Earlier this week I stumbled on By/Association, the latest in a line of social innovation projects from alldaybuffet.
“Innovation is an emergent phenomenon that happens when a person or organization fosters interaction between different kinds of people and disparate forms of knowledge.” — Murray Gell-Mann
‘By/Association seeks to reinvent the traditional notion of “networking” by enabling substantive interactions and long-term relationships. By/Association is for people who want to make their lives, ideas, and networks richer by meeting other remarkable people. It’s not about getting help with your current need or project. It’s about connecting to people that make you better — to inspire more action, better ideas, and new ways of seeing the world.’
For all information about memberships, visit ByAssoc.com
On Sunday 28 June 2009 at London’s Conway Hall, Alice Rawsthorn (design critic of the International Herald Tribune, columnist for the New York Times and a leading authority on contemporary design) will host a ’sermon’ at The School of Life entitled “Alice Rawsthorn on Good Design”.
Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman speaks on the MIT campus in a talk entitled The World is Flat 3.0, where he discusses the 2007 update to his bestseller The World is Flat and provides a preview of his latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded.
Back in December 2008, I interviewed Lea Simpson, co-founder of Unchained, the online guide to independent shopping in London and New York. Behance Magazine have published the interview today, so do take a look to find out more!
If you had to tie a red balloon to your favourite thing, what would you tie it to?
As part of her undergraduate project Douceurs, post graduate service designer Lauren Currie, (a.k.a Red Jotter), took a dozen red balloons to a park in Edinburgh, and to encourage traditional communication between the public asked people she met to tie them to their favourite thing. Read the rest of this entry »
On Friday evening, as part of the magnificent Greengaged hub of sustainability events (at London’s Design Council), a series of leading speakers will debate; “Should we believe the hype? Green Marketing, spin and substance.”
In 2007, 70% of the US’s GDP was generated from consumption. UK household waste has been growing by 2% – 3% per cent a year. The average shopper in the developed world shopper adds 3 tonnes of CO2 to their carbon footprint by simply buying stuff. Products and services are clicking on to the big sell of green. In the climate of economic down turn how can we create behaviour change in consumers who are bombarded by advertising and bored of green wash.
Chaired by Lucy Siegle from The Observer, the speakers include: Ed Gillespie (Futerra), Sophie Thomas (thomas.matthews), Stewart Rassier (Saatchi & Saatchi S), Richard George (Plane Stupid), Chris Sherwin (Forum for the Future), John Grant (author of The Green Marketing Manifesto).
To join the debate visit Greengaged.com and book your place! Kick off is at 6.30pm.
With the 2008 London Design Festival only a matter of days away, it is with great respect to read ‘Scenes of Graphic London’, an editorial piece written by Teal Triggs (Professor of Graphic Design, University of the Arts London). Highlighting the importance of Graphic Design to the UK capital, Triggs beautifully captures a timeline of the UK’s most iconic work, and intelligently pays respect to the changing faces of its future. You can download the full article from the London Design Festival website.
In conjunction with NYTimes.com, the AIGA’s Ric Grefé and Jessica Friedman Hewitt have developed an interactive demonstration of how good ballot design can improve the voting experience.
Illustrating the power and potential of using design thinking to tackle some of the UK’s greatest social issues, Deborah and the team at Thinkpublic have helped make significant improvements to communications and patient experiences in the NHS.
“We are faced with a growing amount of social challenges, including an ageing population, social exclusion and global warming to name a few. Designers need to adapt their skills to play a role in helping solving these challenges. Not by designing posters or products, but by using their skills to involve people and communities in the problem solving process. Together we can understand how we can solve these big issues and design sustainable, useful and usable solutions that work in different households, communities, regions and counties.”* – Deborah Szebeko.
Alongside 5 other UK entrepreneurs Deborah has been shortlisted to the top six finalists. The winner will be announced at 100% Design, on 19th September 2008.
Over the last month, I have been helping Simon Berry (CEO, ruralnet|uk) promote his latest idea, and what an idea it is! “ColaLife” is a campaign aiming to leverage Coca Cola’s distribution muscle to distribute life saving medicines to children in developing countries. The idea is so simple, but until now has been difficult to evolve. The power of web 2.0 and social networking media however, has allowed Simon to digitally document his progress and to build a digital support network to develop the campaign.
“We can distribute Coca Cola all around the World but we can’t seem to get medication to save a child from something as simple as diarrhea and I think that that is wrong.” (Annie Lennox)
Since the launch of the campaign and due to the power of a Facebook group, Simon was invited by Salvatore Gabola, Coca-Cola’s Global Head of Stakeholder Relations, to a meeting to discuss the idea further at Coca-Cola’s European HQ in Brussels. The campaign’s Facebook group has reached over 3,890 members since its inception on 18 May 2008. It was nominated for the NewStatesman’s New Media Award in June and showcased at London’s 2gether08 festival on 3 July. Read the rest of this entry »
A new concept in community volunteering has arrived in the UK, explained The Guardian earlier this month. Orange RockCorps is asking you to give something back to your local community. ‘Give’ just 4 hours of your time to a community project, and you’ll ‘Get Given’ a ticket to the exclusive RockCorps gig at London’s Royal Albert Hall in September! The first confirmed guest in the line up, Busta Rhymes.
David Wilcox reported this week about an inspiring initiative founded by Simon Berry:
Twenty years ago Simon Berry was a development worker in North Zambia, conscious that while he could buy a bottle of Coke anywhere, children were dying through inadequate distribution of simple medical treatments. In many cases they simply needed rehydration salts. Wouldn’t it be possible to reach an agreement by which Coca Cola used a small part of its superior distribution capacity to get the medicine to children? Read the rest of this entry »
To launch the much anticipated MA in Design Writing/Criticism at London College of Communication, Stephen Bayley (design critic for The Observer) presents the first of a series of new talks this month, surrounding the current state of design writing and criticism.
It has been some time coming but it is here, a comprehensive exploration into what is ‘Social Design’. This great (if promotional) video comes from the team at the socialdesignsite.com.
During the first few months writing for sustainability design blog Inhabitat.com, it became immediately and increasingly evident how many designers were bathing in the new challenges of sustainability. The worlds of fashion, architecture, interior and product design continued to excel with an ecological conscience, launching countless contemporary designs every week. Although not focused to the work of Graphic Design, taking a quick look around Inhabitat it is evident a sense of contemporary Communication Design is appreciated. Critical dialogue however, discussing the relevant relationships between sustainability and graphic design, is almost vacant (with no more than 15-20 graphic-related features). This, it would seem is a recurring trend in the sustainable design communities.
“I wish I could report that it [graphic design] was doing its bit. Trouble is, tap “sustainable graphic design” into Google and you get a thousand suggested links. But, tap “Helvetica Movie” in, and guess what, you get fifteen thousand. So in cyberspace at least, that makes people 15 times as interested in a movie about a typeface than how to design responsibly. Great.” [Johnson Banks]
I am therefore, excited to have read this week that respectable designer, writer and critic Anna Gerber is currently writing a new book on Graphic Design and Sustainability, scheduled for publication by Laurence King in Spring 2009. I hope this book will give the Communication Designer a friendly kick in a sustainable direction and ultimately help our discipline play catch up to the rest of the creative industry.
Designer and author of the 2004 publication All Messed Up, Unpredictable-Graphics, Anna Gerber continues to write extensively for the likes of Creative Review, Print, Varoom, Idea and Eye. Furthermore, in collaboration with Teal Triggs, Gerber also wrote a dialogue for Blueprint last year, introducing the new postgraduate course, MA Design Writing Criticism at London College of Communications, which is scheduled to start this fall.
The 2008 National Design Awards, by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum have announced this years winners. I am not overly surprised to see that Michael Bierut (DesignObserver / Pentagram) has been awarded the Design MInd Award (a well-earned achievement all the same), but it’s great to see that Scott Stowell (of the cleverly branded studio Open) has been awarded the Communications Design Award. Congratulations chaps, I look forward to seeing some females in the shortlist next year though.
Whilst admiring the work and words of C&G Partners graphic designer Scott Ballum (aka. Sheepless) this evening, I soon found myself exploring the online pages of GDUSA’s January issue, “People to Watch in 2008″, where Ballum was featured. The 2008 annual feature of “newsworthy designers”, asked each designer about the future of their profession, the health of the economy and the state of planet Earth. The responses are certainly worth a browse.
Last night I came across a magnificent online resource and initiative dedicated to socially conscious design, its name Creative For A Cause. Founded and set up by Denver based Graphic Designer Heidi Cies, Creative For A Cause (A Resource for Visual Communications Educators) aims to assist teaching social responsibility in design education.
“While social responsibility is being discussed more and more frequently within the Visual Communications industry and among educators today, no standards or guidelines currently exist to aid in the implementation of these concepts into the higher education curriculum. Where social responsibility is not already part of a Visual Communications program, and there is little or no administrative support for inclusion, it is left to individual instructors to decide how to best integrate this topic into their syllabi.
This site is a collaborative resource for educators of Visual Communications who wish to instruct their students on the importance of adopting a social and ethical approach to their work. If you know of additional resources that you feel would be of value, please contact us.” (Heidi Cies, Creative For A Cause).
Heidi, well done – this is a fantastic project that is certainly going to prove useful. I look forward to our future conversations.
In my search for socially-based designers, working with contemporary and intelligent design thinking, I have come across a number of inspiring U.S based designers/agencies/projects this evening.
The first I am going to mention has to be, Citizen Scholar, Inc, founded by designer Randy J. Hunt. This New York design consultancy specialise “in creative services for cultural institutions, educators, artists, non-profits and social entrepreneurs.” Although the website only profiles the work in a blog format, it is worth a look around.
When I was first asked to contribute a piece on design ethics to Design Sessions: Notes on Design, I wondered how I could credibly comment on such a complex and highly academic topic. Whilst sitting at the early stages of my creative career, I wondered how many of us really understand what it means to be a “good” designer, and asked myself, if and how, I am a “good” (socially-responsible) designer?
Design Ethics
Throughout every stage of my creative training, I have echoed the belief that design is “quintessentially an ethical process” (Devon and Poel 2002). I strongly believe that Communication Design has a positive and negative ability to affect social change, but recognize that its influential power should be treated with respect and careful consideration, of its use, from all its designers.
Forever an inspiration voice, John Thackara is a symposiarch who designs events, projects, and organizations. Director of Doors of Perception (Doors), and author of the awe-inspiring publication, In the Bubble, John has for the last two years lead the Design of the Times (dott 07) project in North East England.
“If you attend certain events, read certain books or policy papers it is possible at the minute, to formulate a world view whereby design is the panacea of all ills.” Wodcast.
Recorded at Intersections07, Wodcast recently caught up with John to discuss the dott 07 project, design and social change, sustainability, and design education. Thackara explains how designers should not see themselves as the cause of social problems, or pretend to have all the answers to solve them. The interview is short but definately worth listening to.
I have just listened to an interesting interview with Think Public’s Deborah Szebeko, via Wodcast.
Szebeko opens the discussion to talk through her definition of “Public Service Design”. She continues to discuss Think Public’s recent project “The Real Work Experience” – which I am ever more inspired by having (like many of those involved) left my BA degree in Graphic Design a bit lost at how to vehicle my work/skills/education toward positive change, rather than choosing a career path toward the more typical designer routes of advertising, for example. Szebeko further explains her motivation for starting Think Public and the Real Work Experience to have been driven from a frustration that designers have so little awareness as to where they can use their communication skills to design for greater good. Worth taking 12 mins to listen to the interview, if you haven’t come across Szebeko’s work yet.
I just came across a really great portfolio of socially responsible communication design, from Glasgow graduate Chris Thompson. Plenty of great work Chris, I can’t wait to see more.
Recorded at the DLD Conference, Munich, Architect Norman Foster discusses his own work to show how computers can help architects design buildings that are green, beautiful and “basically pollution-free.” He shares projects from throughout his career, from the pioneering roof-gardened Willis Building (1975) to the London Gherkin (2004). He also comments on two upcoming megaprojects: a pipe to bring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, and the new Beijing airport.
The DLD (Digital Life Design) Conference, in Munich, Germany, is hosted by publisher Hubert Burda and Israeli investor Yossi Vardi, covering digital innovation, media and design.
It’s been a long time coming, but my very first “feature” article for Design21 is live today! Having interviewed Emily Pilloton, Founder of the magnificent non-profit Project H Design (and colleague at Inhabitat.com), I am also pleased to share some of the images Emily has recently sent me, from her trip to South Africa.
“If you missed Steven Heller’s exhibition and lectures at the School of Visual Arts last year, this site is almost as good as the real thing” [Michael Bierut].
I just stumbled upon an event I can’t quite believe I missed out on. Early this month, Eye Magazine teamed up with Camberwell College of Art, to host a forum on Ethics in the Creative Industries.
On the 11th of March 2008 the Design Cluster at Camberwell in association with Eye Magazine held a discussion forum to examine how ethical issues are being addressed within the creative industries. Key writers, designers and thinkers presented their thoughts in discussion with staff, students and representatives ‘from industry’. Speakers included: Ken Garland, Anne Odling Smee, Rick Poynor, Lucienne Roberts, Rathna Ramanathan and Noel Douglas.
“The event featured talks based on previous Eye articles. First there was a conversation between Ken Garland and Anne Odling-Smee, followed by designer Rathna Ramanathan talking about her work for the BBC World Service in rural India. In the afternoon we heard from designer-activist Noel Douglas and Eye columnist Rick Poynor, whose talk ‘The value of no’ encapsulated and expanded upon many of the themes triggered by the Camberwell students’ interest in First Things First and its aftermath.”
According to the recent eye-newsletter [via email today], the forum review will be published in the forthcoming Eye Mag – due in the shops next month. Whilst we all eagerly await the discussion reviews, the forum’s blog is a worthy visit if you are in need of some designer ethics.
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