Better Design for Social Causes March 1, 2009

Okay! So today I hit the snooze like a billion times, and rushed my way over to Princeton for a FREE design conference. What I didn’t realize is that Princeton doesn’t even have an art program (at least graphic design..) they have a student design business, and they make posters and websites for schools and events within Princeton university. Apparently there are a lot of them then, because they are able to put on this conference and it just seemed like there were a lot of them, almost more than probably in our department maybe.. and they were ALL Asian. Which I thought was interesting I guess. There were A LOT of Asians there. Just an observation.
SO: here’s the conference: there were all sorts of important famous people there!  I guess I’ll list them as I list what I learned.
Winterhouse. It’s a design firm made of up husband and wife team, Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel. They were pretty awesome, and they’ve worked on some really neat projects. They have a couple of websites, like Below The Fold, and http://www.designobserver.com/.  Jessica Helfand made a book about scrapbooking, you can check some of the stuff out here: thedailyscrapbook its cool she talked about how  scrapbooks are visual representations of people’s life and history. But these are UN-visual people. So its neat to see how they lay stuff out or plop things on the page–how organic and nifty some of them are. And how visuals and touch-ables are important to people’s memories.
They talked a bit about their design in the “greater good” and different groups they’ve worked for. They talked about the US design policy and how we should write to our congressmen. I’m not sure why though. One I thought was cool is they designed the identity system for Teach for America! Tori Barrett!!

Then we heard from Debra Rizzi, who has a design firm, Rizco. She created an  eco-educational program called Beleaf. I learned a lot about how to be an eco-friendly company, designer, and user of the planet.

Myfootprint.org

Office: Travel//carpool. Carbonfund.org Paperless paychecks//I know my office does direct deposit, yet we still get paper statements every time. Her company just makes pdfs. Pay bills online. (sometimes I wonder what will happen to the postal service…) thegreenoffice.com

Design: the secret life of paper. Check out this video. Only about one half of paper is recycled, and when it goes to the dump, it releases methane which contributes to global warming like no other.
Get toilet paper that’s recycled.

The green book. Here are two design/green sites about our role as graphic designers. http://designersaccord.org/http://www.re-nourish.com/
Here’s a site about paper! http://paperspecs.com/ I hope I can use this site to pick my paper, probably for my resume/letterhead/envelope. And then I can say that I use paper approved by the FSI and FSC and all that.

DESIGN with the WORLD in mind.
Some things that to think about:
stay away from lamination, and excessive plastic packaging. Use varnish and aqueous coatings.
Try to design pieces that can be easily updated when changes occur from higher up. Minimize printing processes.
Use PDF proofs, minimize inks and colors. Use light ink coverage.
Go smaller! Use gang runs to maximize paper.
Tell the client how to properly use/dispose of your piece, recycle!
Upload to a FTP site rather than burning a disc.
Use certified printers.
1- Is it necessary?
2- Purchase green energy sources
3- support green products
4- recycle!

ECOFONT here’s a font that has holes in it, so it actually it uses up to 20% less ink! and apparently it doesn’t look so bad either! we’ll have to see…

So, we heard from some other people// the guy who started alistapart! which is so cool because i’ve used that site a bunch with my web design class. its a very helpful and legit online journal.

but here’s another guy that stood out to me. Leland Maschmeyer. This guy isn’t a graphic designer at all, but he’s partners with a guy who is. His job is to be a strategist. Anyway, he’s very well-read, and gave a cool presentation, very compelling. he talked about how nowadays, we can pick our media so that we don’t have to challenge our belief systems. He showed how you can get your news from a source that you agree with, you can date people who share your values because of dating filter services. He said that more kids than ever are being home schooled, so that we can “shelter them”. We are so self-focused, we are self-focused collectives, and we can recreate places that reinforce our world-view. Leland talked about a church that made a strip mall inside their church so they could only have the stuff they want there. And he talked about the Crystal Cathedral that has a gym and family center and an art gallery and all sorts of stuff on a whole CAMPUS (which I know about already). But how we can just huddle around other people like us. Or people who move to the other side of town because of political beliefs, where they will be more comfortable or at least not egged. We are choosing to communicate with those who agree wit us. We don’t care about other people. He said we suffer from what he called, empathy deficit disorder.
I heard so much GOSPEL in what he was saying. He said, people always feel the need for self-expression, to get your opinions out. It is stressed in our culture. But really, we just need to just shut up and listen! While I think that he was bashing Christianity for this exclusivity, (I think he is right in observing this however) the greater purpose of being a Jesus-follower is to in fact bank on the uncomfortable, to bridge gaps, to be a good neighbor, not care WHO your neighbor is. Its about reaching out to people unlike you, and hearing their side of things, to love them and tell them they are loved by God. And realizing, yes Leland, you are so right when you say, its NOT about ME– not at all.
To shift gears back to art, Leland talked about relational art—art installations or actions that bring people together and have them interact. Like telephone booths in a gallery, but people are eavesdropping on the other side. Or a guy who builds a plywood structure room random places and gets food and cooking ware and just feeds people. He uses food a s asocial glue between people.
America’s democracy is continuing because of the habits of the heart, Leland quoted from an old book he read. And he said, our individuality and lack of community is the same way. We sure have “understanding” because we are living in age with more information and access to learning than anyone ever. But what we lack, he says, is EMPATHY. I agree. I don’t do a terribly good job in this department, but I see where my world-view, while sometimes purposefully avoids “sin and evil” and all, is actually called to reach out and be uncomfortable. Its what we’re called to do. I think that’s terrific, if we can actually get better at achieving it.
just to prove the point, here’s the picture of the campus of Crystal Cathedral:

PHEW!

then, we heard from a guy, i think the partner in the design agency, brian collins, yeah.. he took a group of design students to Alabama, to see what they could do. Instead of being problem solvers, he says, we should be problem-finders. In a sense, don’t wait around for problems to solve, go find the problems. I like that. They found out that water conditions for these poor areas of Alabama were giving them all sorts of health problems because there was ecoli in the water in the wells. And so they found out why. They didn’t have water meters to regulate the water. So they set out to fix it. They made shirts that just read, 425. (that’s how much money a water meter is) And they asked for $425 for each tshirt, as a donation. And apparently they’ve raised $40,000. Which is awesome. They also came up with a campaign to print in a whole newspaper to get distributed. Very successful. So, a way that design is helping the world!
Here’s the site: 425

sounds pretty cool if you ask me.

i learned a whole lot more than this, but i suppose i wasnted to  touch on these subjects about my day. the sites listed throughout, i’ll put here again for your convenience. i haven’t had much time to look through them but i’m excited to read some of these on a regular basis.

winterhouse.com

thedailyscrapbook.com

Rizcodesign.com

Myfootprint.org

Carbonfund.org

thegreenoffice.com

http://designersaccord.org

http://www.re-nourish.com

http://paperspecs.com

http://www.ecofont.eu/ecofont_en.html

http://www.buyameter.org/projectm.html