Recent Work - Direct Mail

I'm still in the process of adding some new work to the portfolio section of my website so I thought I'd share some more of the pieces we've recently completed...

For Epic Theatre Ensemble's current season of productions:

 

For Target Margin Theater's current season of productions:

Recent Work - Logos

I'm in the process of updating the portfolio section of my website with some recent work and I thought I'd share it here as well...

Energy Works is a Chi Kung, martial arts, and acupressure business based in Richmond, Virginia. The overall form is inspired by the symbols of the I Ching.

Passion Coalition is a series of community events surrounding Epic Theatre Ensemble's production of Sarah Rhul's Passion Play. The logo was built with actual tape and photographed.

Help Renourish Get A $50K Grant

Re-nourish, the excellent online sustainable graphic design resource, is in the running for a $50,000 grant to help them expand and improve their services via the Pepsi Refresh Project. Please take a couple minutes to help them get the grant by registering and voting for them HERE (voting is open through the end of February and you can vote once a day!).

REPRESSED V: FREE TO SPEAK - Call for Entries

From our friends at Gallery 5 in Richmond, Virginia comes this call for activist art...

REPRESSED V: FREE TO SPEAK May 2010

Josˆ© Marˆ‚a 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).

Designing For The Greater Good

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.

The Big Book of Green Design

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.

Designers Against Climate Change - Blog Action Day

Todays is Blog Action Day and the subject is Climate Change.

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!

The Socially Conscious Geek

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:

"The Socially Conscious Geek: Makin' Money While Doin' Good"
with Noah Scalin, Emira Mears, Lauren Bacon, and Leif Utne

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 ’Äì 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:

1. What is a socially conscious geek?
2. How can I specialize in socially conscious work and earn a living wage?
3. What are some of the unique opportunities and challenges of specializing in socially conscious work?
4. What is the difference between non-profit and no-profit clients?
5. How do I make the transition from corporate work to working with non-profit and/or mission-driven clients?
6. What is the ’Äútriple bottom line’Äù approach to business?
7. What are some examples of alternative business models that are emerging among socially conscious geeks?
8. How is socially conscious work different than ’Äúgreen’Äù work?
9. What are some examples of clients I might be able to work with as a socially conscious geek?
10. 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.

Designer Tip: No Pro Bono

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.

Linkage: From Kafka Pest Kontrol to B'eau Pal Water

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...


Literary reference trucks deliver books and a message about reading. (image shown, more HERE) via

SpecWatch keeps you updated on the insidious world of design competitions/crowdsourcing. Thanks @PrixMadonna

Captcha graffiti to tell if you're human or not. (image shown) via

A public bicycle counter shows that you are not the only one on two-wheels in Copenhagen.

Get a free brochure on how not to greenwash from Roughstock Studios.

You know you want a USB-powered chainsaw! via

Traitor Joe's gives you the dirt on a well-known (and similarly named) grocery chain's seafood sources. via

Bizarre attempt for a multi-national corporation to "localwash" (the local movement's equivalent of greenwashing). via

Boring flyers get free makeovers from Cardon Copy! (image shown) via

Reincarnated McMansion is going to take 1 wasteful house and turn it into 2 green homes! Thanks Stephanie!

The 3/50 Project wants to save local brick & mortar stores with your help. Thanks Mim!

Eco-Mag, a magazine about art, design & sustainability, is available as a free downloadable PDF via

B'eau Pal Water is the Yes Men's response to Dow Chemical's toxic waste in Bhopal. via

What happens when you put pianos on the street for anyone to use?

No Longer Empty turns vacant storefronts into art venues. via

Artist Favianna Rodriguez explains why is graffiti a good thing.

Eco-friendly cardboard coffins, come with the image of your choice printed directly on them. Thanks Amy!

Jamba Juice rips off Get Your War On! Thanks Kate!

Grand is turning their junk mail into self promotion. (image shown)

A newspaper in China goes from printing press to recyling bin with no stops in between.

SafeLink provides free cellphones and airtime for lower income Americans.

10 Ways to Support Charity Through Social Media

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...

This post is a collaboration between Mashable's Summer of Social Good charitable fundraiser and Max Gladwell's "10 Ways" series. The post is being simultaneously published across more than 100 blogs.



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.

Recently, a group of green bloggers banded together to raise individual $1 donations from their readers. The beneficiaries included Sustainable Harvest, Kiva, Healthy Child, Healthy World, Environmental Working Group, and Water for People. The blog-driven campaign included voting to determine how the funds would be distributed between the charities. You can read about the results here.

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:

Oxfam America (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube)
The Humane Society (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr)
LIVESTRONG (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr)
WWF (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr)

4. Support Causes on Awareness Hubs

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.

Be sure to check out Mashable's guide to organizing a tweetup to make sure yours goes off without a hitch, or check to see if there are any tweetups in your area to attend that are already organized.

8. Express Yourself Using Video

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.

This content was originally written by Mashable's Josh Catone.

Linkage: From Social Trading Cards to Social Stock Exchanges

I'm heading to Austin for a week, so hopefully this'll tide you over while I'm away...


The social reality trading card alternative to Pokemon.

Investing in a Social Stock Exchange.

Taxicab curator. Thanks Carlos!

Fallen Princesses (image shown) via

A classic anti-billboard screed from 1960. via

Eco-friendly alternative to motivational office posters (image shown). Thanks Marc!

Duchamp Reloaded (image shown) via

Clever Condoms

The ocean of plastic is on the East Coast as well.

Mini-Golf meets Art in Brooklyn. Thanks Mica!

Bacardi using misogyny to sell alcohol...to women?! via

And for those of you following the story from last week...
busted Barrel Monster artist gets a commision...from the company he stole from. Thanks Carlos!

The Future is Melting

Paul at Naughtyfish Design in Australia shared a lovely poster he recently created...
























You can even see the future melting entirely away in this video he shot during the photo session...

Global Warning from Paul Garbett on Vimeo.

Awards Can't Feed The Hungry

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.

Linkage: Art Crimes and Clothing Punishment

The Onion Network is looking for socially conscious design and marketing partners.

Does the gay flag need a makeover?

Getting the word out with mud stencils (image shown).

What to do with reusable bags, when they're used up. Thanks Mim!

A hand-cranked eco-vibrator for the ultimate environmentalist. Thanks Leah!

Would you wear the same dress every day for a year if it was for a good cause? via

Making a barrel monster will get you arrested in North Carolina (image shown) Thanks Carlos!

Who doesn't like free books?

Good50ˆó70 2009

The shortlisted posters from this year's Good50x70 socially conscious design contest are now online, see them all HERE.

Call for Entries: Cause/Affect

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."

ALR at work - part II

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 Dorˆ© 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.

ALR on Tour: HausTalk Richmond, VA - May 27

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).

Free Posters for Progressives

Design Action Collective and Inkworks Press are offering free poster design & printing to one lucky progressive organization via their Serve The People Poster Project. Deadline for applications is May 1st...

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.

Get the full details HERE.

via

Project M now accepting applications

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.