User talk:Louisateichmann

Putin a Rainbow by Atelier Yuri Veerman

Yuri Veerman found a tangible way of dealing with the rather serious political issue of the fight against President Putin‘s Anti-Gay law by using the outreach of the internet to make the thread „putin a rainbow“ go viral. The idea was for people to photoshop rainbows into pictures of Putin and upload them online for everyone to see and share.

By creating something so simple in its form, many people were able to relate and participate and eventually the unlikely pair of Putin and the rainbow was all over the internet. All of the contributions are featured on a website called putinarainbow.com, which also provides a link to a petition against Putin signing the Anti-Gay law, which counted over 17.000 signatures. In my opinion, this is a good example of what a social designer can do and achieve, creating a simple, striking format that reaches people with humor, enables people to participate and leads to a possible real life impact. Yuri Veerman is an Amsterdam based artist, always looking for conflict and confrontation. The difficult thing about being involved with a political issue is not pushing one‘s own agenda onto others, but to observe, find one‘s own position as a designer and create a project which includes instead of offends and directs people. This is why I admire his work, as he creates work which is open for interpretation and discussion. His project „putin a rainbow“ combines open design with simplicity, contemporary means and a clear end goal. For a social cause to be heard, designers have to find a way to reach big audiences and in my opinion humor is a good tool for that. First, a designer has to catch the viewers attention, create a connection and only after that is established, a movement for change can happen.

Louisa Teichmann 0890023