Stopping Violence
I recently had the opportunity to listen to war photographer James Nachtwey’s speech accepting the TED award. The first time I listened to the audio only, and was struck by the sound of the sadness in his voice – a sadness I share when I see his photographs and think of the situations he has experienced. I also share his concern for fellow human beings whose lives are being torn apart by violence. I hope to see an end of it one day.
While my circumstances don’t permit me to globe-trot to war torn areas, I have long been aware that you don’t need to go to a faraway land to see a country seriously effected by violence. We have one right here.
So when designer Frank Baseman recently approached me with an idea about creating a poster that would bring attention to the skyrocketing murder rate in Philadelphia, I was happy to oblige. Guns are responsible for most of those deaths, so Frank’s idea was to have a profile of a gun overlaid with the names of the dead along with their age, race and date of death. Frank made the decision to color-code the names in accord with their race to further emphasize how the statistics break out. One curious fact for you: the City of Philadelphia doesn’t keep statistics on hispanics. Death rates are only broken out to black, white or asian, so it’s anyone’s guess as to where hispanics end up. Even so, it’s an eye-opener to see how those colors work out on the poster.
While we shot the gun in profile as per his original idea, I thought that looking down the barrel a bit would send a stronger visual message. To his credit, Frank agreed to try it that way too and in the end we both liked it better. The larger the image gets, the more the barrel grabs your attention.
Yesterday the Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article about the poster which has been picked up by the Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia who is hoping to actually get them displayed around the city this summer. See the Inquirer article for more information.
[Update: Inquirer followup article and other media coverage:
Philadelphia Inquirer, 8-22-07 (followup)
Tell Me More with Michel Martin, National Public Radio, 8-28-07
Voice: AIGA Journal of Design: "Where's the (Brotherly) Love?"]