1 iPod - A Grassroots Project
12.12.06 @ 12:01 amCall me cynical, but throughout the years I have begun to get quite turned off from the holidays. From my observations, this time of the year has turned into more of a consumer/corporate event than anything resembling holiday cheer. Last Saturday I decided to take a couple hours out of my day to try to put things into perspective. We all enjoy our luxuries, and we all enjoy giving certain luxuries to our loved ones. Nonetheless, consider what the money used to purchase a moderately priced luxury such as an iPod could do for the most impoverished in a developing nation. During this holiday season, I decided to design some posters and release printable PDFs on this very subject. My hope is this will get me, and hopefully you, to think about what our money could accomplish if spent elsewhere…
Background
The holiday season is now marked by carefully chosen product releases, such as the well-timed release of video game consoles, than by acts of kindness. I feel increasingly that profit and greed are a greater part of the season than good will toward men and women. Rather than get upset about it and do nothing, this year I decided to get upset and do something about it. I have no notions of grandeur about this write up or the project to follow. Just like gift giving, it is the thought that counts. News reports during this season are peppered with sales reports of how much retailers expect from holiday purchases and how big the bonuses are on Wall Street. Yet, not much press is dedicated to the people who are unable to participate in the “festivities”.
It has been estimated that in 2001, 1.1 billion people had consumption levels below $1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day.
The World Bank
During my research, I found many non-profits that estimated how much it would cost to feed a child through their program. I calculated some basic averaging of various programs to try to figure out how much it would cost to feed one child for a day in an undeveloped nation. I settled on a conservative estimate of approximately $0.33 a day. Is this figure scientific? No. Does having the actual figure (down to the cent) make this topic more or less meaningful? I personally do not think so. My goal was not to set out to create a guilt campaign or imply that we should all stop what we are doing and join the peace corps en masse. This was done simply to think about the impact money can have in the world. The result was that I feel a huge sense of gratitude for the things that I do have.
The Posters
I decided to create posters showing what could be achieved with the amount of money an iPod costs. I aimed to create a statement clear in its meaning, but vague in its message. My goal was something simple and neutral, yet able to quickly communicate the topic’s scale. I also wanted to make a poster that would be easy for people to download and print at home or to post in public places, if they so desired.
The posters are (hopefully) quite self-explanatory. 900 children are represented in each poster to signify the amount of people that could be fed for one day with the amount of money an iPod costs. I felt it was extremely important to stay as literal, simple and clear as possible in order to keep the subject the focal point. The poster comes in letter and tabloid sizes - both with single and tiled versions. I thought it was highly important to have a single-page version of this poster as it makes it much easier for people to print/copy and post. Subsequently, a single-page poster creates much less waste and is easier to recycle. The tiled version is more powerful and profound, but I doubt many people are going to take the time with their exacto-knife (if they even have one) and tape to put it together. Aesthetics took a significant backseat to accessibility in this project. Below is an example of the end product:
Tiled letter-sized version:
Single-page version:
Why the iPod?
No, I do not hate iPods and yes, I do own an iPod. The reason that I chose the iPod for the subject of this concept is that the iPod is the quintessential consumer product of our generation. Looking back ten years from now, I feel the iPod will be one of the marks that distinguishes the time. Interestingly enough, for a product of mass consumption that defies age, gender, race, etc., the iPod is very expensive and has an aura of luxury status. No doubt there are plenty other items of more luxury and less use, but the iPod is far more pervasive than any other well-known luxury item than I can think of. In addition, the music purchasing model of iTunes has ushered in a new wave of impulse buying. One song for $1 seems like absolutely nothing. How many times have you heard, “What can $1 buy nowadays.” The answer - it can feed a child for roughly three days.
The iPod signifies this generation’s excess and so it exists in perfect dissonance with the overwhelming disaster of world poverty. It is fitting that this device that allows us to exist in “our own little world” also defines us as living in “our own little world”.
It is fitting that the iPod is part of Product Red, a fund raising campaign for the Global Fund. Established in 2002, the mission of the Global Fund is to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Africa. Each time you purchase something from Product Red, a portion of the proceeds is donated to the Global Fund. It’s a good thing that red is our favorite color here at Some Random Dude.
Download Printable PDF Files
| Single Page | Tiled | |
|---|---|---|
| Letter (8.5″x11″) | Download PDF (8.5″x11″) | Download PDF (50″x8.5″) |
| Tabolid (11″x17″) | Download PDF (11″x17″) | Download PDF (50″x11″) |
Now What?
That is really up to you. Print out a poster and post it somewhere - maybe even on your fridge. Tell your friends about this project. Post this link to del.icio.us or Digg. Design your own poster of a similar subject and send it to me - I will post it on this website. Talk to someone about this issue. Spend less this holiday season. Give time, not money. Give money to charity. Appreciate what you have. Make dinner for your friends. Do nothing. Disagree with this project. What do you think?activism, anti consumerism, art, consumerism, developing nations, distribution of wealth, grassroots project, holiday season, holidays, hungry children, ipod, money, pdf, poor, poster, print campaign, print project, printable pdf, quit buying so much crap wealth
December 12th, 2006 at 10:31 am
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
very very cool!
last year my wife gave me a nano ipod and I asked her to return it and to take the money from it and put it into our son’s college fund.
I wish I had known about the ‘product red’ program last year.
red is also my favorite color!
a comrade
December 12th, 2006 at 10:56 am
$0.50 in Comment Love for November
You know what’s really ironic and sad? I was listening to my iPod when I stumbled upon your new article. Can you imagine how horrible I felt. Thanks, Some Random Dude for this guilt trip! I can never look at an iPod or Apple computer in the same way. Jokes aside, I love this new feature. and I love you are doing some print design!
The poster is simple and very effective, although I wish you made a color version in your signature red to make the copy more vibrant. The style and layout makes me think of a contemporary Josef Muller-Brockmann poster. Very understated yet direct.
I am compelled to design something for this entry. I’ll try my best to put a poster together, but can’t promise anything due to my hectic schedule. I hope people will be inspired or at least ‘informed’ by your message. None of us are perfect, and we all have our vices regarding luxury, but its good to think about reality once in a while. All of us are selfish to a certain extent, and while its unavoidable, it can be *somewhat* remedied by giving back to charity, community service, caring, etc. Just to spend a moment and think about our luxuries and fortunes in comparison to those suffering is at the very least, a step toward progress and enlightenment. Whether something is done in response is up to each individual and their conscious.
December 12th, 2006 at 10:56 am
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
Thats an awesome message. I think that it’s something more people need to hear. We get sucked into a whirl of money, luxury and material things and sometimes forget the big picture. Lets keep the change moving.
Katie
December 12th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
What you say and have done is good …. however when you learn that much of the food and money that is meant for the needy is diverted into the pockets of corrupt handlers, it is very discouraging. Many donors, or would be donors, hesitate when they know that some of not all of their donations will go toward a Rolls for some dictator. In a perfect world we could prevent a lot of suffering, but ……………………..
December 12th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
Activist art! I love it. Purely conceptual. And a great concept PJ. You really nail the idea down to the roots bradda. (Im printing extras so they float around the office, hehee)
December 12th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
$0.50 in Comment Love for November
Yooch, paint the town red (pun intended) with these posters! time for some guerilla art! PJ, you should have made some cool stencils to go along with the posters. Take A Wild Guess wants to go tagging soon.
December 12th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
Good stuff . . . I’ve just been doing some ranting myself about the holiday season when I came across your site. It certainly can get discouraging Ray but what else can we do but try? I’m actually really excited to have stumbled upon some like-minded designers who are actually doing something, because there’s a ton of things we can do!
Check out my own holiday rant on my CPLUV blog here: http://www.cpluv.com/www/item/eHorn/6735/.
PS. If you or any other designers are interested in doing some collaborative work with a social statement or for a worthy cause send me your interest at elihorn@addictedtocolour.com. It could be pretty interesting.
December 12th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
very nice site by the way.
December 12th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
$0.50 in Comment Love for November
Great post, Eli. I loved your shirt design on Threadless by the way! Congrats.
I would love to see you do a design for Some Random Dude’s holiday project…
December 12th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Thanks so much for the comments everybody! I’ll be replying to each and everyone later tonight.
December 13th, 2006 at 6:20 am
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
Im a bit of a latecomer to the commenting, but I love this poster. The idea of visually representing each of the 900 children is simply brilliant. How about visually representing the iPod with a little picture using the same simple design style?
Thankfully I do not have an iPod (just a shitty little Discman) so I’m free from guilt on this one
December 13th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
for $150 you can buy a goat for a family in central or south america through Food for the Poor. a goat is very useful as it can provide milk and cheese for a family for many years.
December 13th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
Hmm… My friend’s company she works for just gave all their employees (about 1600) a new iPod Nano…
Nice idea PJ!
December 14th, 2006 at 12:41 am
Thanks for the comments everyone - I really appreciate the participation. Sadly, this project did not go as far as I would have hoped. My goal was to get many more people to see this project - it seemed to just run out of gas… Still, I’m glad for the amount of people that did see it.
anechoic - The Red project definitely is a good thing and if I was ever to get a full-fledged iPod (I own a Shuffle), I would probably get that.
kellie - I’m actually glad you feel guilty - that’s the entire reason why I took this project on.
Thanks for the kind words, it’s greatly appreciated. I didn’t make a color version because I wanted it to be easily printed/copied while still retaining its visual appearance. I guess I could have made two versions, but I just ran out of time. 
KatieNY - Thanks for the encouragement, it makes the time taken to create the posters worth it.
Ray - You bring up a good point - one I don’t have an answer to. I think we all need to come to our own individual conclusions about what we’re going to do about poverty and how. I can understand people’s apprehensions to giving due to its pitfalls.
Yousuf - As always, thanks man.
Eli - Sounds good man, let’s have your people talk to my people.
Seriously though, I’ll be hitting you up on this.
Steve - That’s a really good idea about showing the iPod icon. I may do some more experiemental pieces just with iconography. Thanks for the idea.
claire - I think my wife and I are going to do something along those lines this holiday season. We’re just not sure what sort of livestock it would be.
Tim - Yeah, a place I worked for just handed out iPods to all their employees as well. Honestly, I commend them for their generosity - my hope is that generosity will spread to causes such as this as well.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:28 am
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
“The UNDP has calculated that the annual cost of providing a basic education for all children in peripheral countries would be around $6 billion, which is less than the annual sales of cosmetics in the United States.
Providing water and sanitation for everyone in peripheral countries is estimated at $9 billion per year, which is less than Europeans’ annual expenditure on ice cream.
Providing basic health and nutrition for everyone in the peripheral countries would cost an estimated $13 billion per year - less than the annual expenditure on pet foods in Europe and the United States.
Reducing the military expenditures of core countries (in the region of $700 billion per year) by less than 10 percent each year would pay for the costs of basic education, water and sanitation, basic health and nutrition, and reproductive health programs for everyone in perephiral countries.”
(Knox and Marston, 2004)
December 14th, 2006 at 11:37 am
$0.50 in Comment Love for November
Don’t give up on this poster project. Keep on reposting the entry. Talk about it. Hang them up.
Unfortunately, the way to really get widespread attention as I’ve learned from Milton Glaser, Sagmeister, Shepard Fairey, and a few other designers who did grassroots campaigns, is to post these all over the city which could be legally challenging. As I said earlier, there’s an individual who calls himself Take A Wild Guess who has been trying to rally up a team to do a tagging project in the city. In other words, someone else could do the dirty work for you. (You have been excluded from the list of potential cohorts because he doesn’t want to get in trouble with your lovely wife.)
December 22nd, 2006 at 11:31 am
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
Thanks for designing for a good cause. You are an inspiration.
January 7th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
This is great. I’m going to post about it this week.
Love your awareness raising desires.
January 10th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
$3.00 in Comment Love for November
[…] Is a phone worth $500? I understand that it does far more than a regular phone, but it still begs the question. I for one am certain I will not be picking one of these up. If you have read my blog recently, I think I have been pretty clear on my take on the obsession of consumer luxuries in this country. I am actually a little disappointed that there was no mention of a more reasonably-priced model in the horizon. The UI is very impressive - far easier to accomplish normal tasks than my current phone on its best day. I would love to see a 1 megapixel, 256 MB, no WIFI version that costs in the $100 to $150 range. Ironically, it was the iMac (the affordable alternative to regular models) that sprung Apple from its past free-fall. I would hope that they would continue to recognize that design which is more accessible to the global community as a while is just as important as design that makes our lives easier. […]
January 31st, 2007 at 11:42 am
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
Great initiative. Will publish this on our site soon.
However, what about “1 Ipod today is probably 1 youngster deaf tomorrow”?
No joke, get this this: http://www.canvas.be/canvas_master/programmas/overleven/c_overleven_070121_keiluid/index.shtml
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:36 am
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
I thought you would want to know,
That I sold our ipod after seeing this project (full disclosure: we got a different mp3 player, but far cheaper) and wanted to remind you to keep inspiring people.
August 26th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
See http://www.buynothingchristmas.org/
Maybe you can hook up with them to make a hot poster for your idea?? (I love it, BTW. I did find your poster a bit confusing, though –without the backgrounder on it, I think some may interpret it as iPod purchases actually raising funds for starving kids, KWIM?)
August 26th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
Oops! Just realized the backgrounder IS on your posters! Well done.
March 23rd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
good idea. nice poster!