn’t policy, it’s provocation. We continue to create posters and symbols that rattle, remind and provoke. Preaching only matters if it stirs the congregation to movement. If our work keeps people reading and inspires them to fight, then we’ve done our part.
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