While this lies more in the realm of industrial design than in the advertising world, I think it is important to note the winners of the 2007 Index Awards which recognizes “design that substantially improves important aspects of human life.” The winning designs include a water bottle that kills pathogens in contaminated water when exposed to sunlight and a plastic cap that can be permanently attached to discarded soda cans to convert them into sealed used needle disposal units.
This reminded me of something I read a few months ago about a group of restaurants in New York who invited their customers to pay $1 for a glass of tap water for UNICEF, and an event I heard about in Australia where 2 million Sydney residents turned out all the lights for one hour in an effort to reduce greenhouse emissions. It’s important to step back from the world of money for a moment and look at what’s really important. Designers and advertisers have a powerful set of tools at their disposal; to communicate, to create, to improve. It’s a beautiful thing when this power is used to affect the world in a very positive way. How can advertising be used to make the world a better place?
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Your sentence, “It’s important to step back from the world of money for a moment and look at what’s really important.”
Part of the problem is this perceived disconnect between ‘profit’ and ‘what’s important’.
There’s enough evidence that the two can co-exist.
technobility – thanks for the comment. I agree with you that profit and doing good can often intersect. But in the advertising world sometimes it’s easy to be so focused on improving the business of our clients that you can lose track of what’s going on in the rest of the world. Jonah Bloom from Advertising Age wrote an article a few weeks back about the Tap Project and how inspirational it was, and how effective it would be if advertisers spent their creative energies on something like that for a week.
Most consulting companies, and I’d place Advertising into that category, aren’t too savvy when it comes to filling the gaps between assignments.
‘Dead time’ is a resource we tend to squander. Those times when the in-box is empty are perfect times to pull out a ‘pet’ project. Something we can do for free in exchange for exposure.
For me… that’s one of two things – either writing or ‘freebie’ presentations to local and deserving (I get to choose) organizations.
Besides… what better way to get the juices flowing than working on something with NO constraints except those you choose to create for yourself.
Enjoy the day
I am so glad this conversation is continuing to surface! It’s definitely food for thought. A few months ago I posted a blog entry on the same thing, about a designer who choosing his random acts of “designess”. Blog entry is here: http://blog.jungle8.com/2007/06/07/random-acts-of-designess/