Day Labor Station Poster Series

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Public Design Studio (dba: Public Architecture)

Organization's Mission Statement

Public Architecture is a 501(c)(3) national nonprofit organization established to bring high-level design to underserved people and places. Public Architecture initiates a select series of design projects with innovative environmental and social justice components, and leverages the resources of the architecture and design professions at-large through pro bono design “service grants.” We have recruited over 500 firms to pledge a minimum of 1% of their billable hours to pro bono service.

Organization Website

http://www.publicarchitecture.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

Public Architecture purchased Adobe Creative Suite 4.0 through TechSoup to tell the story of our most important social change design initiative, the Day Labor Station.

Each day, over 110,000 people look for day labor work in the U.S. More than 75% of day labor hiring sites occupy spaces meant for other uses, such as street corners and home improvement store parking lots. These sites are far from ideal; their presence in spaces designated for other uses means that they often lack even the most basic amenities.

Day Labor Station, a design initiative of Public Architecture, is a sustainable structure that provides a place for day labor gatherings and facilitates the employment process. The project is one of Public Architecture’s most innovative and important initiatives, yet the issue of day labor in the U.S. is so mired in controversy that communicating the need for the Station is a major challenge to overcome.

Public Architecture’s staff collaborated with a graphic design firm to produce a poster series produced with Adobe Creative Suite 4.0. The posters were intended to clearly lay out the ethical and humanistic imperative for the Station, grounding our proposed design in its socioeconomic, historic, and moral context. One of the posters features a large-scale portrait of one of the day laborers that we interviewed. Surrounded by real quotes from letters of support and rage elicited over the past few years, the portrait shows the human side of this issue, drawing the connections between day laborers’ desire to provide for their families and the larger narrative of the American dream. This image gives the public the opportunity to connect with day laborers as individual human beings, rather than members of a faceless group.

The posters, thanks to TechSoup and Adobe Creative Suite 4.0, make a complex issue simple and compelling, clearly and directly expressing the need for the Station. The posters have given us, and our partner, the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON), a new visual and textual language to use in engaging supporters and enactors of this important project. Thank you TechSoup and Adobe for helping us realize this project.

Image

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DLS panel.pdfSubmitted by publicarchitecture on April 15, 2009 - 1:29pm

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DayLaborStationImage.jpg	12.9 KB

Project Kindle's book, "I Know: Kids from Camp Kindle share their stories of living with HIV/AIDS."

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Project Kindle

Organization's Mission Statement

Improving the quality of life for children, young adults and families through recreational experiences, educational programs, and support services.

Organization Website

http://projectkindle.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

Project Kindle’s mission is to improve the quality of life for kids who are dealing with HIV/AIDS and other life-altering struggles. One of the hardest things for kids with HIV or AIDS to deal with is the stigma they face from society. We knew that if we wanted to help improve the lives of our kids, we would have to find a way to combat this stigma. We decided to create a book and a video that would be provided cost-free to hundreds of schools across the country. We wanted to give our kids a forum to tell their stories, show off their writings, display their artwork, and let their peers in classrooms around America know that even though they had HIV, they were no different than any other kid.

We worked hard compiling the kids’ writings, scanning and editing their artwork, taking thousands of photos, and putting it all together in a book and video combo that we call “I Know: Kids from Camp Kindle share their stories of living with HIV.”
We initially printed 2000 copies of “I Know” that have been distributed to high school health classes in Los Angeles, Chicago, Nebraska, and Colorado. We have also posted a digital version of the book on our website.

The book can be viewed here: http://www.projectkindle.org/iknowbook.html
The video can be viewed here: http://vimeo.com/645436

Our book was created entirely in Adobe InDesign. We also utilized Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat to create “I Know”. We acquired these programs through the Adobe and Tech Soup partnership that provided non-profits with very affordable prices for professional software.
There are simply no software alternatives that work as well and as easily as these programs. We know that high-end professional designers use these products as well and we were very grateful to be given the opportunity to utilize the same tools that the professionals use. We would not have been able to use the products without the discount, and we would not have been able to make our book as amazing as it is without the great Adobe programs!

We have put Adobe products to work in a number of other ways as well. Our website for our organization, www.ProjectKindle.org was built with Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and Dreamweaver. As was the website for our camping program, www.CampKindle.org. Volunteer designers used Photoshop and Illustrator to create our logo for us.

We know the struggles kids with HIV and AIDS are dealing with, and we know how amazing and brave they are each day. Adobe has helped us share these kids’ stories with the larger world. Because of this pairing of Project Kindle and Adobe, the world is a better place for those living with HIV/AIDS. And it is a safer place, because thousands of American students have access to an educational resource, “I Know” that was created entirely with Adobe products. Thanks Adobe!

URL

http://www.projectkindle.org/iknowbook.html

Submitted by projectkindle on April 15, 2009 - 11:18am

Ventura County "Quit" campaign

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Ojai Valley Youth Foundation

Organization's Mission Statement

Connecting youth and adults for a healthy community

Organization Website

http://www.ovyf.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

Our message didn’t go up in smoke. Instead it reached an entire county. How do you make a new anti-smoking campaign seem fresh and make an impact? The answer was simple, by combining a talented group of teenagers and Adobe Illustrator. Generation Communication (Gen Com), a program of the non-profit Ojai Valley Youth Foundation, is a youth media agency. In the program, youth work with adult mentors in after-school internships to effect change in communities utilizing social marketing techniques. This unique program gives youth an opportunity to share their voice while developing career skills, learning the principles of graphic design and staying engaged during the critical after-school hours.

24 Gen Com youth interns, ages 12-18 years, were involved in developing Ventura County’s Quit Smoking campaign funded by Ventura County (California) tobacco settlement funds. They conceived, designed and created this campaign, a unique expression of what came to the mind of teenagers to spread the word about quitting smoking. It proved to be the right combination of colors, scary, strong imagery, impactful phrases and the right software program to make an impression on the public.

The campaign’s goal was to promote a “quit” smoking phone number. It consisted of posters displayed in all public buses throughout Ventura County reaching 3.2 million riders; 8.5” x 11” counter cards with 4 versions of 4” x 5” “rave” cards (a common form of communication among our target market) distributed to Latino neighborhood stores reaching 30,000 people; and ads placed in Ventura County publications reaching 90,000 readers. All materials were in Spanish and English.

Teens worked in Adobe Illustrator to create a “grim reaper” figure with balloons framing words that described the effects of smoking such as “premature face wrinkles”, “lung cancer”, “smelly clothes”, and “shorter lifespan”. The colors were intense including orange, deep blue, red and green combined with black. The same graphics were used on all print materials.

Prior to this high impact campaign a radio commercial promoting the “Quit” phone number received little response. Our campaign measurably increased the reach and impact of anti-smoking education and services dramatically in Ventura County. We were able to inform the community about who to call for help in quitting smoking while raising awareness about the dangers of smoking. Our teen interns were successful in not only creating visually arresting images, but in conveying a message that really got noticed. The “quit” smoking hotline in Ventura County noted that 74% of the 800 calls received did so because they got the phone number from our campaign materials.

The anti-smoking campaign really ”lit“ up our community and helped put Gen Com on the map as a teen social marketing agency. The number of projects that Gen Com is working on just keeps growing. For example we recently received a grant from the Allstate Foundation to create a disaster preparedness website in Dreamweaver. We continue to use our winning combination of Adobe products and teenagers to promote a healthy and safe lifestyle.

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quit_campaign.pdfSubmitted by OVYF on April 2, 2009 - 12:15pm