Design Revolution

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Emily Pilloton
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I had never heard of Project H until Dawn of Firebelly mentioned their work last year during camp. A few months ago, I ordered Design Revolution:100 Products that Empower People, only to find that it was authored by Project H founder, Emily Pilloton! The book is completely inspiring and I recommend it to anyone interested in using their design skills for good.

I just stumbled upon this clip of Emily on The Colbert Report and thought I would share.

war movie backwards

"American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter plains flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed." (74-75)

In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, he describes what Billy sees as he watches a World War 2 movie on rewind. I adore the scene because it has this lovely, optimistic undertone in spite of the documentary's unfortunate reality. When I read about the potential signing of a new nuclear arms reduction treaty yesterday, I immediately thought of this scene and its relevancy. Isn't it amazing that reality is now somehow reflective of Billy's ethereal vision?

sigh of fleeting relief

Upon reading today's news, I was relieved to find that the doomsday clock is now 6 whole minutes away from midnight, pushed back last night from 5 minutes. Bleak, but also, somehow, encouraging.

"The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which maintains the clock and puts an illustration of it on its cover, attributed the move to efforts by world leaders to reduce their countries' nuclear arsenals and collaborate on climate stabilization."

via reuters

Currently Enjoying

The Idealist.org: Handbook to Building a Better World.

Dawn at Firebelly gave these out as a gift to each of the campers this year. Though I have not finished, I found this quote to be pretty inspiring...

"One of my lifetime goals is to be as generous as I can be. I am not the most brilliant thinker in the world, so I am not going to push forward the frontiers of human knowledge. Nor am I especially ambitious in my career, so I am not going to be the CEO of the next Google. However, I do have moral ambition. I would like to stretch myself to be the most generous person I can be. I think that is in my power. Even if I fail, it can't hurt to try." -Cliff Landesman, donor, volunteer, Trickle Up, Oxfam America, Natural Resources Defense Council, Lake Champlain Committee, Alaska Center for the Environment, WNYC, Pedals for Progress, among others; Brooklyn, New York

Though I'm not totally ruling out the idea of drastically advancing human thought or creating and running my own multi-billion dollar web venture, I can relate to what he is saying here and I appreciate that.

The quote sort of sums up the book as well. It explains every level of involvement with non-profits and emphasizes the importance of giving, regardless of amount. So, I suggest checking it out if you have the time and interest.

Thanks Dawn!
^d
sarah

the less we use our power, the greater it will be

Just finished watching the Obama Cairo speech via the united states of jamerica.

So many things said that I've always wanted but never thought I'd hear. If you haven't seen it already, take a gander!

design and government

"Design Den Haag 2010-2018 researches the relation between Design and Government in Europe within an international context, from cultural, economic and social viewpoints. Starting spring 2010, Design Den Haag will organize a total of five public events biennially in the field of design, architecture and visual communication, with exhibitions, publications, lectures and debates, workshops and documentary films. Each edition will entail a collaboration between Den Haag and another European government Capital: Berlin, Stockholm, Rome, London and Paris. Every edition will be evaluated. The final evaluation of the five editions will be submitted as report to the European Union at the end of 2018. This report will contain recommendations concerning the betterment of relations between design and governance, and on governmental funds for the quality of design, architecture and visual communication."

I had planned on writing President Obama a nice long letter when I graduated about design and its political/social importance in hopes that he would consider increasing its role in government. (and maybe offer me a job! haha)

So, I found out today that an organization called Foundation Design Den Haag in Europe has already started collaborating with the government of Berlin to discuss the potentially dangerous connection between design and government (hmmm). The group started a workshop this week with students to create future political campaigns. Kirsten Verdel, member of Obama's campaign team, even gave a lecture about the campaign and strategy.

It sounds really interesting and I'm excited to see what the future holds for these guys. (The website has a cool feature that takes note of every ip address that visits the site and creates a unique tone from the number combination. they play while you navigate!)

Design.nl will be following all of their events. You can find them here!

^d
sarah

Chernobyl / 20 years later

(Image credits:misterbisson via:villageofjoy.com)

Found these images at Village of Joy. We're actually coming up on the 23rd anniversary (April 26th), so I thought I would post them here.

"It took three days before all permanent residents of Chernobyl and the Zone of alienation were evacuated due to unsafe levels of radioactivity. People from around the Soviet Union were forced to come and work here in order to liquidate the danger and evacuate the residents. Many of the workers died or had serious illness from radiation. My father was also recruited for this operation, but he bribed corrupt local officers with some good sausages which were rare and a valuable item at those times, so he’s fine an alive today."

(Image credits:left: Vivo (Ben) and right: Anosmia via:villageofjoy.com)

(Image credits:hanszinsli via:villageofjoy.com)

(Image credits:Vivo (Ben) via:villageofjoy.com)

“Pripyat funfair was due to be opened on May 1st. The Chernobyl disaster happened April 26th.

No one ever managed to ride the ferries wheel. It remains one of the most irradiated parts of Pripyat since the disaster, making it still dangerous today, 22 years on.”

This is all so terrifying. I think the universe might be trying to tell us something. You can find the rest of the article and a ton of pictures here.

the paper industry

As graphic designers, we produce a lot of waste. (I LOVE paper, and I'm sure most of you do too.) Fortunately, most of us are very aware of that and do our best to conserve when it is possible. But, maybe we aren't doing enough. I read this article from the Nation today about some mischief in the paper industry and feel pretty disgusted.

"Thanks to an obscure tax provision, the United States government stands to pay out as much as $8 billion this year to the ten largest paper companies. And get this: even though the money comes from a transportation bill whose manifest intent was to reduce dependence on fossil fuel, paper mills are adding diesel fuel to a process that requires none in order to qualify for the tax credit. In other words, we are paying the industry--handsomely--to use more fossil fuel.

...

Enter the paper industry. Since the 1930s the overwhelming majority of paper mills have employed what's called the kraft process to produce paper. Here's how it works. Wood chips are cooked in a chemical solution to separate the cellulose fibers, which are used to make paper, from the other organic material in wood. The remaining liquid, a sludge containing lignin (the structural glue that binds plant cells together), is called black liquor. Because it's so rich in carbon, black liquor is a good fuel; the kraft process uses the black liquor to produce the heat and energy necessary to transform pulp into paper. It's a neat, efficient process that's cost-effective without any government subsidy.

"Seventy-three percent of the energy we use in our mill system we produce," says Ann Wrobleski, IP's vice president for global government relations. "We feel like we're the original green industry, if you will." (In developed nations, paper is the third-largest industrial greenhouse gas emitter, behind the steel and chemical industries.)

By adding diesel fuel to the black liquor, paper companies produce a mixture that qualifies for the mixed-fuel tax credit, allowing them to burn "black liquor into gold," as a JPMorgan report put it. It's unclear who first came up with the idea--Wrobleski told me it was "outside consultants"--but at some point last fall IP and Verso, another paper company, formerly a part of IP, began adding diesel to its black liquor and applied to the IRS for the credit. (Verso nabbed $29.7 million at just one of its mills in the final quarter of 2008 for its use of mixed fuel.)"

You can read the rest of the article here.

Could the Paper Industry have proposed an addition to the legislation that included companies who already use alternative fuels? If they had brought this issue to the light in Congress, would Congress have any choice but to say yes? How could the leaders of the paper industry agree to such an unethical strategy? How could they be so insensitive to the well-being of this country and the world?

Although I am incredibly disheartened by this reality, it has opened my eyes just a little bit more to the opportunities for change and activism within the design world.

tools for changing the world

Bestuniversities.com, a website that researches and discusses top online schools, recently published this list of 100 blogs which they consider to be the best 100 blogs for those who want to change the world.

The world is full of visionaries and people who want to make a difference in the world, and many of those people share their knowledge online through their blogs. Whether you want to change the world through environment, humanitarianism, business, or any other way, there’s a blog out there that can offer you guidance and inspiration. Read on, and you’ll find 100 blogs that can help you change the world.

Pretty cool! They are broken up into categories and the Art section has a few design sites including the Social Design Blog. You can check out the other 99 blogs here.

^d
sarah

Moldova Protest via Twitter

I was a huge skeptic of Twitter until I started using it. Most of the people I speak to are still cynical, and I have to admit, I was really on the fence until reading this article from the New York Times.

"A crowd of more than 10,000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest against Moldova’s Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police.

The sea of young people reflected the deep generation gap that has developed in Moldova, and the protesters used their generation’s tools, gathering the crowd by enlisting text-messaging, Facebook and Twitter, the social messaging network."

You can read more about the protest here. It is great to see a young generation acting so closely within politics. Though the President, Vladimir Voronin, denounced the organizers as “fascists intoxicated with hatred," I am positive that their demonstration had some effect their fellow Moldovans, and certainly made an impact worldwide.



all images via B|zZare on Flickr

business cards!

We got our business cards back from the printer today! I struggled with an idea for so long, but finally came up with something I can be happy with. I wanted the card to help people/potential employers understand a lot about me in a very short time. People seem to react well to the different things I've chosen to present about myself, I hope that means it's an accurate portrayal.

I also wanted to show people that, though I love graphic design, it doesn't define me. I've realized that life here in America tends to revolve entirely around one's occupation. It would be rare to hear the question, "What do you do?" in somewhere like Scotland, but I feel like that's something I hear at least once a day.

I think that a successful graphic designer is influenced by everything around them, not just design. In his book, How to be a graphic designer, without losing your soul, Adrian Shaughnessy references an interview with British writer Iain Sinclair:

"When asked if he did research for his books, he replied that his whole life was research."

That's exactly how I feel! I hope it comes across in the card.

As a side note, it feels awesome to have these completed and printed. We all worked so hard on them and I'm glad that everyone is happy with the results!

^d
sarah

Kafka and the Problem of Authority

I am working on a magazine layout for Experimental Type and have chosen to use an article about the philosophical writings of Franz Kafka and Nagib Mahfuz.

"Franz Kafka and Nagib Mahfuz meet within the context of twentieth century existentialism. They attempt to analyze a man's existence. Because they are scrupulous in this attempt, cultural precedent is not admitted into their inquiries. They limit themselves to a deductive process on mankind."

The article presents a lot of opportunities for imagery. It attempts to connect two different men within one context and uses words like chaos and order, material and spiritual. Below are some of my (very rough) preliminary studies.

I started to focus mostly on the chaos/order words, probably because they give me the most room for experiment. During the critique, my professor and classmates leaned more towards the first set of images. We talked about more variety in column width and heirarchy. I also showed these photographs of the first experiment...

and we talked about incorporating them somehow. I would love any criticism or suggestions you guys have.

^d
sarah

thanks mugabe

This is an outdoor campaign for The Zimbabwean, a newspaper (a voice for the voiceless) produced by a group of exiled Zimbabwean journalists.

The effect of the Mugabe regime on the Zimbabwean economy was devastating and it has totally collapsed. Since then, money is worth nothing and the bank note pictured above (the Z$100 trillion dollar note) is not even worth enough to buy a loaf of bread.

It makes such a powerful statement. I think it's important that, as citizens of westernized countries, we are fully aware of situations like these. It's the only way to put our own obstacles into context, and hopefully a way for us to prevent similar situations in the future.

You can read more about it here.

drawing the line

Great poster about design ethics by Steve Haslip.

"This poster was made during my first semester class with the very wise Milton Glaser. The issue at hand was dealing with design ethics, and in an attempt to tackle the subject and further my point I drew the entire image by hand using a single line."

I am always a fan of projects that integrate hands-on media with digital. I think these detailed shots really show the benefits of developing ideas outside of the computer.



It seems only right to post Milton Glaser's witty commentary on socially responsible design, The Road to Hell alongside his student's awesome work.

The Road to Hell

By: Milton Glaser
August/September 2002
Reprinted from Metropolis Magazine, among other places.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of illustrating Dante’s Purgatory for an Italian publisher. I was impressed by the fact that the difference between those unfortunates in Hell and those in Purgatory was that the former had no idea how they had sinned. Those in Hell were there forever. Those in Purgatory knew what they had done and were waiting it out with at least the possibility of redemption, thus establishing the difference between despair and hope.

In regard to professional ethics, acknowledging what it is we do is a beginning. It is clear that in the profession of graphic design the question of misrepresenting the truth arises almost immediately. So much of what we do can be seen as a distortion of the truth. Put another way, “He who enters the bath sweats.”

Finally, all questions of ethics become personal. To establish your own level of discomfort with bending the truth, read the following chart: 12 Steps on the Graphic Designer’s Road to Hell. I personally have taken a number of them.

1. Designing a package to look bigger on the shelf.
2. Designing an ad for a slow, boring film to make it seem like a lighthearted comedy.
3. Designing a crest for a new vineyard to suggest that it has been in business for a long time.
4. Designing a jacket for a book whose sexual content you find personally repellent.
5. Designing a medal using steel from the World Trade Center to be sold as a profit-making souvenir of September 11.
6. Designing an advertising campaign for a company with a history of known discrimination in minority hiring.
7. Designing a package aimed at children for a cereal whose contents you know are low in nutritional value and high in sugar.
8. Designing a line of T-shirts for a manufacturer that employs child labor.
9. Designing a promotion for a diet product that you know doesn’t work.
10. Designing an ad for a political candidate whose policies you believe would be harmful to the general public.
11. Designing a brochure for an SUV that flips over frequently in emergency conditions and is known to have killed 150 people.
12. Designing an ad for a product whose frequent use could result in the user’s death.

safety first!

Today I found myself in a little predicament which required me to ride my bike two miles in the cold rain to the nearest post office. Two miles would be nothing on any other occasion, but today the car was definitely tempting.

I survived the short trip (quite comfortably actually) with the help of two very well-designed accessories. One was a portable fender that my brother gave me as a gift last year. The other was my helmet. I've wrecked enough times to know that riding without one is a very bad idea, regardless of how silly it looks. The good thing is, thanks to companies like Bern and Yakkay, you really don't have to look all that silly.



Today, I wore the Baker helmet with winter gear attached. The ear flaps kept me so warm and the visor kept the rain out of my eyes! I think they are geared more towards snow and skate, but the EPS foam complies with all bike safety standards. Plus, it's waterproof and dries quickly after each use!










If I could afford one, I would be sporting a Yakkay helmet.

"YAKKAY's products are developed on the basis of our insight into contemporary people’s specific wishes and issues. This insight is transformed into obvious and beautifully designed solutions. The solutions are YAKKAY's products."

I've always thought that stylish bike safety was an untapped market. Another opportunity for design to improve the human condition. How much would the number of bike-related deaths decrease if wearing a helmet was cool?

The Line

I found this comic at Virus Comix while stumbling this morning. A lot of text initially, so much I stumbled again before my curiosity got the better of me and I had to go back.

I am not sure of the author's real name because he doesn't give it.

"WINSTON ROWNTREE (not his real name) likes to make comics for some reason. Virus Comix is the pretend company under which he makes his work known, and Subnormality is his weekly comic in which he inflicts upon the world a variety of thinly-veiled misanthropic tirades (well, maybe). "

The story is pretty touching. It involves two young girls who both joined the BDM (League of German Girls, the female branch of the Hitler Youth) in their late teens. They choose opposite paths and, consequently, opposite fates.

I wanted to post it because there are some design elements involved that I don't generally associate with comics (the line and its separation of text, the overall composition) and I found it incredibly intriguing.

But, I also wanted to post it because it deals mainly with injustice and gives us an idea of what it really takes to stand up against it. It is easy for us to believe that the world is better now than it was then. It is easy for us to dismiss or ignore injustice when we are separate from it, when it doesn't immediately effect our own lives.

Sometimes I think narratives like this, though a little upsetting, are good for me. They remind me that there is always something more that I could be doing for the world, for my fellow humans. As I enter the professional design world, I am constantly reminding myself of the responsibility I have, as a visual communicator, to humanity. I hope that I am able to maintain my values, as one of these girls did, through even the darkest times.

^D
sarah

addicted to polos

I am not addicted to polos, nor have I ever been moderately interested in their existence. I have, however, had this post on my mind for some time now.

I read most of Naomi Klein's No Logo last semester (a surprisingly interesting read considering the lack of images and abundance of facts and figures). She talks about brands like Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, and Polo in hip-hop culture.

"Tommy Hilfiger, even more than Nike or Adidas, has turned the harnessing of ghetto cool into a mass-marketing science. Hilfiger forged a formula that has since been imitated by Polo, Nautica, Munsingwear and several other clothing companies looking for a short cut to making it at the suburban mall with inner city attitude.

Like depoliticized, hyper-patriotic Benetton, Hilfiger ads are a tangle of Cape Cod multiculturalism: scrubbed black faces lounging with their wind-swept white brothers and sisters in that great country club in the sky, and always against the backdrop of a billowing American flag...

Tommy Hilfiger started off squarely as white-preppy wear in the tradition of Ralph Lauren and Lacoste. But the designer soon realized that his clothes also had a peculiar cache in the inner cities, where the hip-hop philosophy of "living large" saw poor and working-class kids acquiring status in the ghetto by adopting the gear and accoutrements of prohibitively costly leisure activities, such as skiing golfing, even boating. Perhaps to better position his brand within this urban fantasy, Hilfiger began to associate his clothes more consciously with these sports, shooting ads at yacht clubs, beaches, and other nautical locales. At the same time, the clothes themselves were redesigned to appeal more directly to the hip-hop aesthetic."

I love Young Jeezy, and it is only appropriate that I mention his track, "My President" today, as Barack Obama took the position just over 48 hours ago. It might seem trivial, but I was pretty stoked on making a connection between what Naomi Klein is saying here and what Nas [he wrote the lyrics] is asking when he says,

"I said I woke up this morning, headache this big,
pay all they damn bills, feed all these damn kids,
buy all these school shoes, buy all these school clothes,
for some strange reason, my son addicted to Polos."

Nas's son is addicted to Polo because Tommy Hilfiger paved the path for their company. Hilfiger was successful because he ignored moral boundaries.

Negative links like these, links that bring design to society in a negative way, have helped me to realize just how important it is for me to use my design for good.

^D
sarah

Obama for Mankind

The inauguration is so close, and I can barely contain myself. I wish my thoughts communicated better with my words so that I could explain the incredible feeling I get every time I consider the possibilities for our country's future. I'm elated. The same hop I found in my step on November 5th finds its way back each time I recall our new president-elect, each time I recall the millions of others who set aside bias, personal interests, and even politics in hope for a change.

I never had a chance to post these on Election night, so here are a few of the photos I took of the Obama parade. That night I felt excitement and relief, but I also found a great degree of comradery. It was as if the minor details that divided us each day no longer existed, we did this together and we would celebrate it together. Best night of my life to date.

{CLICK on these images to enlarge//You can find more pictures of that night on my Flickr page: http://flickr.com/photos/sarahkeane}