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Converse: Social Design

Last week, we had our regular Converse event, and the topic was “social design.” A group of 25 charged and passionate people arrived ready to tackle the subject. Here are some of snippets from the evening.

What is Social Design? Does it need to be defined?
It’s with the idea the end result will bring proactive change.
It’s tackling social issues with design methodologies.
There is often a “giving back” aspect to the project.
Having graphic designers involved early in these projects allows the creative thinking skill set to be utilized in the solution, rather than just at the end to “make things pretty.”
Projects seem to be more successful when they are tackled by groups of people from a broad range of disciplines. The collaboration aspect is key. The designer role is just one part of a larger group.
Keep things as simple as possible and have the audience and users in mind to ensure the project can have longevity.
Make sure you are welcome in the community. Partner with them and ask the community what they want and need. Often, they have the best ideas.
Have an exit plan, so that when the group leaves, the solution can keep running successfully without you.

What topics might be good to tackle for Baltimore?

Bike lanes
Education
Increase manufacturing
Transportation
Trash
Pride for the city
Crime
Unemployment
Improve the city’s brand
Increase city population
Food deserts, nutrition education
Diabetes
Communication without violence
Homelessness
Improve education, health and recreate for teens
Instill confidence and values in children

Thanks to those who made it out, and look out for our next Converse event in March!

Converse is our roundtable event regularly occurring on the third Thursday of odd numbered months. Each event focuses on a different topic for discussion. Email converse@baltimore.aiga.org if you have any questions or if you would like to suggest a topic for a future Converse night.

September 22, 2011

by Alissa Jones
in AIGA Baltimore, Professional Development, Social Design
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Changes for AIGA Baltimore

There is a philosophy that an organization can only be as strong as its leader. Thankfully for the past three years, AIGA Baltimore has been fortunate to have a president who was dedicated to the best interests of our organization. Regrettably though, Chapter President, Christopher Jones, decided to step down at the end of August. During his tenure, he developed a dedicated team of board members, helped grow the membership of our chapter in a challenging economy and push forward multiple initiatives like the e-newsletter, blog and the printed newsletter, as well as coordinate a phenomenal speaker series including Jim Sherraden, House Industries, Design Army, Debbie Millman, and Steven Heller just to name a few.

Additionally, we’d like to thank four other board members whose terms have ended in the recent months: Beth Lacey Gill, Lindsay Story, Heather Joines and Elisa Watson. These individuals have donated countless hours to the chapter that can never be repaid. Please join us in thanking them for everything they have done.

It’s been said, “Change is the only constant in life.” As designers, our contribution has traditionally been the development of identities, collateral and websites. Designers are no longer content to be limited to these roles. To continue AIGA Baltimore’s legacy of service to our design community, the board is committed to furthering discussions about the role of design and the potentially larger impact it can have. With this new initiative, we hope to engage in important social issues in a deeper way than ever before. Please welcome our new Chapter President, Alissa Jones (no relation), and new Vice President, Brian Ghiloni who are excited to facilitate this larger conversation.

Moreover, AIGA Baltimore has several great changes planned for this fall and beyond:

Blends: Our monthly happy hours will now be the first week of every month and include informational sessions on specific topics of interest for designers.
Critique Hash: You loved it when we ran it last spring, so we are bringing it back on a regular basis. The third Saturday of every other month, starting this October, will be your chance to receive feedback on in-progress work and your portfolio from fellow designers.
Converse: We know how important it is to hear from leaders on design, so starting in November, the third Thursday of every other month, you can hear a variety of opinions on current hot topics at our roundtable sessions.
Pulp, Ink, and Hops: AIGA Baltimore has made the difficult decision that it is time to retire this event, and instead, we are going to focus on supporting AIGA’s new initiative for Design for Good. You can learn more about this initiative from the Executive Director of AIGA, Ric Grefé’s interview with Fast Company.
Communications: AIGA Baltimore is going to continue to improve our communications with members and other organizations throughout our region. Through building relationships, we plan to bring a greater variety of events and programs and help increase the value of design within the community.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or an interest in volunteering, please contact us! We always love hearing from our members. Lastly, don’t forget to check out our upcoming events.

August 13, 2011

Alabama Design Summit

At the end of July, Brian Ghiloni had the pleasure to attend the AIGA Alabama Design Summit in Birmingham. The workshop-style conference brought together more than 50 attendees from across the country and across multiple disciplines. Their challenge was to use design thinking to address social issues affecting rural Alabama and other parts of the country.

Over three days, four multi-disciplinary teams tackled a variety of regional issues from overcoming Nature Deficit Disorder to Eco-Tourism as a source of economic regeneration. Working together, each team needed to understand the problem, define an objective and develop solutions. The conference concluded with team presentations of actionable ideas, which could be implemented in 12–24 months.

As designers, our contribution has been traditionally limited to identities, collateral and websites. The AIGA Alabama Design Summit is an early preview of a new AIGA initiative called Design for Good. With this new initiative, designers have an opportunity to engage in these types of important social issues in a deeper way than ever before.

This last March, AIGA Baltimore organized Ideas for Action. The event brought together area creatives, community leaders and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health to address social issues affecting Baltimore. AIGA Baltimore is committed to furthering discussions about the role of design and the potentially larger impact it can have on communities.

If you want to become more involved in the community or you have an idea for a Design for Good project, send us an email. We want to hear from you!

———————————-

The Alabama Design Summit was produced in partnership with AIGA and Alabama Innovation Engine. Local participants included representatives from Freshwater Land Trust, Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, US Fish and Wildlife, Cahaba River Society, Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center, Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, International Expeditions, Auburn University Urban Studio, and University of Alabama Center for Economic Development.

Alabama Design Summit, people working together

Marshall Anderson and Jessi Arrington explain solutions to combat Nature Deficit Disorder. These ideas could be implemented within 12-24 months. Implementing any one could have a measurable effect to offset healthcare costs related to obesity.Today 1 out of 3 adults in Alabama is considered obese.

Alabama Design Summit, lots of sticky notes!

Idea prototyping's best friend… the sticky note!

August 16, 2010

Create Don’t Hate …Updates

"Work Hard" Billboard

Last October, AIGA Baltimore sponsored Create Don’t Hate with Worldstudio. This was a mentoring program for high school students in the Baltimore area. Graphic designers were matched up with students interested in visual arts from Patapsco and Patterson high schools. The groups worked together to create posters that later on could become billboards throughout the city. The billboards, after some delays, went up in July!!

Recently, The Baltimore Sun covered the billboards with a profile on the billboards and included quotes from some of the students involved. View the Baltimore Sun’s story here: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-08-13/news/bs-md-co-students-design-billboards-20100813_1_billboards-tolerance-three-students

The Billboards are in the following locations:
1 006350 Belvedere Ave NS 25ft E/O Linden Hgts F/W – S Baltimore City Y WORK 07/20/2010
2 008300 Calvert St WS 10ft S/O Federal F/S – 1 Baltimore City Y TOLERANCE 07/19/2010
3 011320 Curtis Ave ES 10ft N/O Patapsco F/S – 1 Baltimore City Y TONE 07/19/2010
4 013050 Dundalk Ave WS 380ft S/O Gusryan F/N – 2 Baltimore City Y MAKEUP 07/20/2010
5 014650 Eastern Ave NS 80ft E/O Bethel F/W – 1 Baltimore City Y TRASH 07/19/2010
6 019600 Federal St NS 920ft W/O Erdman F/W – S Baltimore City Y DIVERSITY 07/20/2010
7 023650 Frederick Ave NS 50ft E/O Loudon F/E – 3 Baltimore City Y LUV 07/19/2010
The program lasted four weeks, with students and mentors meeting once a week. The billboard designs were based on a variety of topics such as: stop crime, domestic violence, love your city, stop vandalism in the streets, don’t trash your city, and much more. This was a great experience for students and many saw how a career in the arts can be achieved.

Thanks again to all the mentors:

Dani Bradford
Cris Cimatu
Debbie Feldman Jones
Joseph Ford
Kimberly Hopkins
Alissa Jones
Megan Lavelle
Mary Leszczynski
Ilene Lundy
Chad Miller
Llara Pazdan
Lark Pfleegor
Katie Rosenberg
Kevin Sprouls
Shannon Tedeschi
Andrew Walters
Grace Wanzer

And another big thank you to the students of Patterson and Patapsco high schools for participating!

This program is showcasing the power of design to ignite change to the general public and business community so please join us in this closing event! To see other programs that are happening in other cities, visit http://www.designigniteschange.org.

June 16, 2010

TEDxOilSpill Poster Competition!

Thanks Joe and Sarah for passing this along… sorry for the delay. But if you’re sitting in front of your computer waiting for a project, here’s something to wrap your head around…

TEDxOilSpill Poster Competition!

Design a social issues poster which addresses one or more or any combination of the following questions or ideas :

– Exploring new ideas for our energy future.

– Show ways we can mitigate the current crisis in the Gulf or how to help, prevent, or consider it anew.

– Interpret the disaster visually. The impact on humans, wildlife, cultures, economies.

– The poster can be about the response, the cause, the consequences or something you add to the larger global discussion on offshore drilling and the impact of burning oil for energy and production of petroleum based products — like plastic on the environment and the oceans.

– Something related to the national emergency in the Gulf of Mexico or a broader energy issues concept that you develop.

Please design a poster that is 28.5 x 21.5 inches vertical format.

Convert your final design to jpeg format and upload it to

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1402793@N25/

You will need a free flickr account to add the photo to the group. Please type your email address in the comments of your image.

Poster entry requirements:
– Previously unpublished artwork
– 28.5 x 21.5 inches vertical format poster
– File dimension 3225×4275 pixels
– File resolution 150 DPI
– File color space RGB
– File format JPG (not progressive)
– File size smaller than 4MB

Submissions will be accepted until 9:00 PM (EST time) June 23, 2010.

Be sure to name the entry file YOUR name like jack_smith1.jpeg or jones_design.jpeg NOT TEDxposter or poster.jpeg

If your poster is picked for display, we will contact you for a PDF version at full size. Please convert fonts to outlines on a copy of your original file before making it a PDF. This ensures reproduction of your specific typefaces.

Note: There is no fee to enter. There are no awards or prizes of any value for having work picked. Just a good feeling of accomplishment and we’ll show your poster at the conference. This is not a scientific poster.

This poster competition is for Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia area designers and AIGA Baltimore and AIGA Washington DC members and AIGA New Orleans members and NOLA region designers. We’d love to have all of the U.S. enter or even the world but, we only have a few weeks before the conference so, we are limiting it to designers who work in the region plus New Orleans. Otherwise we would be swamped with too many entries to deal with. Normally design competitions take months to setup, months for people to enter, weeks for judging to happen. But this one is happening in just a few weeks with all volunteers. Thank you for understanding people of Moldova and Moose Jaw!

Confirmed Judges:

Ellen Lupton is the co-director of the graphic design MFA program at MICA in Baltimore and curator of contemporary design at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City

Aaris Sherin is a designer and associate professor of graphic design at St. John’s University in Queens, New York. Sherin’s writing and research focuses on the history of women in graphic design and is the author of SustainAble: A Handbook of Materials and Applications for Graphic Designers and Their Clients (Design Field Guide) from Rockport Press.

Scott Stowell is an award winning graphic designer from New York City where his studio, Open, does design and identity design work for a variety of clients in print and motion graphics. Scott lectures and writes about design and teaches at Yale University and the School of Visual Arts.

In 2008 Scott was awarded the Smithsonian’s National Design Award for Communication Design

Nancy Skolos is a partner with her husband Tom Wedell in their award winning design firm Skolos + Wedell. Posters designed by Nancy and Tom have won numerous awards and are in the collections of design museums world wide including MOMA and museums throughout Europe. A poster they designed was recently awarded a gold medal at the Polish Poster Biennial 2010. They both teach graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Competition concept, development, and organizer: Joseph Coates

Questions? email jmcoates@gmail.com

March 17, 2010

by AIGA Baltimore
in Professional Development, Social Design
Leave a comment

Donating Design …

I’ve got about 22 minutes before dinner, 45 minutes before the dogs need walking and an hour before a new episode of Top Gear, so I better get cracking with this post. I was thinking of a recent project I did not win and I thought of you AIGA’ers and design blog enthusiasts. Upon hearing of my work with another firm, I got a call to do design work. But it wasn’t a typical call—and when I say typical—it wasn’t a robo-telemarketer selling health insurance. It was a bona-fide call. But as it turns out, the call was from a foundation with a solicitation for donated work because they love my work.

Of course they mentioned that their budget is tight and they have no money, but they wanted an interesting design for their upcoming event. I suggested a fee and they declined. Which had me thinking: “do you really love my work if the work won’t support me? Would you love my work if I spent a half-hour (my available “free time”) designing your project?”

At an AIGA event two years ago, for instance, David Plunkert, of Spur Design, mentioned that even in donated work, he develops an estimate and an invoice that reflects the actual value. That’s an idea I like, because what I want more than anything (almost more than getting paid) is to have people value the work that I’m doing, even at the expense of the pesky conversation of value getting in the way. But, let’s be honest. Money is at the base of the discussion. Always. Or at least gratitude. Once, I did work and got a $100 Panera card. that was great stuff!

Four our profession, most important to the equation for donated work is engaging selectively in a matrix of work that involves either a cause that I support (Shepherd Fairey’s Obama Posters), something that allows for a breaking of a boundary (creativity, etc.), and/or doing work for a cause that can benefit from our personal effort (i.e. Haiti fundraising, for instance). In other words, one should manage donated work (printing, pr services) like one would with giving money. As it turns out, money is often easier to give. No one calls you back two or three times telling you the decimal in the wrong place.

As for serving on a board, I’ve often heard that people, no matter what the profession, say one should not do for a board what they do for a profession: meaning the lawyer shouldn’t become the legal counsel or the accountant shouldn’t stay up late balancing the books. Again, I believe that as long as one is aware, it’s a matter of personal preference. Those knowledgeable can clear the way for that board to secure those valuable services, by knowing what to look for. While experiences are different, I’ve been nominated to a committee because ostensibly I could design. And as a CEO once mentioned to me: “there are three things I nominate board members for: money, wisdom or work,” you still don’t want them looking at you like you’re the media department. Contribute in disciplines that are outside of your profession because you can extend your experience, and extend their value for the work.

It’s difficult to estimate that if you, as a great creative, contribute to a project that you may introduce the client to the value of great design. Sometimes this happens. Certainly, sometimes it does not. The client’s gratitude can evaporate as soon as the work commences. They box you in creatively. Other conditions arise. Or, other times, they may become more cumbersome than a paying client. It’s important to have a strategy towards these projects and don’t be afraid to be clear up front.

While creatives are often happy to contribute their talents to causes, be measured in how much of that you do, because sometimes firms become addicted to free work, spending all their time looking for free work, when some of the work they commission should be paid.

In an age when it’s more and more valuable for designers to embrace the inherent and latent value of their work, be mindful of your approaches when it comes to the donation of design work.

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