The Case for Design: Designers Do Their Part To Combat CoVID-19
This post is part of an ongoing series about the value of design.
Keep reading for a special announcement at the end!
Has anyone else noticed a lack of public health campaigns for COVID-19?”
If you search Google Images for “COVID-19”, you won’t find posters or ads demonstrating the virus’ symptoms or urging the public to stay home. Instead, you’ll be exclusively inundated with images of that diabolical red molecule against a black background with no copy. Where are the mind-changing messages and images akin to campaigns against drunk driving, tobacco, and obesity? Isn’t this pandemic just as important?
“Yeah, now that you mention it, that is weird.”
Right? For decades, public health officials and governments alike have harnessed the power of design to implement effective campaigns and inform the masses. In fact, Rebecca Wright and Lucienne Roberts do a brilliant job outlining history’s most iconic campaigns and posters in their book Can Graphic Design Save Your Life? From Florence Nightingale’s visualization of soldier deaths in the Crimeran War to Samba Cisse’s Ebola symptoms poster from 2014. Peep this article from AIGA listing these two and everything in-between with accompanying images.
Fortunately, we’re starting to see a few organizations and individuals rise to the occasion by putting their design skills to work.
Illustration by Sara Andreasson @saraandreasson
Help Design Is On The Way
Recently, a number of design initiatives backed by global organizations have launched, providing creatives with an outlet to formally contribute. On March 30th, Talenthouse, in collaboration with the UN, issued an open brief to designers worldwide to submit any type of work that encompasses one of the following messages related to COVID-19:
- Personal Hygiene
- Physical Distancing
- Know the symptoms
- Kindness contagion
- Myth busting
- Do more, donate
The deadline for submissions is April 9, 2020 at 1 PM ET with winners announced on April 22, 2020 at the same time.
You also may have heard of Rachel Smith’s Design to Combat COVID-19 army of designers. (And heck yes, we’ve signed up to volunteer.) If you’re looking for an organized way to contribute, check out this awesome group! You can search for talent or volunteer your time and skill for any publicly available projects on their Slack channel.
DESIGNERS TAKE MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS
In the meantime, individual designers have already capitalized on this opportunity to create, congregate, and compile resources for the community:
- Paul Trani designs “Wash Your Hands Lettering” on Behance Live
- The Eye on Design Guide to Self-Isolation for Designers and Creatives by AIGA containing everything from remote job boards to recommended educational resources
- Andrew Hochradel created and hosted Canceled Con, an amazing (and free) two-day creative event, over the weekend (the entire conference is currently available to watch on YouTube).
Illustration by Paul Trani @paultrani
Photo by Jessica Walsh @jessicavwalsh
Illustration by Eddie Lobanovskiy @lobanovskiy
Photo by Danielle Evans @marmaladebleue
The Brand Stand's Inaugural Create-A-Thon
When life hands us lemons, we make Lemon+Aid.If there’s one thing you should know about us, it’s that we are a passionate group of individuals who truly stand behind our community, our clients, and our friends. As a small business ourselves, The Brand Stand is committed to supporting fellow businesses and non-profit organizations that have been economically impacted by COVID-19. We are not doctors, scientists, delivery men, or grocery store employees, but we are designers, and we will do what we can to contribute.
During Lemon+Aid Create-A-Thon, Saturday, May 9th and Sunday, May 10th, creative teams will spend 24 hours completing a design challenge for a handful of selected small businesses and non-profit organizations impacted by COVID-19. Challenges will be announced day-of at 9 AM ET with presentations to take place the following morning. Participants will be provided with a private link to join the event virtually. Will we be tired the next day? Yes. Were you going to #StayHome anyway? Yes. Will we feel like total badasses for making a positive contribution to the community? Heck yes.
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