Adobe Youth Voices, today announced Design Ignites Change, a program that encourages talented high school and college students from across the country to use the power of design to address social issues in their local communities through substantive public design projects. Students are encouraged to develop projects that will stimulate thought, dialogue, action and ultimately change.
To date, Design Ignites Change has engaged 17 colleges and universities who are now hard at work on responses to such pressing global issues as racism, economic inequality and climate change.
A major component of the initiative is a mentoring program through which college and university students, educators and creative professionals, work with underserved high school students to develop projects that will benefit their own communities, while giving them a voice around important social issues. The program will also serve to introduce these high school students to the creative professions as a career option. A guided option for the mentoring program will result in community billboard campaigns around the theme of tolerance.
The Design Ignites Change website showcases students’ process and project results. In the spirit of recognizing meaningful work, projects submitted by December 31, 2009 will be considered for selection in the first annual Design Ignites Change Awards Program. A jury of leading professional designers will convene to select the most effective and innovative solutions. Winners will be announced in March 2010.
Design faculty from the following schools have committed to participating in this inaugural year of the Design Ignites Change program:
Academy of Art University, San Francisco, CA – Alberta College of Art and Design, Calgary, Canada – Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA – C.S. Mott Community College, Flint, MI – College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI – Corcoran College of Art + Design, Washington, DC – IIT Institute of Design, Chicago, IL – Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO – Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA – Metropolitan State College, Denver, CO – Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA – Parsons The New School for Design, New York, NY – Portfolio Center, Atlanta, GA – Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, Lakewood, CO – School of Visual Arts, New York, NY – University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA – University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN.
Design Ignites Change is a joint project developed by Adobe Youth Voices and Worldstudio with support from AIGA, the professional association for design; Citizen scholar Inc.; Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; Core 77; Design Observer; Frog Design; Graphic Design USA; Williams and House.
If you represent a school or youth program and would like to find out how to participate, or a corporation or foundation wishing to support the program, please visit www.designigniteschange.org.
This article was last modified on December 17, 2022
This article was first published on March 9, 2009
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