Visual Culture

Here are selected pieces of a book designed by Toshiyasu Nanbu, an esteemed graphic designer from Japan.

Good 50X70 is a humanitarian effort that just completed its second annual competition. Their mission is to cultivate a creative community that channels its talents for the greater good by addressing some of the most pressing issues of our time. More to the point, Good 50×70’s competitions provide an excellent venue for designers to unite and share their ideas and individual perspectives while bringing awareness to specific social concerns. We are proud supporters and participants of Good 50X70.

Overall, the quality of the submissions were very competitive, but while browsing through the 2008 submissions, we found considerable discrepancies with some of the selected posters. It’s our opinion that as creative individuals, we should always strive to communicate on a universal level and deliver a clear message. Unfortunately, there are a couple of pieces that appear to be completely disconnected from the AMREF brief (see here).

The aim of the Water Scarcity poster series is to raise awareness regarding the lack of clean drinking water available within the continent of Africa. Two posters from this particular category caused us pause. Each of these pieces fail to convey AMREF’s endorsement on water scarcity and are sorely misguided and apathetic in their approach towards this continental issue.

Poster 1: “Got Water?” (see above)
This poster fails in its communication on almost every level, but it’s the imagery that deserves sharp criticism.

Poster 2: “Give Me Water” (more…)

Poster Offensive is set to open on the 28th of August to coincide with the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

The annual show is in its fourth year and acts as an independent, nonpartisan collection of contemporary interpretations of political dissent, social awareness and optimistic thought.

This insightful and well written blog, fully equipped with a “font acumen” game, is an ideal resource for the typography enthusiast.

Here’s a reflective and informative article on China’s approach and process to developing the graphics of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Source:

“The New Orleans 100″is a worldwide initiative that aims to encourage discussion about the most innovative and “society-shifting” ideas to take root in the city since Katrina.

We’re including poster submissions from “The Hurricane Project”, which was in exhibited across the nation a couple of years ago.

Manifest Hope posters are in. Thirty one finalists were chosen from over 1000 entries. The posters will be on display in Denver for the Democratic National Convention from the 25th-28th of August.

Umool Umool is an experimental graphic magazine out of Seoul, Korea. There is no set format or guidelines. Each issue is a manifestation of its guest contributors.

We’ve included some shots of Volume #8.

“When I`m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”

Buckminster Fuller

We got a kick out of this one. Jan Sabach cleverly designed his business cards with the pica ruler in mind.

Thanks Toxel