Over the past few months I have been back on Art Center College of Design’s campus in a role that was different from student, alumni or even adjunct professor. This time I was on the client’s side as I have connected Geyrhalter & Company’s client Goodwill of Orange County with Art Center’s amazing Design Matters Department handing the recently developed retail enhancement campaign over to five groups of talented students to take their lifestyle upcycle spin on it. You can now learn more about this creative collaboration on Art Center’s web site.

This is an update to an entry that got erased during a server problem. We added images and a link to a full write up to the post:

 A while back, I shared a project I was about to undertake for Art Center College Of Design’s designmatters department with you. Time has passed, and about a month ago we travelled to Mexico City to launch this student effort during the 62nd Annual United Nations DPI/NGO Conference.The Vato Verde campaign is a design intervention for civic disarmament that includes environmental, print and multimedia components, which provoke us to take a close look at the complex problem of gun violence in mega cities such as Los Angeles and Mexico City.Vato Verde aims to reach a generation of children and tweens who are at risk for gun violence and often over-exposed to the glamorization of guns in mainstream media. My students decided to work with Claymation for the first time and the campaign has received great interest from educational leaders to be included into curriculums in Puebla, and maybe other states within Mexico.

You can now read an updated essay about this campaign as well as view the videos on Art Center’s designmatters site.

Most people I know want to find a way to give back to society, to be a positive force for change. Some are able to contribute financially to causes they support, some donate time as volunteers, and a select lucky few can use their professional skills for philanthropy. I have been fortunate over the past months to engage with ‘one of the best philanthropy programs in design education‘ (Print Magazine), Art Center College Of Design‘s Designmatters program. I was conducting an Independent Study with one student where our task was to create an Identity System for a United Nations sub division in Bangkok counteracting gender-based violence in the Asia-Pacific region. The project will come to a successful close this week with another 3-way skype call to the client in Bangkok presenting him with the full style guide for the new Identity. An experience that combined strategic design thinking, branding, academics and philanthropy, all on a global level and with the finest of institutions.This week I will embark on the next journey. Again with Designmatters and the United Nations. I will teach a trans-disciplinary class with the goal of creating public awareness and subsequently media attention through provocative and successful campaigns catered to the future generation of small gun owners. The intervention will launch and/or take place in Mexico City during the 62nd Annual DPI/NGO Conference in September this year and should live on thereafter as a campaign, via media coverage and in the minds of 10-13 year olds that find themselves at a pre-puberty turning point where they are the most likely to put a gun in their hands for the first time. The effort will be a collaboration with Mexico’s leading design school, CENTRO, through video conferencing and in-person sessions as the students will travel north to participate in some classes on Pasadena’s campus. It will take 14 weeks in which I will host many guest panelists on interventions as well as the subject matter of disarmament, all brought in through Designmatters amazing network. I will make sure to check in with you on this blog about this great adventure, the challenging task ahead as well as the important results.

I taught a class at Art Center College Of Design with the focus on creating Brand Atmospheres™ for an artist or a band. I am very passionate about music, design and branding, so the outcome of the class was a big success for the students as well as for myself, which most often is the case when you put passionate people to work together.

Based on us just having spent 3 months designing for music as a group, it was reassuring to see today’s digital music fans being very opinionated, and also quite savvy, about design and brands that are being built around their favorite artists as new albums are being released.

Three of my favorite creative collaborators, Depeche Mode, U2 and Anton Corbjin, sparked this blog entry. Depeche Mode’s soon to be released single design to the upcoming ‘Sounds of the Universe’ album is, well, let’s face it ‘wrong’. I will not bash it more then others have already done before me, but it is amazing to see fans’ mock-versions appearing online when the single will not even be released until April 6th. As a bonus I throw in the design of the full-length, just so we all understand the depth of the design issue at hand. Anton Corbjin is the backbone of the visual re-launch of the Depeche Mode brand in 2009, and it shows that an amazing creative force with a unique vision for the moving image, does not immediately make a good graphic or brand designer. Or typographer of course:

The mock ‘remix’:

The full length album design (NOT a mock-version):

U2′s just as eagerly awaited full-length feels like the opposite to me and I was taken by its beauty and modern simplicity, yet the equal sign disturbed me mainly because of Coldplay’s very apparent and frequent use of the ‘trade fair’ symbol. Yet, as you can read here, fans of photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and U2 had their own strong opinions.

And the ‘trade fair’ logo as seen in tattoo form:

The power of brand building, seen in one of its mass market – and most competitive and critically viewed – forms.

On that note I salute our friends at Audiolife for having launched their web site recently. The power of music and design, displayed in a visual language that, we hope, shares common ground.

This is an update to an entry that got erased during a server problem. We added images and a link to a full write up to the post:A while back, I shared a project I was about to undertake for Art Center College Of Design’s designmatters department with you. Time has passed, and about a month ago we travelled to Mexico City to launch this student effort during the 62nd Annual United Nations DPI/NGO Conference.The Vato Verde campaign is a design intervention for civic disarmament that includes environmental, print and multimedia components, which provoke us to take a close look at the complex problem of gun violence in mega cities such as Los Angeles and Mexico City.Vato Verde aims to reach a generation of children and tweens who are at risk for gun violence and often over-exposed to the glamorization of guns in mainstream media. My students decided to work with Claymation for the first time and the campaign has received great interest from educational leaders to be included into curriculums in Puebla, and maybe other states within Mexico.You can now read an updated essay about this campaign as well as view the videos on Art Center’s designmatters site.

Eventhough I am not a big Starbucks fan, the convenience of its locations makes me, like most of us, sometimes stop by for a cappucino on my way to, or from meetings. I have done so the past two weeks when I drove to teach a class at Art Center College Of Design. I was surprised to find a free mini-version of GOOD magazine at the counter where consumers patiently wait for their beverage to arrive – a great place to serve me some easy to digest information since it is one of the rare moments in my day where I am not busy. As I am a great fan of the design and the message of GOOD, and often the editorial, I took ‘the Good Sheet’ with me. It’s a conversation starter. A socially charged, non-partisan (or so they try) fold-out dedicated to a larger election issue at hand. Click here to view and read the GOOD Sheets so far. The topics are successfully communicated by use of extremely easy to gasp, yet modern, information graphics targeted towards the vast Starbucks audience. Apparently fully sponsored by a weekly advertisor, it is of little expense to Starbucks (obviously struggling to sell its $3.50 lattés after opening too many stores too quickly in this economy and therefor must have little room for additional advertising budget), while it is a fantastic way to spread the word of GOOD magazine. A great example of 3 companies coming together for the greater good – and the greater profits, with only the advertiser paying dollars he would end up spending anyways. Good to great is my prognosis for this campaign…

To read an opposite opinion head over to Creativity Magazine.