I have plenty of creative and talented friends and I’ve expressed to a few of them that they are are lucky in that if they ever wanted to do a personal project or or focus on a cause, they could easily use their design, programming, or artistic skills to really make it appealing. It looks like a group of graphic designers did just that as they team up to address climate change. What started, and is still lead, by a studio out of Vancouver called smashLAB has now become a collective of designers that are working together towards a common goal. The issue here is global warming and though you’ve heard the issue all over the news, and even in Al Gore’s award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” seeing the story presented visually in an aesthetically pleasing fashion makes the lesson more enjoyable and memorable. Design Can Change focuses on using the talents of print, television, and advertising to promote awareness and change. They also work as intermediaries between the consumer and the producers to steer projects in a more environmentally conscious direction. The site was completely designed pro-bono and as you can imagine, is extremely clean and a pleasure to look at. I implore you to check it out.

Josh and I first saw Sarah Pickering’s explosive photography at Scope Miami during Art Basel last year, and I was excited to see her featured in the current pHytonics issue. It’s undeniably the pyro in me that’s drawn to Sarah’s explosion photos– haven’t been able to get one this big out of my gas grill quite yet though. Interestingly, Sarah is no pyrotechnic (because you’d think that would be half the fun), but rather just follows police and military personnel into the boonies in England to photograph their explosives tests. Sarah is represented by renowned photography gallery Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York, and just recently held a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. Anyone have a chance to see that show?

At long last the talks of TED Prize Winners, President Bill Clinton, EO Wilson and James Nachtwey are available online for your viewing pleasure. I’ve embedded James Nachtwey’s talk here about his decades as a photo journalist– my favorite of the three. In this gripping and (warning) very visual talk James takes us through nearly 3 decades of his photos from street violence to famine, disease and war. He then makes his wish, asking for help gaining access to a story that needs to be told, and developing a new, digital way to show these photos to the world. This year the TED talks are even available for download in High Resolution (480p). Be sure to check out Clinton and EO Wilson’s speeches as well at the TED Blog or after the jump. These videos make the hairs stand up on my neck– so powerful!
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