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A Newsletter from the UN & NGOs Designers Group Geneva

Visual Communicators Newsletter
APRIL 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

UN Designers next meetup

Good news! A new UN Designers meetup is on the way. The meeting will take place at Room L in the ITU headquarters (Montbrillant building) on Friday 27th April, starting at 10:30am.
For this time we will have a double bill: Marc Friederich from Laussane based agency Antistatique will be discussing in 'Design Systems' how shifting from print to digital has shaped branding and design systems.
For the second talk, ‘Visualizing for Change’, Nicole Lachenmeier and Darjan Hil, from Basel's information design agency YAAY, will be presenting the seven principles of the agency’s information designers mindset. We encourage anyone interested in UX Design and Data Visualization to attend this exciting meeting. Entrance is free.
If you wish to attend, please write your name and organization in this list. We are looking forward to see you there!

Are you in a toxic relationship?

International Mother Earth Day (22nd of April) theme 'End Plastic Pollution' provides an opportunity for you to finally end this toxic relationship with plastic that is definitely not fantastic. Even more, if you need some advice on how to do it, check this UN Environment campaign called Clean Seas. Their media page has everything a campaign deserves: from logo renditions, social media cards, infographics, quotes, brand book... Since plastic pollution is one of the major current environmental issues there is plenty more of great material that can be of inspirational use, like White Waves – an award winning documentary, or media-rich websites from the Plastic Pollution Coalition or the Plastic Oceans Foundation.

Infographics at their best

Almost 'business as usual' as the big names populated the main infographics awards in the last Malofiej edition. Best in show awards went to Berliner Morgenpost and National Geographic. American mainstream media still proves to be the main referent, with NYT winning awards for online and print in their Antartica story (best map) and its hurricane Harvey infographic, and Washington Post with their gender pay gap story. Europe was also well represented with Nature magazine's refugees infographic and Ellery Studio's energy transition colouring book.

April Inspiration

A (deserved) award
Congrats to Mayúscula and their Across Borders poster exhibition for winning a Certificate of Excellence from the Type Directors Club: Typography helping to break down barriers.

A movement
Shepard Fairey’s Studio Number One designed this campaign in the midst of latest US elections, but as it seems Make America Smart Again hasn’t finished their mission just yet.

A trend
A new trend has emerged! Political activism through graphic messages has found its way to museums. Visit one or even all 'protest' exhibitions in Zurich, Paris and London.

A stamp collection
It may look old-fashioned, but UN stamps prove illustration can bring a touch of style, as the latest UNPA bulletin shows on the occasion of the World Health Day (7th April).

An identity
This year’s World Intellectual Property Day celebrates the innovation and creativity of the women who are driving change in our world. Trello page supplies all media files for its campaign.

A view
84 sculptures of men which teeter on the edge of ITV's building in London may look daunting; In fact they are part of The Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm) that fights suicide.

Still not part of us? You can sign up to receive our newsletter and also join 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 © 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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