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.

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.