Design. Charity. Life.

What’s a Charrette? Where’s Lota? You may not know either of those answers, but these lead to a very interesting experience, when I had the opportunity to participate in an international design collaboration with the focus of developing sustainable tourism for the city of Lota, Chile.

Over 100 Students from 6 Schools out of 9 Countries formed 9 Teams who ate 864 Slices of pizza, along with 38 Expert Advisors – all together for this Charrette over 5 days at George Brown College’s School of Design.

If you’re wondering what a charrette is, the IwB website has a great description:

“A charrette is an intensive, collaborative process that brings together community members and professionals to develop innovative solutions for complex issues. Over a few short days of brainstorming, discussion and expert consultation, teams create a broad range of ideas around the central theme.”

The task of our particular team was to create a boutique hotel designed to feature local arts and culture, centrally located beside the Plaza de Armas and offering tourists rooms at a variety of rates and amenities. We called it Soneto Hotel. Being graphic design students a few of us worked in a sub-group on branding this hotel.

The Institute without Boundaries website describes the end result:

After just 4 days, the designs were thorough, imaginative and practical. A panel made up of representatives from each of the 3 international schools as well as the IwB / George Brown College evaluated all the final designs in a day-long presentation session, and the top three designs were awarded badges of recognition, but the judges had something positive to say about each and every one of the projects that were presented.

Presenting our team’s final concept to the advisors and other participants:

(The above photos of the event are by Michelle.)

Though it was intense and time consuming, overall it was a very interesting experience and a great opportunity to work with students including those outside of OCAD University and even outside Canada.

Our final project along with all other groups’ work can be found here.

Helping young people understand the power they have to effect change in their communities was the focus of Local Democracy Week, hosted at Queen’s Park in Toronto in November 2010.

Local activist Louroz Mercader, founder of the Institute for Youth Citizenship (IYC) who created the event, recapped the day as a “meaningful dialogue between future voters and our elected officials”. Not only are students educated on how our local democracy system functions, but through this event they are “breaking down the somewhat intimidating barriers in the political process,” explains Mercader.

Speakers included Ontario’s Minister of Education and Minister of Children and Youth Services, in addition to keynotes by Free the Children’s Marc Kielburger and Michel Chikwanine. Voter Turnout addressed by the Chief Election Officer and petitions were led by the Legislative Assembly Clerk.

Mercader admits that he wishes he “had something like this in high school”.

With their many roles and responsibilities, politicians today should actively seek youth input. Although young people form a significant portion of the population, they are often under-represented. Marc Kielburger, co-founder of Free the Children and CEO of social enterprise Me to We, believes that leaders can be influenced by their youngest constituents. However, he states, “Politicians greatly affect youth, but youth don’t necessarily affect politicians.”

One reason for this is that the issues many politicians choose to focus on do not directly relate to young people. Like the organizers of this event, Kielburger believes that this should, and can, change.

Passionate politicians and active citizens are key to democracy. Politics is not only a career – it is a service opportunity.

As part of the Local Democracy Week program, several Members of Provincial Parliament of Ontario participated in “Political Speed-Dating”, where students had a chance to rotate between elected officials to ask questions directly.

Kuldip Kular, MPP for Bramalea-Gore-Malton-Springdale, shared that he strongly believes youth should be partaking in the democratic process. “From the beginning, people today are getting disengaged,” he states. However Kular explains that this event’s format and open dialogue with youth is a great way to participate in democracy and encourages active involvement from youth, stating, “Democracy is not just in Queen’s Park”.

With many elected officials open to participating in youth-focused events like Local Democracy Week, and citizens getting involved within the democratic process at a young age, today’s youth are developing as the leaders of tomorrow – by taking action today.

View the published version of this article online at TheStar.com Global Voices.

As a graphic design student it’s clear that logo (identity, branding) design is a huge aspect of a successful business, and one that is treated with high importance by designers and clients alike.

There are many legendary brands that are identified by their logos – even internationally, across language and cultural barriers. However today, more and more companies are trying to “engage” with their customers through social media and taking a chance at modifying their image. Some of them, even giant powerful corporations, feel that they can test out major changes (like a logo re-design) online.

There have been intense results even in the public sector, including University  of Waterloo’s logo re-design which was leaked before being explained to the institution and student body.

With the 2010 GAP logo controversy, where the company one day replaced their classic iconic logo on their US website, a huge can of worms were opened for consumers and of course other brands. While GAP reverted back to their original logo after “social media backlash“, they received harsh criticisms and lost respect from many in the design community. Regardless of their alleged “crowd-sourcing” methods, the point is that everyday people are paying more and more attention to branding than ever before.

Recently, some major brands including Starbucks modified their logos. But was it necessary, or were they tempted to try what others like GAP did? Perhaps consumers are getting overly involved in the design process, due to the outcry and intense participation in this area – or more likely, they’re doing exactly what the brand wants them to do.

Maybe brands are doing this for media attention? To gain loyal followers? For some excitement around the office? To burn cash on reprinting every single letterhead, business card, sign, label, t-shirt and re-painting every truck and store?

Many times, rebranding is absolutely necessary and comes as an inspiring breath of fresh air. In the cases below, however, how vital were the changes? And more significantly, were the changes even for the better?

Sometimes we forget that all the great achievers, the most successful people in history, failed many times before succeeding. But they did not give up.

Failure is part of life: “If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived.”

Here’s an inspiring video on persevering no matter how many times you have failed in life.