Tis The Season

As the holidays approach and charitable gift giving is (hopefully despite our economic woes) more on people's minds I find it's good to review the annual chart created by the Christian Science Monitor: The 50 Largest US Charities Ranked By Total Income (PDF). Of particular interest are the grades they've received from different watchdog organizations (#4 Goodwill only gets a C+ from AIP); percentages of total assets spent on programs (#9 American Cancer Society is near the bottom with 70.8%); and salary & benefits of highest ranking official (#45 Museum of Modern Art pays $928,818 for their top dog).

Download it HERE.

R.I.P. Rally in Peace

D.I.Y. protest posters and guerilla signage, all at the click of a button.

Power to the Poster is a "graphic design democracy project". Essentially, a ready supply of well-designed guerilla style posters available for download on a host of issues. The hosts provide these posters as 11x17" b&w PDFs, free for anyone, and encouraged to print, pass, post; anything you want as long as they help to express yourself.

"There is a restless, hopeful movement with eyes set on new possibilities for change leading to the prosperity of the collective. And, of course, there is the clutter-ridden madness of a constant control room information flow." This site hopes to use the former to "dismantle the latter".

Dam, say what?

Global warming might not be a new message, but here it is given renewed interest with an unseen messenger in the watery canals of Amsterdam.

Switch is MTV Network's campaign for Global Climate change, created by Ogilvy Action as a wiki-style clearinghouse for creative ways to reinvent the ways we live that "are cool for us and the planet".

In this example, what better place to create viral attention inexpensively about the rising sea levels. Inflatable hands hold up this simple message and drive the curious to www.mtvswitch.org.

Designing for Forever

Public Radio International's excellent series Studio 360 had a recent segment on folks trying to design signage for radioactive waste storage areas that need to last (and be understood) for millennia...

Water in Africa

Good 50x70 had the great idea to invite designers to submit posters for good causes.

Artist, designer, and urban planner in New York City, Candy Chang, did this great poster in collaboration with James Reeves for the African Medical and Research Foundation (amref) to bring awareness about the scarcity of safe water access in Africa.













Source.

Unicef Campaign in China

This is the new campaign of the UNİCEF association concerning China.
A strong baseline "Don't ignore me" and a touching creation by the Ogilvy & Mather Shanghai Agency.

The sign says : Don’t ignore me.
China has over 1.5 million underprivileged children.
To help, call 020 82266673.












































via commercial-archive.com

Book Review: In Defense of Food

I finally had a chance to read In Defense of Food: An Eaters Manifesto, yet another fantastic book by journalist/author Michael Pollan. His books are consistently engaging and inevitably educate me on topics in which I already thought I was well-versed. This slim volume in no exception and manages to pack a big punch as it deconstructs one of the central food paradigms that we in the US have taken for granted (dubbed "Nutritionalism"). As with Omnivore's Dilemma and Botany of Desire, Pollan's sheer enthusiasm for (good) food and the fact that he is not working for a specific group or agenda helps him make a much more compelling argument about changing the way we relate to eating. The essential core of the book is the mantra "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants," which was originally introduced in a New York Times essay. Those three short phrases, as simple as they seem, contain the seeds to some very big ideas and Pollan fills out the book with well-researched facts and rules of thumb that forgo the difficult to follow recommendations of typical guides to healthy eating. This should be required reading for everyone in the US (are you listening Oprah?).

Donations For Creations: Richmond, VA - Nov. 22nd

As part of their final project, students from Design Rebels, my class on socially conscious graphic design at Virginia Commonwealth University, have set up an event for this Saturday called Donations for Creations that will benefit Daily Planet, an area homeless services center. Folks throughout the Richmond area are encourage to attend:

Donations for Creations
November 22nd, Saturday
2:00pm – 8:00pm
1509 W. Main Street
Richmond, Virginia

Come bring donations of winter clothes and non-perishable food for the Daily Planet homeless aid provider, and exchange them for artwork from local artists and artisans.

Check our blog for a list of items the Daily Planet needs to aid people without a place to live this winter.

The more generous your donation, the more fabulous the art piece you can take home with you. Please come out and join together with Richmond's artists to promote art while helping the community.

If you can't make it to our event or would like to support the Daily Planet directly, you may do so here.

There will also be musical acts performing throughout the afternoon.

The students/event were already featured on a local web video program MashUp (click the Nov. 14th episdoe).

Get more info on their blog HERE.

Take Back The Filter: Success!

A while back I posted about an attempt to get Brita (and other similar companies) to recycle their disposable water filters, that many people use as an alternative to bottled water, and I am very happy to learn that the campaign was a success!

The Take Back The Filter Campaign has just announced that at long last Brita will be implementing a recycling program for it's water filters by partnering with Recycline (makers of recycled toothbrushes and razors). They will be collecting filters starting in January 2009 at pick up locations in Whole Food stores and also via the mail.

Full details are HERE.

Congratulations to Beth Terry who started the campaign and whose efforts made this possible!

(Why the massive effort had to be made by an individual and not just be a matter of course of running a business in today's world is another matter to address later).

(Bad) Memory Lane

Sticker Guy!, producer of vinyl stickers for the punk rock masses since 1993, has put together a commemorative gallery of stickers they produced during the (happily nearly over) W years. Check 'em all out on Flickr HERE.

Blog Roll: Urban Prankster

Interested in keeping up on the latest in "pranks, hacks, participatory art, flash mobs, and other creative endeavors" the Urban Prankster blog, edited by Charlie Todd of the infamous Improv Everywhere, is the place to go. Recent posts include Iraqi War Veterans Raiding a Gas Station, Welcoming Home Strangers At JFK, and The Fake NY Times on CNN.

Gun Rope

JUMP is yet another striking product from Atypyk. I really like the idea, since kids (at least where I'm from) are always drawn to guns as toys and the fact that this one can be used for something other than just the typical shooting action is very satisfying.

This product will be on display at the
Biennale Internationale Design in Saint-Étienne, France, November 15-30.

Yes, Virginia WAS a swing state!

A few friends of mine reminded me that I had presaged the reality of Virginia going blue four years ago, when I made the 8 Percent Virginia voter registration campaign. The campaign was basically just a mini-website with the headline "Yes, Virginia IS a Swing State", banner ads of the same, and a poster (shown left) which was available as a downloadable PDF. I also had a limited number of posters silkscreend and eventually offset printed a larger quantity which I gave away for free. They turned up all over my hometown of Richmond and got a good response online and in the press. Sadly Virginia still went red in 2004 by the same 8% margin, but it would be nice to imagine the posters put the seeds of hope out there. And it is certainly nice to know that Virginia could eventually fulfill my hopes!





[Day of Defeat in game posters created by a fan of the campaign]

War Is Over...If You Want It

New Yorkers were surprised with free "special edition" copies of the New York Times this morning with the lead story "IRAQ WAR ENDS". The issue which is dated July 4, 2009 also features articles on expanded bike paths and free universities among other positive news.

The papers, which were distributed throughout Manhatten were a project of the group Becasue We Want It, which according to Gawker is actually famous pranksters The Yes Men in yet another guise.

You can read all of the articles on their accompanying website HERE. Watch their video news release below...

CheatNeutral

CheatNeutral allows you to offset your infidelities by funding others to be faithful. Sounds ridiculous? That's the point. The creators of the site want to point up the problems with the idea of carbon offsets by parodying it with an analogue that easier for most people to understand:

Jealousy and heartbreak are a natural part of modern life. And sometimes, no matter how hard we try, it's just not possible to be faithful.

At Cheatneutral, we believe that we should all try to reduce the amount we cheat on our partners, but we also realise that fidelity isn't always possible.

That's why we help you neutralise your cheating. Your actions are offset by a global network of fidelity, developed by us. By paying Cheatneutral, you're funding monogamy-boosting offset projects - we simply invest the money you give us in monogamous, faithful or just plain single people, to encourage them to stay that way.

This video tells more of their story and response to their business idea...


What's your take on carbon offset/carbon credits: An effective tool for environmental change or a way to feel less guilty about business as usual?

Top 10

I recently had the honor of being asked to do a guest Top 10 post for Blogs.com. My chosen subject: "The intersection of design and activism". It was nice to give some publicity to the blogs I enjoy reading. Check out my list HERE.

And in other news...

No this is not a parody article from The Onion. This story is actually featured on the homepage of my local newspaper.

And it's started already...

Spotted this on Cafe Press while looking for a graphic for my last post. Amazing...

Yes We Did!

Now back to work...

VOTE (for Obama) TODAY!

Don't forget to vote today (if you're voting for Obama that is).

Image: Obama O's from AirBed & Breakfast

via A Million Monkeys Typing

Stephen Speilberg and Friends on Voting

And the get out the vote videos just keep coming. This one by Stephen Spielberg and MySpace is theoretically non-partisan which makes it less appealing to me (You really don't care how people vote, just that they do? I think not.)


If you missed the register to vote version (that this one references) you can see it HERE.


From 5 More Friends
Thanks Julien!