A Look at Art & Design

Art and Propaganda by Milton Glaser

Art and Progaganda by Milton Glaser. There is nothing else for me to say except read it for yourself. Found via icograda.

Dave Werner :: Inspiring, amazing, creative

Whew! After nearly 4 weeks of non stop 16-18 hour days working on client accounts, I'm back to blogging (I hope.) I had planned on writing something of value over the weekend for my readers here at ArtLOOK, but having just seen the site I'm about to share with you....well, a look at this guy's creative portfolio is worth more than any of the words I could write.

Amazing, creative, inspirational...this 25 year old designer is truly a brilliant mind and seems to be a pretty darn nice guy to boot. Things that I especially loved were Impact, Reflect/Respect, and the Mondavi wine bottles. Dave Werner just makes me want to work harder, learn more, read more, see better...

Please check out Dave Werner's Portfolio.

The One Campaign

During this last week of celebration of America's independence, I feel good.  I remember the TV show FRIENDS where Phoebe and Joey debated the unlikely notion of "the selfless act."  This last week I have taken steps to reach beyond my own borders to help others who are in greater need than myself. I wanted to reach out and learn more about strangers in need. On this week of America's independence I wanted to in my own small way provide a tiny shred of independence for someone else...or at least begin to work in that direction.  It was to be a "selfless act" but it didn't turn out to be so. My efforts (only just begun) feel really really good.  I feel connected to something bigger than myself and it is incredibly satisfying on a deep emotional level. It is a feeling I haven't experienced before.

What does this have to do with design?  Well, really not much.  This post won't talk about making a great online portfolio, or how to market your art.  But... it is my firm belief that as a designer and as a citizen of this world, I need to have a solid understanding of current events and issues effecting my neighbors on a global scale. I believe that as a designer I need to have a basic understanding of different cultures and that the field of graphic design is uniquely positioned toward ethics and social responsibility. I believe that significant damage has been done to the reputation of our nation during the present administration and I believe that leaving repair up to a handful of politicians is not going to be terribly effective..regardless of their party.  I believe that it is the people who can make a difference as long as we don't all sit in front of our TVs grumbling over the state of the things and do nothing.  We must move.  We must act.  And it is through this action that we might not only better someone else's life, strengthen diplomatic bonds between nations, but also experience that amazing feeling that comes with the "selfless act."

For those of you who read ArtLOOK regularly, you might already know that I have taken the pledge at Eric Karjaluoto's Design Can Change regarding issues surrounding global warming.  I believe this is an issue we should all be concerned with and act upon.  Making lifestyle changes toward this end, even the smallest changes (replacing light bulbs, using both sides of the paper in our printers), should be givens just as we wake up each morning and brush our teeth.  Designers, please consider taking the pledge.

Participating in one movement or concern shouldn't necessarily prevent us from caring about or participating in others.  Additional concerns I have are:
HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
Education for children and women in developing countries
Clean water for all

I don't consider myself a terribly religious person; however, I know that rather than having religion tear us apart it can, (and should) bring us together.  Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions all speak of the tenets on care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger.  This is a common bond.  From a political standpoint, lets look to the 2008 presidential candidates to inquire what they would do for the poorest in the world.  As Bono states in the July issue of Vanity Fair "It's hard to hate a country which puts your kids in school and gives medication to save your husbands life."

Books and publications: I have read the following to better educate myself on a variety of topics.  I recommend them to you:
The Mighty Heart by Mariane Pearl:  Story of Wall Street Journalist, Daniel Pearl
Dispatches From the Edge - Anderson Cooper
Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (excellent excellent!)
Note from my Travels - Angelina Jolie
The Assault on Reason - Al Gore
July Issue of Vanity Fair, Africa - Co edited by Bono (pick it up at the newsstand or visit the VF website)

Websites I have visited and read:
Save the Children
The One Campaign - Devoted to fighting extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS
Ryan's Well - Amazing story of ONE boy making a difference. H20 For Africa
One Shared World
Global Volunteers International
Vanity Fair, Africa
Vanity Fair, Green - sorry folks but each time I tried to access this site for the URL it crashed my browser! But you can find the issue of this magazine in your local library, I'm sure.
(Red)
Live Earth

Websites encouraging artistic expression and marketing for artists of developing countries:
Novica
Aid for Artisans - Please see my article in the August issue of INK (distributed in CT)

Steps I have taken thus far:
In addition to signing the pledge for Design Can Change, I have joined Live Earth.  I hope some of you were able to enjoy yesterday's amazing concerts from around the world and that the program offered you some ways in which you might be able to assist saving this beautiful planet.

I have also added my voice to The ONE Campaign. I have signed the Declaration, sent emails to Congressmen Joe Courtney, Senator Joseph Lieberman and Senator Chris Dodd. I have joined as a volunteer to ONE and will be writing newspapers to increase awareness and open discussions up about extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS. It is my hope that this post also serves as a start to my beginnings on opening up and continuing a dialog on these issues.  I have made a small donation to ONE and will be also wearing my ONE wristband everyday with pride. A larger goal for myself, is to visit Tanzania in 2008 or 2009 to learn more about this area and to assist however I am needed.  I have looked into Global Volunteers International and to this end, I will put a percentage of my earnings toward this goal.

When I have finished this post, I will email everyone I know inviting them to visit ArtLOOK and the resources listed here to learn more about sustainability and extreme poverty.  I will send the URL to my contacts at the press and just about anyone else I can think of.  I don't know if my words will fall upon deaf ears.  I don't know who will take action.  I don't know who will provide feedback but I know...Americans are among the most generous and kind hearted people in the world.  And if ONE man, Greg Mortenson, can nearly single handedly begin a school building project in Pakistan and ONE boy, Ryan Hreljac, can build 266 wells providing clean water for Africa...I can certainly write a few articles and letters.  If just one of you clicks the banner below and signs your voice to the ONE campaign, my time writing here is well spent.  ONE is not looking for your money...just your signature and consideration.  With the some of following good people signing the ONE declaration we would be in good company: Claudia Schiffer, Bono, Dave Matthews, Danny Glover, Bob Geldof, No Doubt, John Cusack, Kate Hudson, George Clooney, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Kate Bosworth, Liam Neeson, Susan Sarandon, Steve Buscemi, Orlando Bloom, Brad Pitt, Heidi Klum, Tom Hanks. Already almost 2.5 million Americans have signed up for the ONE campaign...Please join us.

 


 

Live Earth Concerts

Live Earth kicks off it's series of concerts around the world today, starting in Sydney.  Airing on several TV and satellite radio stations be sure to tune in for some great performances and music from around the world.  Take the pledge, text your friends or visit the Live Earth website and see what your carbon footprint is.

Going Green - Terracycle Organic Garden Products Being Sued by Miracle-Gro

Terracycle manufactures organic gardening products made from worm poop. The poop is liquified into a potent yet Eco-friendly plant food and then packaged using reused soda bottles. Terracycle collects the bottles, washes them and then pays you for sending in the bottles. Evidently the tiny but brilliant Terracycle located in Trenton New Jersey has scared the pants off of big huge conglomerate Scotts Miracle-Gro. Terracycle is now being sued by Miracle-Gro on two counts.

1. Scotts claims that Terracycle's packaging looks too similar to Miracle-Gro and will confuse customers, (are you kidding me?) because of the green and yellow label and depicted flowers/veggies.

2. Scotts also objects that TerraCycle says its plant food is as good or better than "a leading synthetic plant food" and is refusing Scotts' demands that TerraCycle hand over its scientific tests conducted at the Rutgers University EcoComplex.  Miracle-Gro also refuses to hand over it's findings to Terracycle.

Terracycle has earned the Zerofootprint seal. In it's search for 20 oz soda bottles the company will "donate $0.05 to the charity of your choice or save 10 square feet of the rainforest through The Nature Conservancy. We provide four boxes with prepaid UPS labels and all you have to do is mail them back full of 20 oz. soda bottles with the labels removed. After they're cleaned, your bottles are used to package TerraCycle Plant Food™. To date, we have been able to rescue over 1,524,382 bottles."

Wanna sign up to help Terracycle's search for bottles?  I did!  Sign up here.

This is an inspiring story about sustainability and responsible design on so many levels.  I wish Terracycle all the best.

Read more about the lawsuit at the blog "Sued by Scotts"

Not sure if this is true, but on the blog Apartment Therapy, where I originally read about Terracycle,  commenter Chris Johanesen states that on the label of Miracle-Gro, Scotts claims to "own" the green color when used on lawn and garden products!!

Better Wall :: Authentic Museum Street Banners for Your Home

Ok...this is so cool.  Authentic museum street banners are now available to the public for display in the home.  Little did I know until surfing one of my favorite blogs, Apartment Therapy NYC, that all those vinyl museum banners were just tossed into the landfill after the show closed. (Of course they are...I just never thought about it before.)  Better Wall had a better idea.  Why not refurbish those banners and offer them to people who would love to make a dramatic statement in their home. All banners are, of course, limited edition and proceeds from each sale goes back to help support the museum.

Banners are the real thing having lived a previous life hanging from museums facades or street lamps.  They are two sided and made of either vinyl or heavy canvas.  All banners are carefully cleaned and stored in keeping with appropriate archival protocol and each comes with a certificate of authenticity.

You can choose banners from exhibitions held in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Baltimore, Chicago, LA, Denver and Sacramento. Some of the available banners include Warhol's self portrait from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Bronzino Renaissance Portrait from The Art Institute of Chicago; Edvard Munch Angst from The Museum of Modern Art.  Upcoming banners include Paul Cezanne, Diego Rivera, Pablo Picasso, and Paul Gauguin.

What a beautiful thing...a great design for your wall, support for the arts and a creative way toward eco-friendly responsible design.  Better Wall has also integrated their passions for art, design, and the environment into a program for museums called the Recycle and Reuse Program.  Hats off to you Better Wall!

Visit their website

Keeping My Pledge - What I'm Doing to Go Green

The pledge that I took last week over at Design Can Change was pretty simple.  It goes like this:

In my professional practice, I will endeavor to:
Learn:  Engage in the topic and seek to understand the issue
Think: Make a sustainable mindset second nature
Act: Put my knowledge to use in my daily work
Inform: Share information and build awareness for sustainability
Unite: Spark change through collective strength.

I encourage you to visit the Design Can Change website, read the resources and pdfs and take the pledge.

I've been thinking about what it is I can do as an individual toward being a more responsible designer. Because I work from my home, I'm also including items I can do as a homeowner. Here's my list:

1. Use both sides of the paper from my printer. Reusing paper as scrap for notes, sketching etc.
2. Ride my bike to the post office.
3. Instead of using plastic bags at the grocery store and the office supply store, I'm committed to bringing the lovely tote given to me by my friend Pirjo Loisa for bringing home purchases. As a fellow tree lover, I think Pirjo will like this idea.
4. Replacing those old fashion lightbulbs in my office with CFL energy saving bulbs.
5. I'm faced with having to replace some appliances in my home, I'll be replacing all with energy star models which will also save some bucks on my electric bill.  Energy saving insulation, exterior doors and windows will also help.  According to Time Magazine's issue "The Global Warming Survival Guide," April 9, 2007, you can also get a tax break for going green. "This is the first year you can take advantage of incentives built into the landmark 2005 Energy Policy Act, which will reduce your tax bill if you simply buy a fuel-saving car or install energy efficient appliances."
6. I'll be including those Design Can Change PDFs in my proposals and client materials.

Going Green - How Designers and Clients Can Help the Environment

Those of you who have been reading ArtLOOK know I've endeavored to practice, speak and write about Responsible Design and how it can effect our global community. It was with great pleasure that I received an email from Peter Pimentel at smashLAB announcing their newest initiative: Design Can Change.

Pimentel writes, "This initiative works on the premise that designers are a critical hub to business, industry and the public; therefore, we have the ability to lobby, inform, and subsequently enable positive change, by working together. Key to this effort is the pledge: a set of guidelines for becoming more sustainable. It gives designers an actionable framework for embracing sustainability and also helps quantify our collective strength as we lobby for change."

SmashLAB and Design Can Change invites you to visit the website. Read and learn about sustainability, and please take the pledge. After having made the commitment to embrace responsible design you are welcome to download the logos (see my sidebar) for use on your blog/website with a link to www.designcanchange.org.  Download this PDF and send it to the designers you know.  Recommend and include in your studio materials this PDF for the buyers of design.  You can also read more about Design Can Change at Eric Karjaluoto's blog ideasonideas.

I salute smashLAB for taking this initiative and I firmly believe that together we can change design and our business practices for the better and make a positive impact on our global community.  Please join us.

I also include here again the First Things First manifesto.

New Eco Friendly Rebuilding Plan for New Orleans

Brad Pitt spoke with Ann Curry today (MSNBC) about efforts to bring eco-friendly housing to New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The sustainable design competition sponsored by Global Green was won by Matthew Berman and Andrew Kotchen of Workshop/APD. On Thursday, Bitt announced a major step forward toward rebuilding the lower 9th ward which was one of the hardest hit areas of New Orleans. Ground breaking for the winning eco design is expected in months. Nice to see.

Also see Rebuilding a better, greener New Orleans and see the finalist designs.

Eric Karjaluoto :: The Culpable Designer

I never have enough time to just think.  I'm not talking about the day to day decision making type of thinking, but I refer here to that relaxed "let's just ponder the universe" type of idle time. I think it is so necessary to take time to be with ones thoughts and yet it seems like such a luxury.

I was inspired to do some thinking tonight after having read another of Eric Karjaluoto's posts at ideasonideas, called The Culpable Designer. I haven't thought a lot about responsible design since my last post on the subject here at ArtLOOK and so I was happy that I came across Eric's very thoughtful post which rather re-awakened the subject for me.  The Culpable Designer touches upon some lofty issues and Eric understands and states that a blog post can't address all the issues which could come up in writing, talking, and thinking about responsible design, but it does open up avenues for dialogue. It does serve to remind us, in the course of our often frantic days, of a issue which is relevant and shouldn't be forgotten. I think as more and more designers begin to think and talk about these issues the more we will begin to insert responsible design practices into our lives.

Eric's post spans discussion from the virgin fiber used in the Victoria's Secret catalogs (really? I had no idea!), to the design of the Third Reich, on to Michael Bierut's When Design Is A Matter of Life or Death to First Things First Manifesto of 1964.  Yup...big ideas and observations and Eric writes about them in a thoughtful and eloquent way. Truly, I love to read his stuff.  I will probably never get a gig with Nike or Victoria's Secret so these thoughts while mindful are moot to me, but what about the little things?  While I encourage you to read The Culpable Designer I also want to ask...What if every design firm, every freelancer, every studio big or small across the world just started to use both sides of the paper coming out of our printers? Perhaps I fear here, as Eric did at ideasonideas, that this question makes light of a topic which is so big. Perhaps it will just be another avenue to open up dialogue...??