By Kate Andrews

Over the past week, I had the pleasure of meeting the multi-talented Graphic Designer Alex Ostrowski. Alex, a 2008 UK Graphic Design graduate from Bristol’s University of West England, recently won the RSA Design Directions and NESTA’s competition ‘Engage!’.

Tagged to “catalyse social change through design-led citizen participation”, the Engage! project, aimed to encourage social responsibility in young designers. The 2008 RSA Design Directions brief asked student designers to consider how they could best use design to bring about positive change within a community and instigate a project solution of this nature. (more…)

By Kate Andrews

Scanning the pages of GDi08, the graduate graphic design and illustration showcase from Brighton University (UK), I found a number of design projects that intelligently approach the world’s ecological crisis.

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By Kate Andrews

It is continually inspiring to watch the growing wealth of social design initiatives springing up across the planet, however this week I came across a project that I feel deserves huge creative and social credit. Founded and directed by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, The Global Oneness Project offers a remarkable insight in to the creative intelligence of human nature. This web-based video initiative aims to explore “how the notion of oneness can be lived in our increasingly complex world”. (more…)

Back in February, amidst the feline army, I curled up to finally finish reading Lucienne Roberts’ book GOOD: An Introduction to Ethics in Graphic Design.” This is possibly the only book I have found and read that directly discusses ethics in Contemporary Graphic Design. Gathering a selection of opinions, from the likes of Ken Garland, Thomas Matthews, Deborah Szebeko, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville and Daniel Eatock, the book starts at the beginning of ‘Early Civilisation’ (p.21), and later discusses aspects of History, Philosophy (p.34), Law (p.44) and Politics (p.58). In conclusion the book presents a series of discussions with a collection of credible designers (p.113-192) - ultimately asking what it means to be a “good” designer. (more…)

The concept of “green” typography may seem ridiculous to non-type-nerds and, yes OK, perhaps typography can’t conquer climate change, but it can certainly help communicate it! With these thoughts in mind, I thought it would be interesting to share some recent examples I’ve found of contemporary typography that truly redefine those terrifying visions of green (and tree-shaped) logos! (more…)

When I was first asked to contribute a piece on design ethics to Notes, I wondered how I could credibly comment on such a complex and highly academic topic. Whilst sitting at the early stages of my creative career, I wondered how many of us really understand what it means to be a “good” designer, and asked myself, if and how, I am a “good” (socially-responsible) designer? (more…)

I recently came across the great work of Finnish photographer Ilkka Halso. His photographic series the ‘Museum of Nature’ wonderfully challenges the natural environment from its current state into a future world where it is something we have to visit to experience. The collection of compelling images pictures a series of man-made structures that enclose nature, protecting it from pollution. Using images of nature and 3D digital manipulation, this photographic collection captures a future vision of nature as a museum display. Challenging the audience’s interaction with the endangered artifact of the natural environment, Halso manages to truly visualize a future we so desperately do not want to see a reality. (more…)