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A Newsletter from the UN & NGOs Designers Group Geneva

Visual Communicators Newsletter
FEBRUARY 2018

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

Girls just want to have fun-damental rights

It’s high time for meaningful change! UN has been working on gender equality for a long time, but with new global feminist movements as Metoo and Times'up, the subject is currently in the spotlight of mainstream media too. The momentum should not be missed, and UNESCO knows that. They are using the occasion of the World Radio Day on the 13th of this month, to promote their new campaign on gender equality in the sports broadcasting - Her moments matter; and we can't wait to see it. In the meantime, do not miss ILO’s new Infostory on gender gap in employment and explore the data behind the trends that are holding women back from decent work.

From Russia with (Suprematism) Love

It seems that 'nation branding' has grown to be busy business. The question of what makes a nation a nation has been forever fraught, and every modern nation-state has built itself around some perceived essence, some identity regarded as unique. The latest example comes from Russia and their tourist board. Team of designers from four different agencies used Suprematism (with a T, please), the Russian avant-garde art movement, as the starting point for the unique design. You can also see the rest of the entries here. And yet another proof that this is the booming business comes from Serbia, where designer V.Pavlović, has proposed a new visual identity which, he belives, could change the perception that people have of this country.

Don't miss the train on Dataviz

Just because we love Black Mirror and are very concerned about what Strava can do to national security , it does not mean that we stopped believing in the (positive) power of big data when used to great effect with the right dataviz tools. A perfect example is Peak Spotting, the latest invention from M.Stefaner, the brain behind Truth and Beauty operations. The visualizations are providing traffic planners at Deutsche Bahn with visual tools to identify potential bottlenecks early on and proactively adjust prices to entice people to travel at different times, advise alternate routes and ensure that a train has enough cars. And the best of all is that tool itself may be changing how traffic planners view their own jobs as the beauty of the tool becomes a functional benefit!

February Inspiration

A Graffiti
What the 70th anniversary of the declaration of Human Rights, Gender equality and Omar Sharif have in common? Egyptian graffiti artist Aya Tarek gives us the answer here. Read on!

An (inexistent) Image
Photographer Gabriele Galimberti has created a visual story by portraying the future that is denied to some refugees blocked in the city of Como. Very Compelling. PDF can be downloaded here

A Day
21st February is International Mother Tongue day, and italian think tank Fabrica has put its creative juices to celebrate it. 'Lost in Computation' is one of our favourite pieces.

A Conference
Limited sitting left for this academic conference to be held in Basel from 8-10 March under the title 'Beyond Change: Questioning the role of design in times of global transformation'.

A (sanitation) Story
Great use of data visualization in this Reuters infostory looking at the "recipe for disaster" that is water supplies and sanitation at the Rohingya refugee areas of Bangladesh.

A Manifesto
'Without journalism, no democracy'. This is how the manifesto of this group of Zurich-based journalists starts for a new digital magazine project. Join their Republik now!

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Copyright © 2018 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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