Over the course of summer I've been reading a lot of books on socially responsible design and design that can make a difference for my dissertation research. Whilst pawing through these books I can across some inspiring work where design pieces had multiple uses increasing the amount of good they could do.
Do Good Design has an example of a salvation army poster that also doubles up as a blanket, the poster reads 'Support the Homeless this Winter' and is printed onto thick fabric that doubles up as a blanket. I love this idea because you are generating help in two ways. Of course it's good to promote a cause and try to generate support for it but does it directly help the people who need it most? This not only raises awareness and encourages people to donate their money/time but also directly helps the homeless by providing them the means to keep warm. It also reduces pointless waste, the posters wont be covered up or thrown into a bin, they can be reused and repurposed making them very clever pieces of design.
In the book Just Design there's a clever project by The Urban Forest Project. The project asked various artists to depict a tree and the result was hundreds of different banners hanging around time square depicting unique pieces of art that were not only beautiful to look at but also acted as adverting and promotion for the project. After the outdoor 'exhibition' had taken place the banners were then repurposed and made into unique totes which were sold and all the profits went towards World studio and AIGA scholarships and AIGA's New York mentoring project. I love the repurposing and recycling element of this project, through the act of reducing waste the project ended up creating more donations through the sale of bags. It also worked as a beautiful piece of art when hung and an equally beautiful product when repurposed.
Inspired by both of these examples I want to make sure that my promotion/fundraising project incorporates the idea of reuse, instead of having a one off advert/project/event, I want something that can last on afterwards and really help out physically rather than just being pretty to look at.
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