IN modern graphic design the electronic airbrush has a lot to answer for. The process, enabling designers to manipulate images, was blamed this week for an astonishing marketing blunder by the Ford motor company in Britain. Playing around with colours turned four black workers white on advertising posters. Red faced Ford management, faced with this tricky black and white issue, were forced to jettison the campaign.

An apology was made to the Dagenham workforce - two thirds of whom are black - and each defaced worker paid £1,500 compensation.

The roots of the fiasco lie in a campaign graphically modified for use in Spain and Poland, with white features superimposed over black ones. These negatives were erroneously used in the latest campaign without restoring the workers' true colour. Shades of Henry Ford who once famously remarked that the customer could have a car in any colour as long as it was black.