Dedicated to clever and innovative trends of art and design in activism.

Since the 2000 election AIGA has held a contest for designers to create posters inspiring Americans to vote. This year 50 posters were chosen to be displayed at the AIGA National Design Center in New York from September 11th to October 24th.

For those of us not in New York, all of the posters are available for download at the AIGA website in print-ready formats.

Poster contributions from past election years are also still up:

2000

2004

I appreciate designers who allow free distribution of their work. It’s great that AIGA chose to represent all entries, not just the winners.

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Today Kristin Moe of Oil Change bring us their presidential Dollar ATM, which dispenses “dollars with your representative’s name on them and how much they’ve accepted from the Oil industry.”

She writes:

Oil Change is a nonprofit that works to expose the influence of oil money in congress, and we have on our site (www.oilchangeusa.org) an “Oily Dollar Bill” machine . . . We’re pretty darn excited about it.

I find the phenomenon of culture jamming dollar bills is full of paradoxes.  Used by social movements on the right and left to criticize, celebrate, or call attention to stories beyond the scope of the mainstream, designs like this are usually tactical, and linked to particular organizations with specific goals.  The approach both comments on, and is supported by a culture of greed, and their popularity speaks volumes about American culture.  I certainly don’t mean to demean these artists’ and activists’ efforts by raising questions about the approach.  I wonder, though, is this a specifically American phenomenon?  How do others feel about these (and other, similar) designs?

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Found on Fubiz: From TBWA Agency in Paris, France comes a striking series of designs with the phrase, “After the Olympic Games, the fight for human rights must go on.” This is a good way to keep China’s controversial human rights issues in focus.

The Amnesty International-produced site The China Debate has this to say about China’s Olympic hosting privileges:

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) granted Beijing the 2008 Olympic Games on 13 July 2001. During the bidding process and afterwards, Chinese and Olympic officials made assurances that human rights in China would improve as a result of hosting the Games.

Liu Jingmin, Vice-President of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Bid Committee said in April 2001: “By allowing Beijing to host the Games you will help the development of human rights.”

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Half competition, half cooperation, the Canadian apparel producers Thoughtcrime Ink are holding a design competition to raise money for anarchist bookfairs and other grassroots projects in Canada.  Submissions will be scored by visitors to the website, and designers can even make the competition part of their process by submitting a design for critique.

Via.

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Released late last year as a coffee table book, Blue Planet Run - The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World is now a free pdf download from Amazon.com.

From the Editorial Review:

Blue Planet Run is a visually stunning tour de force by some of the world’s top photojournalists, backed up by thought-provoking essays and profound commentaries on the many ways humanity is confronting the growing lack of a clean and plentiful water supply. The book’s collection of more than 250 photographs are at once beautiful and haunting, enlightening and disturbing, inspiring and even, at times, amusing.

The review doesn’t do the book justice; the pictures and essays really are amazing. Plus, giving the book away for free is a great way to raise awareness. You can still buy the book, and 100% of the royalties will be used to provide clean water to those who need it.

You can also get the pdf from the Blue Planet Run website.

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