Seeing Red

The GDC list passed around a link today to a cool and worthy project. As commercial an industry as graphic design/advertising is, there is such a strong culture of social awareness. It's pretty great to see.

So Seeing Red is a poster exhibition (online) coming out of Hawaii, where some designers contacted international colleagues, and asked them to create posters with political/social messages. Each designer also chose a charity, to which they send 100% of the profit from poster sales.

Title: No Truth
Artist: Chris Thomas, Honolulu HI
Poster detail:“Nee waarheid is a literal translation from Afrikaans meaning 'No truth.'”
“The Catholic Church preaches abstinence as the only form of safe sex. When abstinence fails, African citizens don't live to regret their mistakes. Help to preserve life: spread the truth about using condoms to prevent HIV.”
Charity: The Rockefeller University: DirectEffect
Artist's Statement: “If men did not stray, if women had rights, if AIDS did not kill, perhaps the church's strict ban on condom use would be morally defensible. But none of these conditions apply in Africa today. As a consequence, the cost of the church's inflexibility may mean not only untold human suffering, but the loss of millions of innocent lives.” - Marcella Alsan, 2006

Title: Mukluks
Artist: Roland Adams , Anchorage AK
Charity: PAMYUA
Artist's Statement: “Over the years Alaska native dancing have been reduced by the lack of a generation passing their knowledge to the next generation. Story telling through dance was performed by the beats of drums and stomping mukluks. The elders are dying and the knowledge of our culture and heritage goes with them. Through a local organization, youth are being taught about the history of their ancestors.”

Title: Revenge for Murder - Murder for Revenge
Artist: Pegge Hopper, Honolulu HI
Charity: Planned Parenthood of Hawaii
Artist's Statement:“The U.S. must participate in the World Crimes Court. Establishing a global justice system is the next great evolutionary step for mankind.”

All in all - very intelligent and persuasive work. Would you expect any less from designers? Here's the concept statement from the site:

In graphic design, our influence is in color, space, form, and font; it is the power to encourage or discourage, attract or repel, incite or restrain human beings in their emotional, mental, and spiritual endeavors. We are, in effect, the traffic directors of society.

In April, over a cup of coffee in China Town, three designers mulled over this charge.

The title, Seeing Red, refers to the artists' unrest with contemporary issues as well as the common visual theme of the show: red and black. More than a venue or even a dialogue, Seeing Red is also a fundraiser, as all profits from poster sales benefit a charity of the designer's choice.

Our attempt is to create more than a dialogue. We are attempting to create a tangible method of bettering the world.