Pratt NGO Project

Here is the Pratt project I will be hanging tomorrow at the 63rd Annual United Nations DPI/NGO Conference. My solution is number 6, which I’ve already discussed on this blog … now here is some info on the project:

This exhibit was produced by graduate candidates from the Communications
Design Department at Pratt Institute in New York City. The class, entitled
‘Design Advocacy,’ invites students to use creative thinking skills to
frame challenges, seek opportunities, and offer innovative ways to conceive
and execute projects for social change.

Given the opportunity to exhibit at the 63rd Annual United Nations DPI/NGO
Conference, we chose to focus on the theme ‘Global Health’ as it relates to
the United Nations ‘Millennium Development Goals,’ specifically, addressing
goal number 4 and 5: improving maternal health and reducing child mortality.

We invited experts in the field to provide an in-depth understanding of the
topic and its underlying causes, both at home and abroad. Students were
required to research, strategize and create a meaningful solution to the
problem brief—one that works across multiple mediums and makes a compelling
argument to a new generation of both men and women. Given the
audience for this exhibit, we decided to position our design concepts not
simply as artifacts but as strategies to be employed by NGO’s.

For these designers, this class offered an occasion to ground their creative
process in a complex social issue. We hope for you—as an NGO leader,
a health worker, a politician or an activist—this exhibit will offer some
fresh ideas on how design might play a role in supporting your constituencies
and communicating on the issues you care about.

check out some of the photos from the project!

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Heading to Australia

Sorry the lack of updates this past month, but after summer school ended, I thought it was important to have a little decompression time. That lasted about a week, as I’ve been up to several new projects, the biggest being my trip to Australia. Why Australia you might ask? During my Design Advocacy class this summer, we worked on projects about Maternal Health. The final product was an exhibition called “DESIGN STRATEGIES for NGO’s” a series of 6 case studies/design solutions addressing Maternal Health. It will be on display at the 63rd Annual United Nations DPI/NGO Conference in Meblourne, Australia. I’m planning to expand on my solution further in thesis this year.

Through this class, I was introduced to someone at Fordham University that is working on another exhibition at the Conference. Her group is creating a “student village” of booths, each one addressing one of the eight MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). I was asked to help design an identity for all the booths, and create content for the Maternal Health booth. It ended up being a pretty large undertaking, designing here in the US, coordinating printing in Australia, and preparing all the Pratt projects to be shown.

After doing all this work, Pratt decided to send one student to Australia, and I was lucky enough to be it! At the Conference I will be installing the Pratt exhibition, while serving as their official representative. Additionally, I’m representing the Art Center of College and Design and hanging their show as well. After all these weeks of work, I’m so happy to be given this amazing opportunity. As many of you know, I’ve never traveled abroad, so this will truly be an adventure. I can’t wait to take you along …

Below are some of the projects I helped put together

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On a more serious note

Poster I submitted for the UN’s Youth Pre-Conference event on June 16th, 2010

STATEMENT:

Daniel Wiggins, Pratt Institute Graduate Communication Design Student

While researching the UN’s Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, I came across a disturbing Maternal Health fact within my own country. “Black women in the United States are 3-times more likely to die as a result of childbirth than white women,” according to a study. Could this really be true; are there really such large health disparities in the US? Due to many socioeconomic factors, there are huge disparities in health and life expectancy in the US. As an “socially aware” college student, I was shocked I was unaware of these issues. Most of us believe these are Third World problems, and they do not exist in our own neighborhoods. This is simply untrue. The fact is, many health outcomes in the US for specific minority groups (and I’m talking about millions of citizens),
are equal to those in developing nations.

As designers, we are given a unique opportunity to impact the world around us, and it is our responsibility to be aware and informed. I hope this poster, along with further research, will help shed light on the need for better Maternal Health practices in this country. While Maternal Health is truly an global issue, change must start at home.

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