Six students from New York City’s High School of Art and Design are being given an opportunity that many designers only dream of – their designs will be featured on Clear Channel’s “Spectacolor HD” digital billboard in Times Square. The billboards were created as part of Create! Don’t Hate., a Design Ignites Change mentoring initiative. Professional designers from the mentoring program of the New York chapter of AIGA worked with students from the High School of Art and Design to create billboard designs addressing the theme of tolerance.

The final student designs address a wide variety of issues such as gay rights, racism and body image. Over the course of two months, the mentors led students through the design process – from brainstorming and sketching to producing the final designs on the computer. Twenty-two students participated, with six of the designs ultimately chosen for display in Times Square on prime advertising space made available through a partnership with Clear Channel Spectacolor.

The winning billboard designs will be unveiled on Spectacolor HD during a launch event at the corner of Broadway and 47th Street on July 6th starting at 10:15 am. The mentors, project coordinators and representatives from Worldstudio and Clear Channel Spectacolor, along with the general public, are invited to celebrate with the students and their families. Additionally, all twenty-two designs will be displayed in an exhibition at the AIGA National Design Center Gallery (164 Fifth Avenue, between 21st and 22nd Streets) through July 22nd.

The article presents several case studies of projects implemented by designers that set precedent for creating a sustainable market for socially responsible design including John Bielenberg’s Project M, INDEX and AIGA’s Designing Water’s Future and Worldstudio’s Design Ignites Change and Create! Don’t Hate.

The article also gives tips on what you can do right now. Here is a summary of Mark’s steps to launching your own project to ignite change:

1. Find your passion

2. Start local

3. Go beyond the obvious

4. Find partners, build a coalition

5. Be realistic

6. Raise some cash

7. Execute

8. Measure success

9. Spread the word

Reprinted with permission by Communication Arts, ©2009 Coyne & Blanchard, Inc. All rights reserved. www.commarts.com

Mark Randall and Andréa Pellegrino were two of the eleven speakers at this year’s Y Conference produced by AIGA San Diego. Mark and Andréa presented their partnering strategies and recent collaborations on the Urban Forest Project and Design Ignites Change.

Mark and Andréa were also interviewed by Debbie Millman for her weekly live broadcast of the online radio show Design Matters on Voice America Business. Listen to the archived show with Shel Perkins, Liz Danzico and Lorraine Wilde here. Mark and Andréa’s segment begins at the 30 minute mark.

Worldstudio, together with the Adobe Foundation’s signature program Adobe Youth Voices, today launched Design Ignites Change, a program that encourages talented high school and college students to use the power of design to address social issues in their local communities through substantive public projects. Supporting and media partners include: AIGA, the professional association for design; Citizen Scholar; Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; Core 77; Design Observer; Frog Design; Graphic Design USA; Williams & House.

To date, Design Ignites Change has engaged 15 colleges and universities who are now hard at work on responses to such pressing global issues as racism, economic inequality and climate change. Students are working to develop actual, visible projects aimed to stimulate thought, dialog, action, and ultimately, 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.

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

The evening also honored the 2008/2009 Worldstudio AIGA Scholarship winners. The scholarship program – established by Worldstudio in 1995 and now implemented in collaboration with AIGA – benefits minority and economically disadvantaged students who are studying art and design disciplines in colleges and universities across the United States. The primary goals of the program are to increase diversity in the creative professions and to foster social and environmental responsibility in the artists, designers and studios of tomorrow. This year the program awarded 22 scholarships and 9 honorable mentions for a total of $65,000.

Gala ticket sales, a silent auction and additional contributions totaled more than $140,000, a portion of the proceeds will fund future Worldstudio AIGA Scholarships.

Worldstudio AIGA Scholarship winners on stage