 © neozoon.org  © neozoon.org  © neozoon.org "There! A human! For heaven's sake! Catch the beast! — Planet of the Apes, 1968. An line that appropriately sums up Neozoon's philosophy. Neozoon is a street art collective based in Paris and Berlin. They seek to heighten our awareness of the way we treat animals, and the relationship we have with animals and birds. Initially the art was flat on the wall, but a recent collection consists of 3-dimensional animals as well.There is something intriguing and chilling about the imagery created. The Bah Bah Blacksheep slaughterhouse area in Dresden has a line of sheep, each one numbered along the wall. It's an artistic expression that also makes you stop in your tracks and think about what we do to animals. It reflects on our heartlessness towards them as well. Though just silhouettes, each sheep is life-like, lively and original, right from their numbers to their yellow ear tags. A street in Paris has shown fur-coat recycling, a streak of life like creatures racing and leaping around the corner. It makes a strong statement, without destroying the character of the area. Lynxes, from the Urban Art Festival Madrid 2010 is also freakishly real. On the tamer side there is Cats (Urban Art Festival Madrid 2010), which is playful, domestic and harmless. There are lambs gazing at you in Berlin. Manteltier in Berlin is one of their 3-dimensional exhibits, and combines and fun and macabre in a surreal way. A kangaroo in Paris might just make you stop while walking by. There is also a bunch of pedigree dogs in Berlin, that you can see on their site, along with magnificent bulls, standing bears, pigs, wolves, foxes and more. A pretty unusual take on street art. All these are created from actual discarded fur coats, which adds to the realism and is truly confrontational for us humans. The location of some of the displays, such as the sheep on one of the oldest slaughterhouses of Paris adds to the meaning. A piece of street art that makes us think about the way we treat animals. The realism of actual fur shaped into life like forms makes the horror of killing animals real.Do visit their site, for more on the furry friends, and check out their videos. You can read more about them here too. How do they make it? Check out the video here.By Armeen Kapadia
 Esquire 1962  Esquire 1960 Some people take their hobbies very seriously, as you can see on the National Magazine Cover Archive. Their home page sums it up, "The Nation Magazine Cover Archive (NMCA) is a non-commercial 'hobbysite' devoted to helping keep inspirational magazine design alive. These are strange days for editorial designers with homogenisation and closure of many well known (and loved) titles and independent publishers emerging to fill the gaps. Just don't forget to vote with your feet! Support quality magazines. Don't let them die." — The ManagementNow it may look like just a collection of covers, but there is a wealth of visual culture here, even if it is mostly from the USA. Click on any cover to see the range and depth of that particular magazine. Covers range from photographic and illustrative, to stark minimalism and those with amazing conceptual value. There is the wickedly funny Esquire magazine, and that all-time classic, Time. There are some new unknowns such as Etapes, an international design magazine from France, which has some pretty interesting covers. Check out the 1960 issue of Esquire (image above) which has an article titled 'India's Future After Nehru". I wonder what they predicted back then, and how much of it has transpired. Another great one from Esquire is the one shown above, with the contents typed out on the cover. For illustration-lovers there is 'Little White Lies', a cinema buff's magazine, which only has a range of illustrative covers. Some magazines pull out all stops when it comes to being experimental. Neo2 and Tokion, both of which manage to pull off the unique and daredevil covers of each issue, with finesse. Layout and typographic treatment are radically different everytime, which must take considerable vision and hard-work. And the best, a range of covers from one of the most creative magazines ever, Mad. The covers are just a mild flavour of the rib-cracking, rollin-on-the-floor humour and satire inside. Great humour is rare, and it's an expression of real creativity. Mad had it all, with one-liners, amazing cartoons, caricatures, and satirical commentary. The variety of the mastheads could be a study in itself. I could go on and on about it, but its best you visit the site. A great resource site for magazine lovers. Happy browsing.By Armeen Kapadia  Mad  Mad 1976
 Paper pulp mill, New Zealand © Greenpeace Although we know we need to use paper economically, and avoid waste, it’s hard to get information on which papers, and printing processes are eco-friendly. Lovely as a Tree is a site that gives some insights on the environmental impact of different printing processes, papers, and other issues that can help graphic designers make better decisions regarding production.
The site, though UK centric, gives information on things that we may hardly think about while designing, but now probably need to be taught as part of design studies. Such as the impacts of paper making, recycled paper, how exactly its made, and sustainably sourced paper. As the site says, “With so many questionable ‘green’ claims out there, it’s important to stick to a certification system that’s trusted and watertight.” The site gives information on the different paper certifications too. Within recycled papers too, there are various grades, with a big difference between post and pre-consumer recycled waste paper. (news to me) The site explains how ‘sustainable forestry’ as a broad term is pretty meaningless, unless we have a deeper understanding of the issues involved.
The print issues section has information on the issues of energy, emissions, water, waste, solvents, and inks on each of the printing processes. It tells you the plusses and minuses of using each process. For example in a year, a large offset printer could chuck out around 65,000 litres of waste solvent and 85,000 litres of waste developer. That’s quite a bit of waste, and printers need to be made aware of their responsibility. In digital printing there are more energy efficient printers entering the market such as Konica Minolta’s Bizhub C550 and C6500; and Océ’s VarioPrint 6000, which reduce the amount of energy used during its production.
Another section worth a look is the glossary, which covers terms to do with print, paper and environmental certification schemes. There are also tips for choosing a printer, a paper, and deciding on your paper specs, for more efficient printing. In a time where even small design decisions can go a long way in making a difference, these are basic aspects that any designer, client, and printer, need to consider.
By Armeen Kapadia
 Billboard made out of Zimbabwe currency  Zimbabwe currency as flyers We know that there is a crisis in Zimbabwe because of one man's stubbornness. That man is Robert Mugabe. The Zimbabwean, a national daily, commissioned the the Trillion Dollar campaign which communicates Mugabe's effect on Zimbabwe's economy. Recently, Zimbabwe launched a 50 billion dollar note, which bought its bearer two loaves of bread. By March 2009, the price for two loaves of bread had jumped to 7.5 trillion Zimbabwe dollars.
This is a major economic catastrophe of insane proportions in the history of any nation in this world. 1 Zimbabwe dollar = 0.00000003 US dollars. An inflated ego (Mugabe's) at work. More than 25% of Zimbabwe's population live outside Zimbabwe because of the economic instability. The Zimbabwean, an exile London-based daily, offers alternative news coverage of the crisis in the country. The Zimbabwean doesn't reach many ordinary Zimbabweans because it is subject to 55% luxury import duty. You know when something is wrong in a country, when newspapers become luxury items for its citizens.
To spread awareness about the crisis, the South African advertising agency TBWAHuntLascaris created an award-winning Trillion Dollars campaign for The Zimbabwean. In an attempt to increase the readership of The Zimbabwean, the agency devised a campaign that uses Zimbabwe's currency based on Marshall McLuhan's theory. The Zimbabwean has turned the money into their advertising, hoping to raise awareness of the country, which is in dire straits. The money becomes both the medium and the message.
The outdoor advertising campaign used a tangible symbol of country's collapse, the currency notes itself, as flyers. As part of the campaign, bundles of cash were mailed to media personalities. After the campaign was launched, the Zimbabwean's website logged more than two million hits.
The campaign won numerous Cannes Lions: so far three Gold, one Silver and one Grand Prix.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
The aspect of wit in communication is missing in many commercials. The latest commercials for GE's Smart Grid reminds us that wit exists and can be effective in communicating messages. How does one convince citizens to use renewable energy?
GE believes that reducing their environmental impact is good for business. Their latest equation between environment and business — ecomagination — is significant to their growth. To balance operational performance with real environmental benefits, GE is developing products with a high degree of integrity and self established standards.
Under the ecomagination initiative, the conventional power grid is upgraded with new technology, which they call the Smart Grid. The commercials for the Smart Grid were produced to raise the visibility of smart grid technologies. The problem with alternative energy is that politicians make policies and spend big bucks, but the public doesn't accept it. The Smart Grid reduces transmission losses by a significant amount.
The ads above carry messages with supreme wit and some country guitar tunes. The ads do not explain how they make power grids efficient. GE has spend $100,000-a-second to position itself as a leader in Smart Grid technologies. My favorites are Pluck and Birds, Pluck is featured at the beginning of this post.
My personal favorite is the commercial titled Birds, which I couldn't find on YouTube. Watch that Video here on GE's site.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
Most people remember Saul Bass for his title sequences in many great films such as The Man with the Golden Arm, North by North West, Psycho, West Side Storyand Vertigo, among many others. Saul Bass was an American graphic designer, especially known for the AT&T ‘globe’ logo, and he was also an Academy Award-winning film-maker.
Most of us don’t know, however, of his short film on solar power. The film was produced by Saul Bass, and was commissioned by Robert Redford in 1980. Eames Demetrios, grandson of Charles and Ray Eames, introduces the film. It’s a film that was definitely ahead of its time, for in 1980 they had realized the need to switch to more sustainable sources of energy. A wonderful way to introduce people to the power of solar energy.
By Armeen Kapadia
 NY Times Information Graphics Information graphics are visual representations of data, information or knowledge, which are easier to understand than large amounts of data. Info graphics have numerous applications, in all forms of journalism, and educational material. One great resource to see various info graphics is the multimedia section of the New York Times.
On this page, search exclusively for the word 'graphic' and there are more than 10,000 results to browse through. Each graphic representation is unique, structured exactly for the topic it deals with. It is amazing to see how vast amounts of data have been made easy to understand. Take for example the interactive graphic of How Class Works. It is interactive, engaging, visually rich, and structurally easy to grasp. Another graphic Snug and Tight, about passive housing, is not highly interactive, but is still extremely informative and interesting. Also, don't miss How Design Can Save The Democracy, which shows how a redesign of the ballot design guidelines makes a huge difference. It gives a clear cut before and after scenario, where each design decision has been justified and explained.
Many interactive features show current events, such as the recent Air France Flight crash or tracking the swine flu. Info graphics are also useful for explaining scientific concepts, such as the New Fleet of Spacecraft. Info graphics can show narration, such as a change occurring over a long period of time, like migrations to and from New York City. They can be used to show everything, from an ecological crisis, to the reasons for recession, to Baghdad neighborhoods, carbon emissions and accidents.
There are some things all the interactive features of the New York Times have in common. They are clear, functional, and aesthetically pleasing. They make reading the article more enjoyable; in some cases they may even effectively substitute reading the article. These info graphics prove that visual representation can, and in fact should be highly functional. There is well thought out logic, order and structure behind each of them, the natural outcome of which is an aesthetic piece of communication, that, well, communicates. The forms, colour, and text are managed superbly, so as not to dominate, or distract the eye, but in fact harmoniously aid in the transmission of information. All the elements are so chosen as to cohesively make the whole.
Exploring these representations is that rare mix of being educational and fun. More information should be made available to us this way, as it is easier for the mind to grasp these images, then miles of data, or technical terms. Info graphics of this caliber has a huge potential in education. Sometimes, a picture may really be worth a thousand words.
By Armeen Kapadia
What if diseases like measles, dysentery and tuberculosis could speak to us? What would they say? According to this Amnesty ad, they have a lot to complain about. After all, we humans aren’t helping them much are we? We have a whole bunch of vaccines that don’t allow them to get a grip on us anymore. And worse still, we humans have taken over their job by killing each other in bomb blasts and terror attacks. Gone are the days when we ran screaming from measles.
As measles says, we humans have “gone all hoity-toity on them,” we “don’t want to die organically, but want to be shot in the head.” In 2010 more people are going to be killed by armed conflict than by diseases. This, as measles rightly puts it, “is just not on!” To control diseases we have vaccines, doctors and hospitals. To control the arms trade? Nothing. “Double bloody standards, that’s what it is”.
The message of the ad, as told to us by good ol’ TB is ‘control small arms and light weapons’. This ad uses wit and irony to get across its message, and it does so brilliantly well. A great way to talk about the arms trade without having to show anything to do with the arms trade.
Also have a look at the other Amnesty ad, ‘Audition’, a plea against domestic violence. It is an audition for the ‘poster boy of painful abuse’. The most shocking fact is on an average, you can beat a woman 35 times before she calls the police. If you don’t believe me, wait till you see Mr. Fistface in the ad.
These ads keep you interested till the end, and also give a unique perspective on a much discussed issue. There are so many ads on such social issues, that we have become pretty much ‘immune’ to them. You see hundreds of no-smoking ads, but maybe only a couple of them actually gets any kind of reaction from you, only one will probably make you at least stop to think about smoking, even for a moment. The challenge in any kind of ‘social communication’ is how do you know your message has got across, how can you be certain that your piece of communication is having any kind of impact? It shouldn’t end up being just a good looking ad on a wall. It should be able to change the way some people think. Ideally, it should be able to change human behavior for the better.
By Armeen Kapadia and Sanjay Basavaraju
 Ory Okolloh's idea: Ushahidi When there is a crisis, such as an earthquake or riots, a major part of the problem is the lack of valid up-to-date news on the situation. Ushahidi, which means ‘testimony’ in Swahili, is a platform all of us can use, to send information during a crisis. Ushahidi is a free and open source project with developers hailing from Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Malawi, Netherlands and the USA working on it.
Ushahidi uses the simple technique of ‘crowdsourcing’, which allows large amounts of information sent by SMS, email, or the web to get aggregated and shown on a site, as a map or a timeline. Anyone can download the Ushahidi engine and run it on their own servers. This can be effectively used at times of riots, and would be particularly useful in India too, where accurate information is not available when people need it the most. You can see projects that Ushahidi has enabled here.
A Kenyan blogger Ory Okolloh, started Ushahidi as a citizen journalist effort during deadly post-election rioting in Kenya. Since its inception the software has been used in several parts of Africa such as the Congo, South Africa, Malawi, and has been recently used to track the swine flu outbreak and the recent Indian elections as seen on the website. Ushahidi helps get the immediate relief to zones of trouble, especially needed when news agencies are not in the area. A similar open-source software Sahana was used after the Sri Lanka tsunami in December 2004, the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, the 2006 mudslide in the Philippines, and earthquakes in Peru and China.
Ushahidi uses a free software called Frontline SMS that turns a mobile or laptop into a text broadcasting hub. Once an sms is sent, the message goes to the web administrator’s inbox, who can then reply to verify the message, or send a mass message out to large numbers of people, or post the information onto a Web page with location information from Google Maps (or do all three) as explained here.
Ushahidi, as well as Ory’s own site Mzalendo, which helps increase transparency of the Kenyan Parliament, are essential to the spread of awareness and awakening of the Kenyan people. Such movements have far reaching impact, and can help many developing nations where technology can be effectively used to give power to the people. Technology can be used to propagate hatred and unrest, or provide much needed information and awakening, which is what these web platforms are enabling. Ushahidi, being an open source engine, can grow and adapt to the web, and to newer technologies and websites.
The founder Ory Okolloh is a native of Kenya with a Havard law degree. From a poor family, she knew what it was not to have enough money. Her parents struggled to put her in a good school, and she missed getting her place in her dream high school due to corruption. Her family didn’t have enough money, or the right last name, or contacts. Her father died of AIDS in 1999, but never told anyone about the disease because of the social ostracism that would come with it.
Today, she feels, Africans need to get better at telling their stories and images of Africa in the press focus on just the negative things. As she says, it’s not enough for us to criticize; we all need to think about what actions we’re willing to take: “My dream is for my daughter to find her future in Africa.”
By Armeen Kapadia and Sanjay Basavaraju
The newspaper industry has not evolved in terms of design for decades now. Although established newspapers have taken a leap in designing online content, print versions seem dated. A designer from Warsaw, Poland, Jacek Utko, has changed the way we interact with the newspaper. His philosophy of treating the frontpage as a poster, which seems like an ordinary idea, has yielded extraordinary results. Warsaw is considered the mecca of the poster revolution. Poster culture still survives in Poland. Many consider the medium of poster as either dead or declining in Europe.
Utko focused on changing the whole product, rather than just changing the look of the newspaper. He worked on the strategy, content and design. This process is nothing new, but he has explained it in the context of newspaper design, which could be useful to us.
As soon we consider the frontpage as a poster, it provides a space for us to communicate a message effectively. When stacked on stands, it behaves like a poster. As soon as we pick it and start flipping, it becomes a newspaper. Justifying his approach, Utko says, "Front page is a poster, an intimate artistic statement. Personal interpretation of reality; my channel to talk to readers."
He was recently featured in Ted talks. You can watch it here.
Biography
Jacek Utko studied architecture but has inclination towards interior design, set design and graphic design. He joined Puls Biznesu (run by Bonnier Business Press group) as an Art Director. Currently he is a Design Director of Bonnier Business Press group located in Warsaw, Poland. His covers for Puls Biznesu were named 'Cover of the Year' in Poland three years in a row. Two of the papers he redesigned, Poland’s Puls Biznesu (in 2004) and Estonia’s Aripaev (in 2007), were named “World’s Best Designed Newspaper” by Society for News Design, in the largest international design competition.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
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