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A Newsletter from the UN & NGOs Designers Group Geneva

Visual Communicators Newsletter
NOVEMBER 2017

This is a monthly newsletter from the UN Designers and Visual Communicators Group in Geneva. Drop us a line if you would like to collaborate or share any material in this newsletter: info@UNdesigners.org

An UNbranded organization?

UN has often been defined as 'one of the strongest brands in the world'. It clearly means that it has quite a strong recognition. Or at least, the logo does. Long has passed since Mr. Donal McLaughlin, Chief of Design at the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor to the CIA) created its initial designs in 1945. Now, Gstaad publications has edited an interesting white paper about the conception of the UN logo. And thankfully for those who believe that a brand exists beyond its logo (like most of us), researcher Stefan Tschauko has now completed a report about branding in the UN-system. You can access the report here. For those with limited time, you can download a simplified poster. And the good news is that we will soon have him in one of our UN Designers meetings to talk about the state of branding across the UN system. Stay tuned!

Information is Beautiful awards

David McCandless, the infographic guru behind the 'Information is Beautiful' website, talks and books, will be unveiling the winners for the 2017 edition of the Kantar Information is Beatiful Awards in the official ceremony on 28th of November in London. The awards have become (with permision of the Malofiej) one of the highest recognition for excellence in infographics and data visualization. Be inspired by browsing through this year's shortlisted projects, as for example this visual narrative from Federica Fragapane of six asylum seekers' routes from their hometown to Italy called 'The Stories Behind a Line'.

Poo Fighters

Are you feeling flush with knowledge? Or do you hide in the closet when it comes to sanitation? The psychology of disgust helps explain why there is resistance to talking about toilets, creating a real challenge for raising awareness on the subject. November 19th is a World Toilet Day and in order to highlight the importance of sanitation, it uses infographics, posters and videos (some in the past have bordered the bizarre) but surely shifted the way we frame toilets.

November Inspiration

A videogame
UNITAR's gaming tool "Mission Zhobia:Winning the peace", is a role video-game presented at the Geneva Peace Week (6-10 November) which will surely thrill bidding diplomats.

A website
As if wasn't good enough to enjoy thousands of typo/graphic posters in one site, filtering them by author or country, now we can also select them using a clever CMYK colour filtering tool.

A talk
Next Digital Strategy + UX Meetup on November 9 with Florian Egger, founder of Telono, and Adam Ungstad (pictured), information architect who has worked with IATA, WMO and WHO.

A (huge) fair
It’s time to pay a visit to the Grand Palais in the City of Lights from 9-12 for ParisPhoto, the world's largest international photo fair which also includes its prestigious photo-book award.

An expo
From 10-19 November at Palexpo, CERN will be the 'guest of honour' at Les Automnales. Infographics, talks, workshops, interactive tunnels, cinema and even 'proton football.. unmissable!

A campaign
Ogilvy & Mather has launched a new campaign for MSF in HK. The concept reinforces the idea that MSF 'take no sides' when saving lives, and also includes elements of gamification.

Have you joined our FB Group page? we want to use it as a platform to communicate more regularly, transfer knowledge and share our work. Hope to see you there!

Copyright © 2017 UN Designers Group, All rights reserved.

This newsletter has been produced by the UN Designers group, a non-profit organization created with the purpose of raising awareness around design and visual communications in international organizations, as well as help promoting the work done in this field. Our channels are both our physical meetings, usually hosted in UN agencies or other international organizations in geneva, and this e-newsletter.

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