Title: Rich & Poor
Category: Health care deprivation
Designer: Salom Koshkadze
Country: Georgia

[...] “A social graphic design project shouldn’t be commissioned but it should emerge from  a necessity to communicate that reflects the designer’s sensitivity.”
Alain LeQuernec

Being socially engaged and denouncing society’s problems is not limited to journalists and sociologists. Graphic designers can—through their creativity—have their say and help make a difference in the world in their own way. Over the past three years Good 50×70—a non-profit organization headed by UNESCO—has been organizing poster contests with themes such as child labour, climate change, health care deprivation, HIV/AIDS, nuclear emergency, war on terror and women’s rights violation.

The initiatives’ aims are the following:

• to promote the value of social communication in the creative community

• to provide charities with a (free) database of communication tools

• to inspire the public via graphic design

As of 2009 designers from 163 countries around the world, including Iran, China, and Zimbabwe—a country in which freedom of expression is hardly an absolute right—had created over 4,100 posters. Good 50×70 is proof that change is possible. In order for the contest to be open to everyone, it’s held over the Internet and registration doesn’t cost a cent.

There are no winners or losers. However, 210 posters are selected, exhibited, published, and then supplied to participating charities (Amnesty International, AMREF, Greenpeace, Emergency, LILA, and WWF) to use in promoting their causes.

Concurrently Good 50×70 organizes social communication workshops in design schools—notably in Mexico, Italy, and Suriname—the goal of which is to raise awareness about the importance of getting involved and to demonstrate that designers have the power to change the world.

Title: Thirsty
Categorie: Water scarcity
Designer: Benoni Ceratti Zorzi
Country: Brazil

Title: Extinction
Category: Climate change
Designer: Marco Valentini
Country: Italy