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The Obamafy Photo Booth plugin emulates a popular poster by Shepard Fairey. Obmafy PhotoBooth plugin by Dubi Kaufmann. The little X-mas touches, are all Wj.
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Welcome to WendyZworld's Blogalicious Year-end Chatter...
Once again my honey and I are spending the holidays alone together. Quietly, peacefully, restfully.
It's been a crazy year for me as you all know (if not, it's all here in Blogalicious Splendor...). My second book on sustainable design is out (see blog posts from earlier this year), and I'm reintroducing myself to my long patient clients.
With all the writing I do (books, lessons for the classes I teach, presentations, my regular column in Package Design Magazine, other invited columns, and countless emails), plus the enormity of the tasks ahead of those of us working in sustainable design (okay man, now we're listening — so make with the solutions already...) I'm feeling oddly quiet. Like a miner looking at a mountain side handed a teaspoon to dig with.
Other than the few days I took off for my 50th this year, I can't remember the last weekend I could call my own. Everyday is Monday in my world. This is an observation, not a complaint. For those of us on the frontline of pushing for real change, the time has never been better to make that happen. I would venture to say there isn't a one of us willing to take time off until this effort is completely mainstreamed. I'm thinking sometime in 2030 maybe?
If you had told me when I was in college in the late 70s, that as a designer I'd have the opportunity to help redesign EVERYTHING, but get it right this time, I'd have thought you were crazy.
But the time is here, and I'm going for it. Sleep is overrated anyway. Maybe when I retire...
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This year's featured Holiday Effort...
As I considered my options my thoughts touched on many things, but zeroed in on: empowering women in areas where women have few opportunities; and the power of design to affect positive change (the focus of my two books currently out, http://www.indes.net/e-publishing).
Then I remembered a project a fellow design group was working on, getting LifeStraw's (a portable personal water filter, http://lifestraw.123yourweb.com) into the hands of as many people living without clean water as they could. More than just an incredibly cool design, lack of safe local water means the long hard task of hauling water in underdeveloped countries falls on those in the community whose time is considered of least value, women and young girls, leaving no time for school, training, or any chance of pursuing opportunities to improve their lot.
With all of this in mind, I've purchased LifeStraws as my "gifts" for friends and family, to be distributed in developing countries as part of the ongoing effort to help make safe water a little more accessible, and the lives of those families these filters will reach a little better.
It's these connections — one person helping another — that creates real change. Here's a great story about a nine-year-old who did just that... http://www.vestergaard-frandsen.com/chicago-boy-raises-money.htm
I hope this Holiday season, if you're not active in change already, you'll find your own effort to give your time, talents, and energy to. It's easy to sit on the sidelines and complain about how screwed-up the world is — but it's way way way more fun to get-up and make change happen.
"If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space."
~ Anon.
Ciao for now...
Wj
