Design 21: Social Design Network

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Sixty Graphic Designers and Illustrators have teamed with UNICEF this week, to launch a new publication, website and forthcoming exhibition. This is by far the most exciting Social Design collaboration I have come across in a long time.

The two years project was born last week, and all the money raised will go to UNICEF. The 60 Unite For Children website is just a sample of what I am sure will be an exciting project. There is also a blog, that hopefully will keep us up to date with the goings on.

The book can be bought online from tomorrow, whilst the exhibition will start in November, for a year.

60 Unite For Children Via. CPLUV

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.

AIGA San Francisco, the professional association for design, has issued a call for entries for a new graphic design competition celebrating the work of designers who set out to positively impact our society and communities.

"All design work entered in the competition must promote or support social good and actively engage in enriching our lives. "So often designers work on pro bono projects, or other projects for good causes, in isolation. In our professional lives we can get the feeling we are sneaking a non-profit client in through the back door, as we strive to meet our other professional obligations."

The entry deadline for the competition - cause/affect - is November 9, 2007.

Read More at AIGA San Francisco, via. Dexigner.

The National Organization for Women Foundation is hosting a poster contest to celebrate the 11th anniversary of the Love Your Body Campaign.

The grand prize winning poster will be used as part of a national campaign to challenge the violent, drug-addicted, starved, surgically-enhanced images of women and to fight against industries that profit from women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies.

LoveYourBody via. Dexigner

I managed to attend the overpriced 'Applied Green' event Oct.3 (£650!!) at the British Library and feel duty bound to share my good fortune with everyone else who cannot pay this kind of money to Eurostar and Haymarket to discuss green communications.

I arrived cynical of big brands and marketing agencies addressing an environmental agenda but interested in hearing the speakers address the subject. I was not disappointed. Jonathon Porritt (Forum for the Future) started things off with a sobering overview. Next, John Grant (of The Green Marketing Manifesto) set the tone for the day early in the morning with his memorable line about Green Consumer Research 'Brilliant at justifying. Useless at strategizing'. I took this as a good sign.

John Gisby discussed the importance of acknowledging and working with difficult emotions. We have a tough brief with climate change – we are asking people to stop doing things they enjoy. Is it possible? Gisby looked at ways of reframing the debate by looking at the words we use, harnessing emotions to drive change, and making this change real and visible. Raising awareness is one thing, he claims, but behaviour change is another and we need to recognize that our emotions are greater motivators than scientific arguments.

Ben Terrett of The Design Conspiracy gave a talk; 'Designers – Its our Fault' that implored industry to use designers better. Claiming that design is a way of thinking, he says to companies, 'Don't just use us (design...

I've been looking all over for websites on social and ethical design and by accident i saw the link for design 21. I've seen this link before but I didnt bother clicking it for reasons I cant remember... I'm mighty glad I clicked the link for this site that this time around . :D

What made me google social design again was to look for recent conferences in social design, as our group Idea!s is mounting a presentation of sustainable and social design works from the different sectors of the creative industry here in the Philippines. People from advertising, architecture, graphic design etc. will give a slideshow of sample works and share it with other people. Idea!s is also tasked to present some of the successful campaigns we've made and current projects we're brewing for the nonprofit sector.

Allow me to explain briefly what Idea!s do. Idea!s is a non-stock, non-profit organization run by a group of young creative professionals who simply want to make people aware of the great stuff people are up to nowadays. we provide multimedia communications solutions for development organizations. We construct strategically planned designs and materials that cater to the specific needs of cause-oriented organizations. by patronizing our services, our paying clients help us subsidize and support smaller organizations with their communications needs.

Why development organizations? Because we believe in the positive change these organizations contribute to society. We believe these...

I don't know what happens with me. I was trying to compete in many design awards, but it seems not work. I don't know if I worked too less, if my design was too easy, or if I was too low experienced.

What do you think a good design should be? Must it be something that tells the others what they want to hear, or should it just express what the designer wanted to say?

In my opinion, I cannot design something against my own belief though the others are trying to tell me that it is what I should agree.

Everywhere we look, the news this week is that the world moved into "ecological overdraft" last Saturday, the point at which human consumption exceeds the ability of the earth to sustain it in any year and goes into the red, The New Economics Foundation think-tank said.

From Saturday 6 October, the world as a whole goes into ecological debt driven by over-consumption. 'Ecological debt day' is the date when, in effect, humanity uses-up the resources the earth has available for the year, and begins eating into its stock of natural resources. World ecological debt day has crept ever earlier in the year since humanity first began living beyond its environmental means in the 1980's. The latest available data reveals that the overuse of the earth's resources is much more extreme in rich countries. For example, if everyone in the world wanted to live like people in the UK, on a very conservative estimate, we would need more than three planets like Earth.

NEWS HEADLINES:

• 06.10.06: NEF : Ecological Debt Day
• 06.10.06: Environmental News Network

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and lay the foundations for counteracting it.

"I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize,” Gore said in a statement. “We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.”

Gore won an Academy Award this year for his film An Inconvenient Truth a documentary on global warming, and had been widely expected to win the prize. Climate change campaigner Al Gore and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

"His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change," the Nobel citation said. "He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted."

HEADLINE NEWS:

• 12.10.07: BBC
• 12.10.07: MSNBC
• 12.10.07: Inhabitat

Jacques Cousteau via Youtube

Remember when science was exciting and beautiful? Sometimes I wonder if Jacques Cousteau's wonderfully genuine love of science and nature were still around, would the future look a little less...bleak? Old issues of National Geographic are so much more seductive than the new ones...the new ones are just too glossy and pristine-looking. While we're at it, why are textbooks so unprovoking and aesthetically hideous?

Just thinking...