Design for Public Service

Pellissippi's faculty has chosen Mountains Beyond Mountains as our "common book" for this semester, and I'm planning to use it in my Design I course.

This non-fiction book by Pultzer prize winner Tracey Kidder examines the life and challenge of Dr. Paul Farmer, a doctor who has spent his career working with health crises in Third World countries including Peru, Haiti, and Cuba.

My Design I students will design a public service poster to address one of the health issues in the book, present it to the class for critique. Then the posters will appear here on designcrit for comments.

Although the graphic design profession often focuses its magic on feeding our consumer culture, graphic design can be much more. This project will examine the idea of graphic design for the common good, including historic and contemporary examples.

President Edward's convocation on September 8 will address Kidder's book. All students and faculty will gather that Friday at 11:30 a.m. in Goins Auditorium. In the meantime, students should pick up this book from the curriculum office in the Goins Building and begin reading and brainstorming about their poster.

Camp Poetica T-shirts

Some mornings after my second cup of coffee I think to myself, “I should become a t-shirt designer.” Usually I lie down and the urge passes, but not today. I started out creating a project for my Pellissippi students, and it sort of morphed from there. What can I say? I’m an obsessive. Camp Poetica is the result.

Check out the entire Cafe Press store here, and remember to buy, buy, buy! Most shirts are bigger than this oompa loompa-sized bugger. I wanted the design to show up more here.

My New Favorite Band

I’m finding lots of great music on NPR’s “Song of the Day" link. My latest is Malajube, an indie/punk/pop group from Montreal, the only foreign city where I’ve danced in the streets. Their sound is fun and listenable, reminding me of 1970s cartoon pop like the Bugaloos and the Banana Splitz. They have lots in common with these bubble gum pop American bands except one thing: Malajube sings only in French. Le Kewl. Download here.

Malajube’s website, designed by design : virginie + julien is a celebration of quirky simplicity with no flash intro or clickable images. Luckily in this case, simple doesn’t mean boring, and clear does not mean obvious. The Max Ernst-style surrealist diagrams are lovely; the cocktail napkin format inspired. While you’re on the band’s page, be sure to check out the line-drawing Påte Filo video. This is the video that inspired the site.

So lace up your roller skates, jack in your Walkman, and rock on wit’cha bad self.