U.S. Postal Service stamp featuring Andy Warhol design
Pen designed by SHAFIQ AHMADI
Sphere Magazine by WorldStudio
The show consisted of 5 designers that talked about their research and work revolving around design and community. Each designer had a different way of using design to impact and improve the community.
Mark Randall(very nice guy)- Mark is a graphic designer and co-founder of Worldstudio Inc. and Worldstudio Foundation. Worldstudios Inc. pays the bills and the foundation is the company's side project that allows them pro sue there own interests. The interest of this company happens to be helping to improve the community. The foundation created a magazine for this very purpose called Sphere. Within the magazine they told there personal feeling on topics like politics, health, community, art,etc. Mark talked about how the Design field was primarily white and that they wanted to help the it become more diverse. This is why the company offers scholarships to minority's with talent and social agendas. Shafiq Ahmadi was one of the many students that have been given a scholarship he works in industrial design. I have an example of one of the things he designed that caught my eye. The foundation also offers free mentoring programs online. The last thing Mark talked about was their creation of "The Urban Forest Project". This is a great idea they wanted to spread the word about sustainability so they brainstormed and came up with a tree as their main design and asked different artist to make them posters of a social issue that had the theme of a tree. These signs went up all over New York City and were even displayed on the big screen in time square. These posters were to send a message to everyone and after the poster were taken down the foundation decided to make them into bag designs which they auctioned off and all the money went towards their mentor ship and scholarship programs. I was excited to here that The urban forest project is coming to Baltimore from April 11th-27th and they will be displayed in Druid Hill Park. There is currently a Denver urban forest project going on.
Sheila Levrant- Sheila started about by explaining that she does a lot of research before she starts a project. She really likes to meet the surrounding community that she is working in and ask the people around what they have and need. She had done things such as redesign a 100 year old school. She repainted and brought in some new energy with poems she had the students and community contribute. At the end she invited some of the school Alumni to come back and talk to the current students about the improvements. In Los Angela's she wanted to make the community near little Tokyo remember its past and decorated the sidewalk with messages and package designs which signified how the culture was once packed up and moved to concentration camps with no proof of them committing any crimes. Later she traveled to Siberia where she got help from 6 students to create panels that had one letter and then space for the member of the community to come and right in there own thoughts. She also designed a lazy Susan granite table that also allow the community to form its own sentences by moving certain words around. She was very interested in helping communities to communicate better.
Wendy Brawer- Is one of the creators of the Green Map system. The idea is to have the community create a map for themselves and visitors of good areas to visit within the community. There are 3 main categories Sustainability, Nature, Culture & Society. The great this is this programs works on its own. After the first Green Map was made in 1992 the trend has started and today 424 places have their own Green Maps. The leaders and groups for each Green Map change with location and anyone can start a Green Map for any area. Basically they have people go out and look around there areas for Good places for nature (parks), food (farmers markets), relaxation (pond), art (gallery's). They leave the selection up to the people who design the Maps. After you go around and locate these "Good" areas in your community you create a map that has all these locations highlighted. The maps are given to visitors and are shared throughout the community. There is currently a Green Map for Baltimore in progress by Janel Felston. "Think Global, Map Local".
Sylvia Harris- Has been named by friends the "Citizen Designer". Sylvia wanted to redesigned the U.S. Census, the old one was hard to understand and not very useful. So she enlisted the help of a group of Yale students to help redesign the Census. After some time they finally got their ideas passed and her company ended up hiring 2 of the Yale students. The Census was designed to be reader friendly and since the numbers have increased which it hasn't done for 20 years. Sylvia also worked on the vote project which improved the design of machines, location information, registration form, and allowed feedback about personal experience when voting. Design for Democracy had a hand in helping and is still trying to better the voting system. Later Sylvia became a member of the U.S. postal service stamp board and helped to design stamps. They decided to bring art and design to stamps by featuring artists such as Andy Warhol. In closing she said we should "work, understand, and learn about the community."
I had a really good experience its great to see other designers who are trying to better the community with their designs. Even though the artists were all graphic designers they each found a unique way to use their art form to help improve the world. I found it very interesting that many of them used the help of student to help design their work. They really look to the future generation for great ideas and are really active in trying to help them succeed in graphic design for the community.
Black Eyed Peas vocalist and solo artist Fergie has currently listed her 2005 Hummer H2 in an eBay auction to benefit Global Green USA. 
