ALR designletter [4.5]
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Welcome to the new issue of the ALR designletter, the last one for 2004. It has been quite a rollercoaster of a year and we hope that we managed to enlighten/inspire you at least once. Our resolution for 2005: getting on a more regular schedule. An issue every 2 months has been our goal for several years and with the addition of our new Designletter writer/coordinator Amy Biegelsen I believe we have a good chance of meeting that goal. As always we welcome your comments, suggestions, criticism and/or praise. Thanks for reading.
Noah Scalin, president
ALR design
socially conscious graphic design
http://www.ALRdesign.com
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[01] ALR NEWS
ALR founder Noah Scalin has been honored by the newspaper Style Weekly as one of the Top Forty Under 40 “successful young professionals who give back to the community” in Richmond, VA. Read the article here:
http://www.styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=9087
and
http://www.styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=9111
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ALR Design and the Designers Against Monoculture manifesto are mentioned in the essay "Concerns for Education in Today's Typographic Universe" by Michael Schmidt. The article can be found in the new book “The Education of A Typographer” edited by Steven Heller. Ask for it at your locally owned independent bookstore.
[02] POST ELECTION
Do all those red state/blue state maps have you feeling like the country’s looking a little flushed? Folks at the University of Michigan have created a series of cartograms, or maps rescaled to reflect population instead of acreage, that will give you a whole new perspective on the state of nation. Check ‘em out at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/.
(thanks to several list members for pointing us to this one)
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Many people claimed that they would be moving to Canada if Bush got elected this year, but how many will really follow through? A group of our neighbors to the north have generously embarked on the (tongue in cheek) “Marry an American” project, which offers to find good homes and Canadian passports for attractive, left-leaning, single Americans. To find out more aboot becoming a mail order bride (or groom), check out http://www.marryanamerican.ca/.
(thanks to list member Phillips Smith for telling us about this project which he helped instigate)
[03] WAR AND PEACE
With the controversy surrounding images of flag draped coffins and hard numbers on Iraqi casualties for the war hard to come by, visualizing the magnitude of lives lost in the Iraq conflict can be difficult. But New York artist Paul Wirhun has found a way to give this tragedy a face—or a skull, at least. Wirhun specializes in pysanky, a traditional Ukranian egg decorating art he learned from his mother. Throughout October and part of November Wirhum invited people to help decorate his waxed eggs as skulls and pile them in the court yard of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery as a memorial. By the Skull Project’s end there were over 1500 egg skulls collecting in mounds and Wirhun promises a second round to keep up with the casualties. For more information on the Skull Project visit http://www.theskullproject.com.
(thanks to list member Mica for letting us know about this, her vblog documentary of the exhibit can be seen at: http://publicaddress.typepad.com/hello/2004/10/skulls.html)
[04] DESIGN + MARKETING
Donut ads on cop cars? Insurance company logos on fire trucks? Government Acquisitions, Inc. offers marketers a new frontier in brand awareness. Their program, which is responding to budget constraints on domestic first responder programs like police, EMS, and fire departments, is offering sponsorship opportunities to local corporations and non-profits that want their names on government vehicles. Want to use the government to market your own products and services? Go to
http://www.governmentacquisitions.com/
[05] (HOLIDAY) SHOPPING
It’s hard being a socially aware shopper. The laundry list of corporate abuses is long and remembering whom to boycott from week to week is difficult to say the least. That’s where Responsible Shopper (http://www.responsibleshopper.org/) comes in. This online database from the folks at Co-op America (the creator of the Green Pages) allows you to search by product or company and find all the dirt--or lack thereof--on your favorite things to buy. The data is extensive and seems both well researched and balanced.
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Shopping for a change? The folks at iGive.com (http://www.iGive.com/) believe that you can at least do 27% more good shopping with them. This internet shopping portal allows you to buy from a variety of stores and then donates up to 27% of your payment to a non-profit of your choice. Sort of like reverse frequent flyer miles for the wired consumer. Plus it’s free to use.
[06] DONATIONS
When you donate to your favorite charity do you know where your money is really going? Charity Navigator may be able to help. This watchdog group provides information on how much of your dollar actually goes to the work these organizations do and how effective their work really is. Plus their services are free. Give them a try at http://www.charitynavigator.org/
[07] CORPORATIONS
In light of the recent congressional bill to provide tax cuts to major corporations it may come as a surprise that a recent study, by Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, shows that corporations have paid less taxes in the last three years even as their profits increased. In fact 28 of the 275 Fortune 500 companies studied paid no taxes at all between 2000 and 2003. This is despite making a combined $45 billion in profits during that period. A PDF of the entire report can be downloaded from http://www.ctj.org/. (source: New York Times 9/23/04)
[08] ENVIRONMENT
If you get lots of packages filled with Styrofoam peanuts and can’t make use of them all don’t throw them away. Most packaging and shipping stores will actually reuse or recycle packing materials as long as they are clean. Ask you local store what their policy is.
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Paper or…paper? Taiwan has cut its solid waste output by nearly 25 percent by instituting strong restrictions on the use of plastic bags, plastic utensils, and Styrofoam & plastic food containers. The regulations, the final stage of which was implemented in January of 2003, have caused a 65 percent decrease in the use of disposable plastic shopping bags. Plastic tableware use has dropped by 90 percent. Despite the success of the program the government is considering reducing the fines for noncompliance from thousands of dollars to only $35-$180 per offense. (source: Christian Science Monitor 6/15/04)
[09] MEDIA
Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean there isn’t a conspiracy. Simon Robson of Knife Party has put together a beautiful short animation called “What Barry Says.” The Malevich inspired piece is black, white and red all over and uses spare but beautifully rendered three-dimensional images to expose the global damage being done by the U.S. government’s compliance with William Kristol’s Project for the New American Century. This summer the piece was awarded the Chameleon Statue for best animation at the Brooklyn International Film Festival. Check it out at http://www.knife-party.net/flash/barry.html
[10] BOOKSHELF
Socially minded designers have always had to piece together an education on working ethically from a variety of resources, but with the release of the new book “Conscious Objectives: Designing for an Ethical Message” (RotoVision, 2003) we may have the closest thing to a socially conscious design handbook yet. Authors John Cranmer and Yolanda Zappaterra present 10 real-world design projects from a variety of international design firms for everything from environmental cleaning product packaging to marketing HIV prevention to drug users. Each section provides an overview of the design process, including the designer’s own thoughts as well as feedback from the clients and others affected by the work. The book is worth the introductory section alone, which features a series of essays on the issues faced by socially conscious designers and a timeline of design used for social change. The only drawback is that book seems designed more for coffee table reading than as a functional manual.
[11] LEXICON
Greenwashing (Verb) - A term applied to companies who use misleading marketing to create an aura of environmental responsibility for their products & services or industry as a whole. Non-profit environmental group The Green Life has created an introduction to these desperate corporations at http://www.thegreenlife.org/greenwash101.html. They even offer a free Greewasher of the Month e-newsletter. Recent honorees include Climate Resolve, Sustainable Slopes, and Crop Life America (who claims that “use of pesticides protects endangered species”).
[12] NOSH
Bah humbug! According to the 2004 Commitment to Development Index, the United States ranks third from last (out of 21 wealthy nations) on supporting economic and social development in countries that it has donated aid to. The Index, which was created by the Center for Global Development, puts the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden in the top three slots. See the full index at http://www.cgdev.org/rankingtherich/home.html
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The ALR Designletter is a semi-regular update on the activities at Another Limited Rebellion design, the world of socially conscious design, and beyond. You are on this list because you have worked with, contacted, or have a personal connection to ALR design. The names on this mailing list will never be sold or given away. If you no longer wish to be on this list, just respond with "REMOVE" in the subject section and there will be no hard feelings. Back issues can be found on our web site in the ISSUES section.
Sources are listed when information was found in one specific location. However, articles are not quoted verbatim in this newsletter.
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