From our friends at Gallery 5 in Richmond, Virginia comes this call for activist art...
REPRESSED V: FREE TO SPEAK May 2010
José María Heredia - poet: inspired the Cuban people to stand up and fight against Spain.
Seymor Chwast-designer - illustrator: his anti-war poster "End Bad Breath" indirectly encouraged the anti-war movement of the 70's.
John Lenin and Yoko Ono - famous musicians/artists: created the powerful anti-war campaign stating "THE WAR IS OVER...if you want it to be."
What makes statement driven art so emotionally powerful? It being witness to a piece of work that creates a bond between you, the viewer and the creator of the piece. A bond that can change the direction of thought and purpose.
A successfully executed statement driven piece can be the catalyst that inspires the average person into an active agent for change. Art exists in societies to create shared dialogues and experiences. No matter the medium, art and artists can be the spark to establishing a commonality, to allow us to empathize with each other and encourage altruistic pursuits for the greater good.
Dedicated to social awareness, Gallery5 invites visual and performing artists to submit their statement focused work to Repressed V: Free to Speak.
Deadline is March 6th.
More info and an application can be downloaded HERE (PDF).
I'm happy to announce that my work is featured in the newly released book from Collins Design Designing For The Greater Good by Peleg Top and Jonathan Cleveland. The book, which features a wide-range of examples of cause related marketing & non-profit design, has 24 in-depth case studies and the Red Flag Campaign I created for the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Action Alliance (shown below) is one of them!
More info and additional sample spreads can be found on the book's website HERE.
And if you're one of the first to order the book the authors will donate $10 to Haiti relief in your name! Details are HERE.
I recently found out that several of my recent pieces are included in the new book from Crescent Hill Books: The Big Book of Green Design. This is the latest in a terrific run of environmental/socially conscious themed books coming out for graphic designers in the past two years*, which is a welcome relief after the long drought that preceded it. The Big Book of Green Design is definitely more of a coffee table book than a reference manual, but with an intro by Re-Nourish founder Eric Benson, hundreds of visual examples, and several detailed case studies it should be a fairly inspiring resource for anyone interested in the environmental direction businesses big and small are taking. The book is scheduled for release later this month, ask for it at your local independent bookstore. *See also my reviews of: Green Graphic Design,SustainAble, and Do Good Design.
For graphic designers concerned about doing their part to help the environment, there's no better resource than Re-nourish. The site has been around for several years, but it's recently been revamped and features lots of new user-friendly resources & articles about all aspects of working sustainably for designers at every level.
The site is so well respected that it's even been nominated for a Cooper-Hewitt People's Choice Design Award. Please take a moment to sign up and vote for it HERE and show the world that designers are taking the environment seriously!
I am part of a proposed panel at the 2010 South By Southwest Interactive conference: "The Socially Conscious Geek: Makin' Money While Doin' Good". The conference planners have received over 2,200 proposals for panels and only 300 will be chosen, so as part of the process they're asking people to vote for ones they find interesting. If you you'd like to help make sure that socially conscious design is something that's talked about at the event, please take a moment to sign up and vote for it HERE. Comments on that page are appreciated as well. Thanks!
And of course if you plan to go to SXSW I hope you'll attend (assuming it's chosen). Here are the details:
Can you make a living as a geek without sacrificing your ideals? Definitely. These pros have carved out a niche working with mission-driven, ethical clients in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors – and want to show you how to bring your values to work while keeping a roof over your head.
Some questions we'll be answering:
What is a socially conscious geek?
How can I specialize in socially conscious work and earn a living wage?
What are some of the unique opportunities and challenges of specializing in socially conscious work?
What is the difference between non-profit and no-profit clients?
How do I make the transition from corporate work to working with non-profit and/or mission-driven clients?
What is the “triple bottom line” approach to business?
What are some examples of alternative business models that are emerging among socially conscious geeks?
How is socially conscious work different than “green” work?
What are some examples of clients I might be able to work with as a socially conscious geek?
How should I market myself to values-driven clients? Is it different from marketing to corporate clients?
LAUREN BACON & EMIRA MEARS are the co-founders of Raised Eyebrow Web Studio, Inc., a Vancouver-based web consultancy that helps nonprofits, government and progressive businesses communicate more effectively online. They also co-authored The Boss of You, a business guide for independent-minded women entrepreneurs.
LEIF UTNE is the former publisher of Worldchanging.com, an experienced online community builder, and a journalist, activist and social entrepreneur. He is currently VP of Community Development for Zanby, a software company that specializes in supporting online social communities for change. Zanby is used to support The UpTake, a web video community that among other things was heavily involved in documenting the RNC and DNC prior to the 2008 election, and was also engaged in citizen vote monitoring during the election.
I've been meaning for a long while to write a long rant about the problems with designers doing pro-bono work as a way to do good. And while I still don't have the time/energy to write the whole thing out, I did want to relay an anti-pro bono technique I've been using lately...
As someone who runs a socially conscious design firm I frequently I get asked by nonprofit organizations if I know any designers who would be willing to do work for free. My response is to offer to send their request along to a short list of former students/interns that I maintain, HOWEVER I strongly recommend that they offer a token monetary honorarium (a couple hundred bucks usually) as a way to give some value to the project for both themselves and the designer.
I explain that everyone is much more committed when there's money involved (especially if it's acknowledged that it's not even close to the proper amount that should be spent). I also point out that designers (in the US) cannot write off the work on their taxes since it is considered a service and not a product.
Every time I have made this offer, the organization, no matter how small, has come up with an amount of money to offer and the young designers (who are not only in need of experience and portfolio pieces, but also in need of some actual money) are glad to get paid something.
Next time you are approached with a pro bono project (for yourself of to pass along to others) why not give this a try (and of course share the results with me).
P.S. In the meantime HERE's a good overview of the issues with pro bono from NO!SPEC.
Yikes, where does the time go?! After heading down to Austin to talk at the How Design Conference and then opening After Life my art show at Quirk Gallery and finally a business trip to NYC, I've finally caught up with things enough in the office to return to my non-skull related blogging. First up, a bunch of links that have been sitting on my shelf that haven't quite hit their expiration date yet...
Just back from a trip to NYC and will be finally getting caught up with my backlog of items to post here in the coming weeks. In the meantime, ALR is participating in a simultaneous blog posting project...
Social media is about connecting people and providing the tools necessary to have a conversation. That global conversation is an extremely powerful platform for spreading information and awareness about social causes and issues. That's one of the reasons charities can benefit so greatly from being active on social media channels. But you can also do a lot to help your favorite charity or causes you are passionate about through social media.
Below is a list of 10 ways you can use social media to show your support for issues that are important to you. If you can think of any other ways to help charities via social web tools, please add them in the comments. If you'd like to retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.
1. Write a Blog Post
Blogging is one of the easiest ways you can help a charity or cause you feel passionate about. Almost everyone has an outlet for blogging these days -- whether that means a site running WordPress, an account at LiveJournal, or a blog on MySpace or Facebook. By writing about issues you're passionate about, you're helping to spread awareness among your social circle. Because your friends or readers already trust you, what you say is influential.
You should also consider taking part in Blog Action Day, a once a year event in which thousands of blogs pledge to write at least one post about a specific social cause (last year it was fighting poverty). Blog Action Day will be on October 15 this year.
2. Share Stories with Friends
Another way to spread awareness among your social graph is to share links to blog posts and news articles via sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, and even through email. Your network of friends is likely interested in what you have to say, so you have influence wherever you've gathered a social network.
You'll be doing charities you support a great service when you share links to their campaigns, or to articles about causes you care about.
3. Follow Charities on Social Networks
In addition to sharing links to articles about issues you come across, you should also follow charities you support on the social networks where they are active. By increasing the size of their social graph, you're increasing the size of their reach. When your charities tweet or post information about a campaign or a cause, statistics or a link to a good article, consider retweeting that post on Twitter, liking it on Facebook, or blogging about it.
Following charities on social media sites is a great way to keep in the loop and get updates, and it's a great way to help the charity increase its reach by spreading information to your friends and followers.
You can follow the Summer of Social Good Charities:
Another way you can show your support for the charities you care about is to rally around them on awareness hubs like Change.org, Care2, or the Facebook Causes application. These are social networks or applications specifically built with non-profits in mind. They offer special tools and opportunities for charities to spread awareness of issues, take action, and raise money.
It's important to follow and support organizations on these sites because they're another point of access for you to gather information about a charity or cause, and because by supporting your charity you'll be increasing their overall reach. The more people they have following them and receiving their updates, the greater the chance that information they put out will spread virally.
5. Find Volunteer Opportunities
Using social media online can help connect you with volunteer opportunities offline, and according to web analytics firm Compete, traffic to volunteering sites is actually up sharply in 2009. Two of the biggest sites for locating volunteer opportunities are VolunteerMatch, which has almost 60,000 opportunities listed, and Idealist.org, which also lists paying jobs in the non-profit sector, in addition to maintaining databases of both volunteer jobs and willing volunteers.
For those who are interested in helping out when volunteers are urgently needed in crisis situations, check out HelpInDisaster.org, a site which helps register and educate those who want to help during disasters so that local resources are not tied up directing the calls of eager volunteers. Teenagers, meanwhile, should check out DoSomething.org, a site targeted at young adults seeking volunteer opportunities in their communities.
6. Embed a Widget on Your Site
Many charities offer embeddable widgets or badges that you can use on your social networking profiles or blogs to show your support. These badges generally serve one of two purposes (or both). They raise awareness of an issue and offer up a link or links to additional information. And very often they are used to raise money.
Mashable's Summer of Social Good campaign, for example, has a widget that does both. The embeddable widget, which was custom built using Sprout (the creators of ChipIn), can both collect funds and offer information about the four charities the campaign supports.
7. Organize a Tweetup
You can use online social media tools to organize offline events, which are a great way to gather together like-minded people to raise awareness, raise money, or just discuss an issue that's important to you. Getting people together offline to learn about an important issue can really kick start the conversation and make supporting the cause seem more real.
As mentioned, blog posts are great, but a picture really says a thousand words. The web has become a lot more visual in recent years and there are now a large number of social tools to help you express yourself using video. When you record a video plea or call to action about your issue or charity, you can make your message sound more authentic and real. You can use sites like 12seconds.tv, Vimeo, and YouTube to easily record and spread your video message.
Last week, the Summer of Social Good campaign encouraged people to use video to show support for charity. The #12forGood campaign challenged people to submit a 12 second video of themselves doing something for the Summer of Social Good. That could be anything, from singing a song to reciting a poem to just dancing around like a maniac -- the idea was to use the power of video to spread awareness about the campaign and the charities it supports.
If you're more into watching videos than recording them, Givzy.com enables you to raise funds for charities like Unicef and St. Jude's Children's Hospital by sharing viral videos by e-mail.
9. Sign or Start a Petition
There aren't many more powerful ways to support a cause than to sign your name to a petition. Petitions spread awareness and, when successfully carried out, can demonstrate massive support for an issue. By making petitions viral, the social web has arguably made them even more powerful tools for social change. There are a large number of petition creation and hosting web sites out there. One of the biggest is The Petition Site, which is operated by the social awareness network Care2, or PetitionOnline.com, which has collected more than 79 million signatures over the years.
Petitions are extremely powerful, because they can strike a chord, spread virally, and serve as a visual demonstration of the support that an issue has gathered. Social media fans will want to check out a fairly new option for creating and spreading petitions: Twitition, an application that allows people to create, spread, and sign petitions via Twitter.
10. Organize an Online Event
Social media is a great way to organize offline, but you can also use online tools to organize effective online events. That can mean free form fund raising drives, like the Twitter-and-blog-powered campaign to raise money for a crisis center in Illinois last month that took in over $130,000 in just two weeks. Or it could mean an organized "tweet-a-thon" like the ones run by the 12for12k group, which aims to raise $12,000 each month for a different charity.
In March, 12for12k ran a 12-hour tweet-a-thon, in which any donation of at least $12 over a 12 hour period gained the person donating an entry into a drawing for prizes like an iPod Touch or a Nintendo Wii Fit. Last month, 12for12k took a different approach to an online event by holding a more ambitious 24-hour live video-a-thon, which included video interviews, music and sketch comedy performances, call-ins, and drawings for a large number of prizes given out to anyone who donated $12 or more.
Bonus: Think Outside the Box
Social media provides almost limitless opportunity for being creative. You can think outside the box to come up with all sorts of innovative ways to raise money or awareness for a charity or cause. When Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer, for example, he created Blame Drew's Cancer, a campaign that encourages people to blow off steam by blaming his cancer for bad things in their lives using the Twitter hashtag #BlameDrewsCancer. Over 16,000 things have been blamed on Drew's cancer, and he intends to find sponsors to turn those tweets into donations to LIVESTRONG once he beats the disease.
Or check out Nathan Winters, who is biking across the United States and documenting the entire trip using social media tools, in order to raise money and awareness for The Nature Conservancy.
The number of innovative things you can do using social media to support a charity or spread information about an issue is nearly endless. Can you think of any others? Please share them in the comments.
Special thanks to VPS.net
A special thanks to VPS.net, who are donating $100 to the Summer of Social Good for every signup they receive this week.
Sign up at VPS.net and use the coupon code "SOSG"to receive 3 Months of FREE hosting on top of your purchased term. VPS.net honors a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee so there's no risk.
About the "10 Ways" Series
The "10 Ways" Series was originated by Max Gladwell. This is the second simultaneous blog post in the series. The first ran on more than 80 blogs, including Mashable. Among other things, it is a social media experiment and the exploration of a new content distribution model. You can follow Max Gladwell on Twitter.
Osocio, the fantastic social marketing blog, (that I very occasionally contribute to) has a new advertising campaign...sort of. Marc, the founder of the site, asked the folks at Steal Our Ideas to suggest a campaign about encouraging social marketers to check their motives. Read more here.
The San Francisco AIGA is once again asking for your best socially conscious design work for their cause/affect competition...
Design Competition Seeks "Do-Gooders"
cause/affect is a biennial graphic design competition which celebrates the work of designers and organizations who set out to positively impact our society. Produced by AIGA San Francisco, this is a competition for do-gooders who do good work. Send in your entries before June 19, 2009.
The details of the competition are simple: all work entered must promote or support social good. All we ask is that it doesn't contribute directly to the profit of a commercial organization. And to qualify, work must have been produced between November 1, 2007 and June 19, 2009.
Winning work will be showcased at the cause/affect awards ceremony in July and displayed at the AIGA SF gallery through the summer. Winning entrants will also be featured on the cause/affect site and a portion of any proceeds from the competition will be donated to a local non-profit organization. For entry forms, and more information, please visit: http://causeaffect.aigasf.org/
The competition generated a tremendous amount of interest during its inaugural year in 2007, and this time out the organizers expect to receive a similarly enthusiastic response. "We were staggered by the global interest the competition stimulated" said Brian Singer, AIGA SF President, "...we received entries from as far afield as Norway, the Netherlands and Singapore. And this year, with excitement about the competition mounting, and the blogosphere clicking into high gear, we're expecting to see do-gooders flooding our offices with another batch of awe-inspiring work."
More samples of our recent work from earlier this year...
Artseen is the annual fundraiser art auction for the New York Foundation for the Arts. The die-cut cover of the invitation showed a snippet of a painting by one of their art fellows, Omar Chacon, which was revealed in full when the front was lifted.
Share is the youth component to the Fair Share campaign for tax reform created by the Health Care Education Project, which is a part of the health care union 1199SEIU. These 5 graphics, one for each borough in New York City, were used on T-shirts and signs used in rallies, and contain elements specific to the areas they reference.
John The Revelator, Cantaloupe Record's latest release by modern composer Phil Kline, is a dark work with religious overtones of the fire and brimstone kind. Using classic etchings by Doré made perfect sense, but rather than focusing on the central characters we focused on the backgrounds and margins. The entire package was printed in metallic silver and black.
Stellina is the exclusive North American distributor of the highly prized handmade Alan cyclocross bicycles. As part of our ongoing rebranding of the company and its products we created this new logo/custom typeface, which will be applied to all of their materials in the coming year.
I will be speaking on May 27th at the HausTalk networking event...
Triple Bottom Line Through Design What is socially conscious Design and what are its benefits?
Wednesday, May 27, 7-9pm Gallery 5, 200 W. Marshall St. Richmond, VA
This event is FREE and open to the public (non-designers are encouraged to come). I'll be giving a short talk about the socially conscious business model, and then there will be a group discussion on how to implement it in any field (not just design).
All you have to do is present an idea, and if selected, Design Action will donate $1000 of design, and Inkworks will print 1000 full color, tabloid sized posters for you use as you wish. For free. Simple as that. The application form can be found here.
The Project M summer 2009 program is now accepting applications. Since 2003 the Project has taken design students on a month long journey to discover ways to use their skills for social good. In 2007 they produced the project Buy-A-Meter project to help area residents buy electric meters. This year the project, which only accepts 8 students, will be in Greensboro, Alabama. For more details download the application PDF HERE.
The Good 50x70 folks have created a new Amsterdam specific version of their social design poster contest, that's still open to the general international public...
For the first time we're combining all Good 50x70's activities into one project - working with local charities, designers, schools to produce posters that will be displayed around Amsterdam and collected in a book that will published globally. As an extra incentive to enter, the creators of the 'winning' posters will work with a member of our jury of leading Dutch designers (including creatives from KesselsKramer, Only, Gorilla and ...,staat) to produce the final poster.
The Amsterdam contest is open to everyone, irrespective of location, and entries are welcomes until Midnight on Monday the 13th of April. The briefs are available, in Dutch and English, to download at http://good50x70.org/local/amsterdam/2009/
Also FYI they've extended the deadline for the international Good 50x70 to midnight on the 10th of April.
Do you use Twitter? I have an account that I was neglecting until only relatively recently when I discovered it had a large following (despite my lack of posts!), especially with the nonprofit world. I'm still not entirely certain what to use it for, but I've made a point of tweeting daily, just to keep it active. The problem I've encountered is that it's hard to divide up my various projects and I feel like it ends up being more about me as an individual artist/designer than anything else. I'd love to hear how you've made Twitter a part of your socially conscious design marketing plan.
And hey, if you really want to follow my daily semi-personal life my feed is HERE.
For the last six years I’ve taught a class on socially conscious design at Virginia Commonwealth University called Design Rebels. I created the class after teaching general design classes and seeing that no one was talking about the issues that drove me to start my on socially conscious design firm in 2001. Namely that design is an extremely powerful tool for affecting change in the world and designers need to be making conscious choices about how and for whom they do this work.
Through readings, discussions, presentations, and self-directed community projects, Design Rebels introduces the students to the range of gray areas they will encounter in their professional lives. But when I started the class the only book that really dealt with the related issues was Naomi Kline’s No Logo and it was not directed specifically towards designers. Lacking a proper textbook I created a course pack culled from dozens of books and articles that represented the range of issues that I wanted to class to discuss. And every year I have added and removed articles attempting to refine it into a functional handbook for the students, while keeping an eye out for something to fill the void.
In 2004 I had the pleasure of meeting Canadian designer/lecturer David Berman when he came to VCU to present his talk: “Weapons of Mass Deception: Design & Social Responsibility”. Over a post-lecture dinner we discussed my class and my need for a textbook where one didn’t exist and David talked about his own interest in writing a book. He left with my syllabus in hand and four years later I’ve got a copy of his Do Good Design in my hands.
Do Good Design (the title consistently defaced so that it reads Do Good Design) follows David’s friendly and accessible lecturing style, even including self-conscious asides handwritten in his title-defacing marker in the margins. The volume, while slim, manages to give a thorough overview of some of the main issues faced by designers and why the discussion of their responsibility is necessary in our increasingly connected world. Through his anecdotal experiences traveling the world as a lecturer and with a plethora of visual examples he builds a strong case for the need to redefine the designer’s role. The book is a quick and entertaining read that aims primarily to inspire a busy/jaded audience to think differently.
Since the length and tone of Do Good Design doesn’t allow for a deeper discussion of the issues or the ways to solve them, the book works best as an enthusiastic introduction to the topics of socially conscious design for students and professional designers who have only just begun to realize the social and environmental impact of their work. The “Do Good Pledge” at the end of the book and the additional resources provided on the book’s mini-site are intended to lead these new initiates onto the next level of research and discussion that will hopefully help them develop more nuanced views and solutions.
While several useful books have recently been published on the specific whys & hows of green/environmental graphic design, the few books that broach the subject of socially conscious design tend to be merely essay collections, interviews, or visual collections with sparse text. Do Good Design is definitely an improvement upon those, and even if it is ultimately not the replacement for my own course pack, it does make an excellent primer and should certainly be considered a useful component of any socially conscious design library/curriculum. I definitely plan to make it a part of the required reading for my students this year.
Do Good Design How Designers Can Change The World by David B. Berman AIGA/Riders $24.99
Power To The Poster, the poster sharing website, has been recently revamped for the first 100 days of the Obama presidency. They're shifting to positive messages and color posters, but all are still available as free 11x17 PDF downloads. Check em out and find out more HERE.
If you've made some great video in 2008, there's a contest for you...
Video submissions are now being accepted for the 3rd Annual DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards, co-sponsored by NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network and See3 Communications. Nonprofit organizations and foundations are encouraged to submit their videos at www.dogooder.tv/contest2009!
This year's theme, "Everyone's Doing It", is meant to include submissions of all shapes and sizes, from organizational vlogs, to staff-produced web clips, to high-end, professionally produced videos.
According to Michael Hoffman, CEO of See3 Communications, "2008 was a great year for video, and we continue to see incredible growth each year in the number of nonprofits using video. With camera and equipment costs down, organizations have nothing holding them back from using video as a communications tool. We've seen some really innovative, powerful videos this year, and we hope the DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards will highlight that."
Last year, more than 160 entries were received from over 100 nonprofit organizations. The top winning videos were from the Humane Society of the United States, Greenpeace International, and the Center for Constitution Rights. The winning videos receive thousands of views and publicity online and offline.
Video submissions will be accepted until March 26, when a panel of judges will select the finalists in each category. The public voting period will open on April 7 and end on April 26. The winners will be announced at NTEN's annual Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) in San Francisco, which takes place April 26-28, 2009. Winners will be featured on The Nonprofit Times website.
My friends at Gallery 5 are once again looking for artists for their annual socially conscious art exhibition...
Repressed IV: May Day Exhibition: May 1st, 2009 Submission Deadline: March 6th, 2009
A Socially Conscious Exhibition This year’s theme: Workers Rights
This coming Repressed IV is more specific in content so we are releasing our call for entries a little sooner to give everyone a little extra time to make some new work!
SHOW DESCRIPTION: May 1st, International Worker's Day, celebrates an ongoing, worldwide workers' struggle. Originally, the international holiday was in remembrance of the 1880's fight for an eight hour work day during a time when workers were forced to work inhumanly long hours. Nationally, we fail to recognize this holiday, which marks the famous strikes for the right to a reasonable work day by an estimated 500,000 workers. The nationally spread strikes originated in Chicago.
The resilient Chicago workers' rights leaders: Parsons, Spies, Fischer, and Engel, were executed by the United States Government in response to a bomb being thrown at a rally on May 3rd. The rally was in retaliation to acts of police brutality, leading to the deaths of six workers and several wounded during the Chicago May 1st strikes. Their lives are celebrated through International Worker's Day.
This struggle is still relevant today with issues such as: migrant workers' rights, women's equal pay for equal work, sweatshop labor, economic hit men, economic imperialism and outsourcing. People travel to places far from home and their comfort zone to show solidarity with an international struggle for the right to be treated humanly in a collapsing system. We invite all artists who are involved in this struggle to exhibit your work in our upcoming exhibition, Repressed IV: May Day.
All of the galleries in Richmond's Downtown Arts District present special exhibits on the first Friday of every month. Next May's First Fridays Art Walk happens to be on May Day. So in light of this fortuitous coincidence our May exhibition will be a celebration of workers' rights through art, education and action!
The international socially conscious design poster competition Good 50x70 has sent out their 2009 call for entries:
The voice of hope in 2009 comes from America. While we all wait to see whether Barack Obama can turn his fine rhetoric into actions, Good 50x70 aims to follow his example by addressing seven critical issues threatening the earth and all its inhabitants and inviting the global creative community to produce posters on the briefs from our seven charities.
As of today, the 1st of February, our briefs on Child Labour, Climate Change, Healthcare Deprivation, HIV/AIDS, Nuclear Emergency, War on Terror and Women's Rights Deprivation are now online.
We're honoured to be working again with Amref, Amnesty, Emergency, Greenpeace, Lila, Unicef and WWF, whose briefs you can see here. Exactly as before, all you have to do is choose one (or more) brief that inspire you, create a poster, upload it and it'll be entered into the Good 50x70 database. All the posters will be provided to our endorsing charities for their potential use, and the the best 30 responses to each brief, as selected by our jury, will be exhibited around the world and published in a catalogue.
This year we welcome Ruth Klotzel, Santiago Pol and Svetlana Fadina to our jury. We'd like to thank them, all our jury members and endorsing charities for the time and effort they give to Good 50x70. It wouldn't happen without you. Here's to a successful Good 50x70. We might not change any of the critical issues we're tackling in this year's edition, but together we can start.
Good 50x70 2009 Schedule 1st February 2009 - Call for Entries published. Briefs available to download here. 1st March 2009 - Good 50x70 database open for uploading entries via our website. 1st April 2009 - Midnight (CET) - Good 50x70 2009 closes for entries.
Do Good Design, my friend David Berman's fantastic new book on socially conscious design, has recently been released. I'll post a full review soon, but in the meantime he asks that you consider signing his "Do Good Pledge" which reads:
1.I will be true to my profession.
2.I will be true to myself.
3.I will spend at least 10% of my professional time helping repair the world.
If you agree you can sign on HERE and read a sample chapter while you're at it as well.
Well, I got woefully behind in posting here last year and ended up with a ridiculous backlog of stuff I wanted to share. To that end I've resolved to do two things in 2009: 1. Make more of an effort to immediately blog about items I want to share (rather than bookmarking for later) 2. Save most reposts for a regular roundup (I'll aim for weekly, but no promises there).
To start the year off with a clean slate, here's a jumbo post of last year's missing links...
Check out the campaign from the French non-governmental humanitarian organization, supported by the World Health Organization and state-approved, Douleurs Sans Frontières (Pain Without Borders). Like Doctors Without Borders they try to help people with medical and social care in areas where suffering caused by wars, disasters or hunger never ends. In their campaign they used the treadmill to show the endless suffering of people in places like Cambodia, Indonesia or Africa. This campaign was made in March of 2008 by TBWA/MAP Paris and is meant for raising funds.
"To put an end to endless pain, Make a donation" War : Cambodia
Good 50x70 had the great idea to invite designers to submit posters for good causes.
Artist, designer, and urban planner in New York City, Candy Chang, did this great poster in collaboration with James Reeves for the African Medical and Research Foundation (amref) to bring awareness about the scarcity of safe water access in Africa.
This is the new campaign of the UNİCEF association concerning China. A strong baseline "Don't ignore me" and a touching creation by the Ogilvy & Mather Shanghai Agency.
The sign says : Don’t ignore me. China has over 1.5 million underprivileged children. To help, call 020 82266673.
Folks in the Richmond, Virginia area should check out Haustalk, a series of free, monthly socially conscious design forms curated by John O'Neil of Thinkhaus Design at Gallery 5.
The upcoming schedule is as follows...
October 22 Living, Working, and Designing Green: Eco Friendly Consciousness, Part 2 Gallery 5, 7:00 PM
Featuring: Jocelyn Tice, owner of Green Duck Green Duck Biodegradables is a local company that makes plant-based packaging available to customers who strive to be Green. Copeland Casati, President of Green Modern Kits Green Modern Kits is a team of green architects, house kit fabricators, industrial designers, and furniture craftsmen who produce eco friendly affordable green housing and furniture plans.
Scott Kyle, Founder of Full Scale Architecture Full Scale Architecture believes advanced green is better than good design. It’s great design. It’s not just about aesthetic appeal, but environmental harmony. And it’s not just sustainable, but regenerative.
November 19 Ethnic and Racial Stereotypes In Mass Media Gallery 5, 7:00 PM
Featuring: VCU Graphic Design Sophomore Students A group of students from the VCU Graphic Design Department, School of the Arts, will be presenting their research on how ethnic and racial stereotypes are currently being used in advertising, brands, and other media outlets.
The Conciliation Project The Conciliation Project is a social justice nonprofit theatre company in Richmond that develops and conducts theatre performances concerning the historical legacy of racism in America. The theatre performers will be discussing their plays and will provide an overview of the history of racism in America.
December 17 The Gift of Design: Design It Yourself (DIY) Gallery 5, 7:00 PM
Gallery 5 200 W. Marshall St. Richmond, Virginia 23220 Phone: 804 644-0005 gallery 5@gallery5arts.org
If you didn't already have enough reasons to vote for a change in the coming election, 30 Reasons is providing a daily additional one from October 7th to November 4th. Each day a new downloadable poster by a different graphic designer (many of them by familiar names like Milton Glaser and Chaz Maviyane-Davies) is posted. You can even sign up to be notified as new ones are added. Check them out HERE.
On Thursday, October 2nd the Art Directors Club in NYC will host Designism 3.0, the third annual installment of an ongoing series of talks/discussions about socially conscious design...
Design activism deconstructed! Participate in an evening of discussion, debate, and presentations on Design Activism produced by Brian Collins, COLLINS, and Benjamin Palmer, The Barbarian Group.
A Designism Manifesto delivered by Allan Chochinov, Core77, is followed by IDEO who will share three design-driven projects that initiated real change. Six creatives present forward-thinking projects, and their results, in lightning speed—TAXI, Brainforest, MendeDesign, Avenue A|Razorfish, lettera27, and Brian Hurewitz with lolz. Milton Glaser shares his thoughts on Propaganda. Steven Heller moderates a discussion on the design of politics between Helen Walters, BusinessWeek Innovation & Design channel, Tony Hendra frequent contributor to The Huffington Post, Milton Glaser and surprise guests. ADC introduces its ingenious new tool to support the creative activist community with some additional tools for creatives doing pro bono work.
$30 ADC Members $40 Non-Members Opening Sappi Reception from 5:30-6:45pm is free to all who RSVP.
I just finished reading DK Holland's excellent Branding for Nonprofits. Published in 2006, this slim volume is a must read for any nonprofit interesting in harnessing the power of branding (which should really be all of them) or even just considering working with professional graphic designers for the first time. Indeed, any designer already working with nonprofits might want to consider handing this out to new clients as a means of introduction. The book, based on articles and lectures DK created for The Foundation Center, is filled with plenty of real world examples and resources and suggests a system of working that is easy to understand and follow. Holland does an excellent job spelling out the role of design and designers, while detailing most of the issues that come up as part of the branding process. While I wish more time was spent explaining why paying for design from folks that focus on nonprofits is better than asking for pro-bono work from large agencies (who make their money pushing cars, cigarettes, acohol, etc.), Ms. Holland does acknowledge that you often do get what you pay for.
Say what you want about the evils of credit cards, many people can't avoid them. So if you can't afford to live without them why not do some good (or at least less bad) when you "charge it"? Co-op America's Real Money article "Responsible Credit Cards" lists the banks to avoid getting credit cards from for a variety of environmental/social reasons as well as cards from groups that are trying to do some good with the fees they collect.
Julie Thompson created the Design Power site as part of her graduate thesis project at Ohio University. It gives a working definition of socially responsible design and uses three case studies (including one on ALR!) to discuss the key components of working from an ethical perspective: client choice, environmental practices, and community education. Read her entire report HERE.
Creative for A Cause is an incredible new online resource for socially minded design folks created by Heidi Cies. Made as part of her graduate thesis in advertising/design at Syracuse University, Heidi has put together two dozen detailed case studies of how socially conscious design is being taught in schools across the US. The site also has comprehensive lists of publications, websites, sources of funding, schools, and "role models" all pertaining to working in the fields of marketing, advertising, and design from an ethical stand point. The searchable site is a fantastic work in progress that should prove invaluable to anyone interested in working/teaching differently. Check it out HERE.
It's always great to discover another resource for socially minded artists online and the Groundswell Collective's Groundswell Blog is a welcome addition. With a wide range of articles on subjects that will be familiar to ALR reader you should definitely add them to your regular reading list. Check 'em out HERE.
My friend John at Social Design Notes has created an excellent free resource: Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design. The downloadable PDF booklet contains tips and examples to help advocacy groups better communicate their messages with graphic design. Get the PDF HERE.
The Raleigh AIGA recently asked me to be one of the judges for a poster competition promoting environmentalism in North and South Carolina called: re|THINK. The 20 winning posters, selected by myself and 2 other judges, will be on display (and for sale) at the Designbox gallery in Raleigh, NC for the month of April, with an opening reception on April 4th. Even if you're not in the area you can preview all of the winning designs online now HERE.
If you are in the Richmond, VA area please consider attending the free community forum Living Simply: Making Green & Just Choices on February 19th, where I will be one of several speakers. Here are the details:
This community event is all about how to live and consume in ecologically and socially conscious ways here in the Richmond area. Please come, and spread the word.
Living Simply: Making Green & Just Choices
Panel discussion followed by networking time Tuesday, February 19, 7 p.m. VCU Student Commons Ballroom Free and open to the public
* Connect with farmers markets, urban gardens, energy alternatives, green building, natural products, and fair trade opportunities here in Richmond!
* Learn how your buying choices impact community, economic justice, and the global environment!
Speakers Karl Bren--Green Visions Consulting, Earthcraft Virginia, social justice advocate Noah Scalin--founder of Another Limited Rebellion and Sprout Azibo Turner--Vanguard Ranch Limited Natural Gourmet Products ..and more
Co-sponsored by the Falls of the James Group of the Sierra Club, the Green Party, Richmond Peace Education Center, Sierra Student Coalition at VCU.
Why wear a shirt with a celebrity on it when you can have Makenna Gigliari from Bradford, Ontario or Franka Tomic from Korkula, Croatia? Joy Apparel is an intriguing socially conscious company with the goal of promoting peace & equality through introducing normal people from around the world...by putting their faces on T-shirts! If you buy a shirt you can submit your own face and join in the fun. Find out more on their site.
Students in my Fall 2007 Design Rebels class on socially conscious design created two terrific community based projects as their final assignments.
The first is RISE-NOW a poster/web campaign to educate on the issues of sexual assault and domestic violence. Read more about it in my article on Osocio HERE.
I'll post about the 2nd project CHOMP, a healthy living program for middle school students, when the finished version is online.
I teach a class on socially conscious design and as a way of demonstrating the power of design to explain complicated issues I use a pen as a prop. It's not just any pen though, it's one designed by Stefan Sagmeister for the community action group TrueMajority.org as a means of demonstrating the disproportionate spending on the U.S. military in comparison to our "enemies". The reverse shows how a fraction of that budget could be used to fully support several other government programs that have continual underfunding problems. To buy your own pens and other well designed politically minded goodies check out the TrueMajorityShop.
After a long wait the excellent Houtlust blog has returned as Osocio. As in the past the site collects the best of advertising/marketing for social issues/non-profits from across the globe, but the new incarnation includes extra features like news feeds, non-profit profiles, and a dictionary of terminology. Probably the biggest change is that Marc van Gurp, who ran Houtlust solo has added several new editors to the site from around the world (including yours truly!).
Osocio is a truly indispensable resource for anyone interested in the intersection of marketing and social good.
I had the pleasure of meeting artist/designer/activist/teacher James Victore yesterday.
He was a visiting lecturer at Virginia Commonwealth University's Graphic Design department and also met with my Design Rebels class where he shared his personal experiences working for excitement rather than money. Some choice quotes:
"I don't want to be known as a graphic designer."
"We're supposed to be the people who make culture, not decorate culture."
And when asked what school he went to said, "Ecole Des Hard Knocks. Whatever you learn there you keep."
The San Francisco AIGA's socially conscious design competition Cause/Affect is accepting submissions now through November 9th. From their site:
cause/affect is a biennial graphic design competition which celebrates the work of designers and organizations who set out to positively impact our society and communities.
All work entered in the competition must promote or support social good and actively engage in enriching our lives. It can raise awareness about a cause or condition. It can celebrate an arts institution or event. All we ask is that it doesn’t contribute directly to the profit of a commercial organization.
This is a competition for do-gooders, who do good work. And it is open to all.
The course I teach on socially conscious design at Virginia Commonwealth University, Design Rebels, is designated as a Service-Learning class, which means the students are required to have a level of direct community engagement as part of their education. Last year the class was featured in a presentation at the annual Service-Learning conference. A short video from that presentation (which includes an interview with me about Design Rebels) can now be seen online HERE.
A recent article in Ode Magazine "Small Is Successful" talks about the benefits of staying small in the corporate world and features the story of how Clif Bar owner Gary Erickson resisted a profitable takeover by Quaker Oats:
...rather than feeling on top of the world about this dream deal, Erickson was uneasy. "I stood in the office waiting to go out and sign the contract," he recounts in his book Raising the Bar. "Out of nowhere, I started to shake and couldn't breathe." He told his business partner that he needed to get some air. Outside in the parking lot, he broke down in tears. And then it hit him as he began to walk around the block: "I don't have to do this. I began to laugh, feeling free," he writes. "I turned around, went back to the office and told my partner, 'Send them home. I can't sell the company.'"
The always entertaining, frequently moving, radio show This American Life's recent episode "#337: Man vs. History", contains a fascinating story about the socially conscious entrepreneur Dal LaMagna A.K.A. Tweezerman and his attempt to curb the violence in Iraq:
He thought he could get the Sunni resistance to sit down with Coalition forces to negotiate a cease-fire. So he hooked up with a member of the Iraqi parliament named Mohammed Al-Dynee and headed to Baghdad and Amman, where, remarkably, doors opened to him.
You can listen to the show online (and even find out how download it as a podcast) here.
My friend and fellow socially conscious design blogger John Emerson has an excellent article in the new issue of Communication Arts. He's created a fictional conversation between designers discussing their role when it comes to politics, addressing many of the questions that get asked of activist designers on a regular basis:
Sam: Sounds great. But do you ever feel conflicted? I mean, look at those posters about the genocide in Darfur. I’m all for rising to the challenge, but don’t these things just take advantage of the cause by exploiting some tragedy as an excuse to make a clever design?
Robin: Well, if I care about a cause, why shouldn’t I respond and communicate that? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with clever, as long as it helps you get your point across.
Social Atelier is a collective of artists/activists who are using fashion to talk about social issues. Their current collection of 100% Organic Cotton T-shirts feature text on issues of global warming, war, body image, genocide, gay marriage, poverty, and AIDS. Sales of the the shirts, which were launched in an Ethical Night Out event, benefit the Solar Cooker Project. Read more here.
Today is the grand opening of ActivsMart a virtual store from our friends at Design for Social Impact. The shop is filled with products featuring their friendly, colorful message driven graphics. All profits go to fund special projects of DfSI like the WPA Living Archive and Activist Trolley Tour. Plus they are giving away a free handmade print with every order placed today! Check it out here.
The non-profit Copenhagen based Index promotes "Design To Improve Life" via networking and annual international industrial design competitions. This year's Index: Awards nominees are available for review online. Under the categories Body, Home, Work, Play, and Community the entries range from easier to use tourniquets to eco-friendly knives to alternative school furniture. Learn more here.
Flocks allows wool sweater buyers to have an intimate knowledge of the source of their garment. Each item they produce is made from a single sheep and includes an I.D. number and info card on that animal.
We're finally able to follow up on the highly successful 2004 Designs on Democracy conference! If you were there, you will remember what a great information exchange and relationship building opportunity that big get-together was. Ever since, we've been trying to foment other, more ground-up ways of recapturing that experience, and further developing it into an on-going exchange that will benefit the Movement for the long-term.
The format: A monthly series of presentations and facilitated round-table discussions on topics of interest to activist designers.
The goal: To strengthen our ability to provide the social justice movement with effective graphic design, visual communications and other advertising services. Recognizing that we play a vital role in countering the propaganda of the right, we want to foster communication, sharing and collaboration between like-minded activist-designers (and eliminate/reduce competition).
The Topics: These could range from the specific ("what is your logo design process") to the broad and political ("The role of political posters for the MySpace generation"). Participant interest will determine topics.
The location: The new Eastside Arts Alliance building 2277 International Blvd. Oakland, CA 94606
The first DoD Roundtable will be held on Tuesday, July 17, 2007. 6:30 - 9 pm. "Progressive Communications in Design, Part I" We will decide on a topic for this and a couple subsequent round-tables at this first meeting with your input.
Subsequent Roundtables will be on the 2nd Tuesday of each month for the rest of 2007.
What to bring: Your ideas. And if possible, a snack or beverage to share (but more important you come).
Designs on Democracy
ps. Please RSVP if you're planning to come or if you're interested in future sessions!!
What is the history of graphic communication in the social justice movement? What is our role now?
How can we effectively use graphic communication to get our messages out in a way that reaches the hearts and minds of our communities and society at large?
What choices do we make in representation in our designs? What images and language do we use? How do we help in creating a message of diversity and positivity?
Join Favianna Rodriguez of Tumis Design, and Nadia Khastagir and Sabiha Basrai of Design Action Collective in a colorful presentation and discussion of the pressing topics facing progressive visual communicators.
This workshop is for emerging and experienced graphic designers, communications specialists, students and artists who work with social justice organizing efforts.
The U.S. Social Forum, a conference for social justice activists, runs June 27th through July 1st. For more info go HERE.
I just added a few new blogs to our "Friends + Allies" section of the sidebar and I wanted to give them a proper introduction. These are folks who are writing about topics that are complimentary to the Another Limited Rebellion's socially conscious mindset. Please check 'em out:
CreativEthics - Designer/Photographer Todd Zerger's socially conscious community blog.
Rebel:Art - German art/activism blog, lots of great visuals so you don't need to speak the language to enjoy it.
Stralunato - Spanish socially conscious design blog from Jacinto Lajas.
...you might also enjoy the newsletter that my company sends out on a semi-regular basis called Designletter. It's easy to digest, comes right to your inbox and features expanded versions of items mentioned in this blog as well as more in depth info on individual socially responsible businesses (that also just happen to be our clients). You can read the latest issue here and if you like sign up for future issues (and we promise, absolutely NO spam) here.
Designer/photographer Amanda Kohn decided to test the power of design to affect social change by creating a campaign to promote awareness of Polycistic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), an endocrine disorder that affects 5-10% of all women. Her site Implementing Designism discusses the process and shows off her work.
A Site for Social Design, while still relatively new, is already a great introduction to the world of art and design focused on positive social change. The site, which is a creation of the German "think tank for social design and organizational excellence" Systemic Consulting Group, features galleries of great projects, forums for discussion, and a even history of social design.
I just returned from a business trip in NYC (thus the lack of posts recently) where I also gave a talk at NYU's Tisch School of The Arts to students [shown left] in the Tech Track program (which was the program I was in, 15 odd years ago!).
Thanks so much to Wendy Luedtke for bringing me in to talk about my company and socially conscious design.
Social media provides almost limitless opportunity for being creative. You can think outside the box to come up with all sorts of innovative ways to raise money or awareness for a charity or cause. When Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer, for example, he created 
A special thanks to 
