Color already plays a major role in communicating messages: Just think of those bright yellow Livestrong bracelets, red T-shirts for Bono's (Red) campaign to fight AIDS in Africa, or all pink everything for breast cancer awareness. Now, a new collaborative of design students and color specialists wants to strengthen the connection between color and cause.
The "Color in Action" project began when Pantone, which sets color standards for design industries, approached the graphic design students of San Francisco's Academy of Art University with a challenge: How can color be used as a social vehicle to create change?
Under the guidance of instructor Tom Sieu, the students held a few brainstorming sessions and split into eight teams, each with a social issue at its core. “Team Environment is tackling the issue of rising sea levels, while Team Discrimination is focusing on bullying,” Sieu says. Each team began researching how to use color as the foundation of a campaign for its chosen cause.
Sieu ensured his students took a measured approach. “For the first six weeks, even before we started to think about design solutions, it was all about research," he says. “That's rare in a design curriculum. Usually, on week two of any given design class, students go off and start designing without developing a true sense of the problem they’re attacking.”
Photos courtesy of Bob Troy; presentation slides courtesy of the Academy of Art University
