XDRTB.org - Photography Making A Difference

I'm sharing these photos by James Nachtwey because there's nothing I believe in more than art that makes a difference. A grand slice of my entrance essay to Pratt had me going on about how my real goal in studying communication design is to be able to contribute to something bigger and more important than the mainstream heavily commercial world of design. Taking everything I can learn from that and taking action with the bigger picture. Who gives a crap if you can drink Coke and listen to MP3 downloads on the latest iPod when we're heading towards an environmental (and human) apocalypse anyway… When issues like the mandatory switch to renewable energy sources, solving the GWC through community values, and oh so much more are just pushed aside because the majority of people (1) don’t understand the urgency completely (2) are being guilted instead of educated first, (3) are not provided enough information on how easy it is to make a huge difference with tiny, easy, consistent and combined efforts (4) don’t completely understand that a lot of industries have lobbyists keeping them in the dark about their consumer actions/consequences (5) etc etc etc…


I could go on and sound (even more) like an angry granola chick, but I’ll leave that for another post. Only because this post is as important in it’s own aspect. In effort to tell the tale of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) and TB, Nachtwey proclaimed his dream after being awarded the TED Prize and $100,000. "I'm working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age.”, and so came this photo series that is now a manifestation of his wish.

To learn more about the disease, James Nachtwey, and what you can do to help, visit http://xdrtb.org and help spread the story.

Another Poster For Peace

I've been busy with the holidays here hanging out with family and playing Brady bunch with the lot, and especially not looking forward to going back to my student status as of tomorrow (in the form of conceptual work to kick start a new assignment).. So yeah, believe it or not, the blog wasn’t something I was planning to update.

However, I believe in the content of this post so much that it’s something I feel I have to blog about now, holidays or not. After all, it’s freakin’ peace. ☺ And it also happens to be strongly related to one of my major visual communication design genres - Print! (ta da!)

Anotherposterforpeace.org is "a group of citizens committed to elevating the level of public engagement in the peace movement through design. Our goal is to help create a grassroots "anti-campaign" to counter the brilliant marketing the U.S. administration is currently running to promote its war agenda.” (direct quote, click here for more). You can share posters for peace, or download them - all copyright free and really at no cost besides printing. There’s a lot of visual communication magic happening in those posters and I invite anyone interested in poster design to have a look at the different approaches. All very subtle yet powerful. As a designer, this was a great reminder that a campaign poster (and any good poster in general) has wit in terms of being very focused on the message (no extra doo dahs and studenty froo froo in an attempt at creativity) and saying so much with just the right type/amount of visual language. Every poster is so distinct that it’s quite a good study of poster design in general. (You can also download mini versions as postcards)

As usual here are some I’ve picked, very randomly as looking around it’s quite hard to judge a group as ‘the best’. There’s such a variety, I’d definitely say it’s worth the jump, so go have a look and spread the word if it means something to you too. :)