June 27, 2011

Statement so far

The reason why I am interested in this topic not only because more and more people care about the environment and pay attention to sustainability, but also my mother and brother have respiratory system disease and suffer from air pollution. My brother is very sensitive about the particles in the polluted air. In the worst case, he has to wear a mask while in outdoor. The air pollution can affect people's life especially elders and children. I believe design can change our society and in order to improve our living environment, my goal is to test how far can design go to affect people's behavior. 

Due to that L.A. is the worst air polluted city in the United States, I looked at a report of health effects of air pollution published by the South Coast Air Quality Management District in California. Ambient air pollution is a major public health concern. Excess death and increases in illness associated with high air pollution levels have been documented in several episodes as early as 1930 in Meuse, Belgium; 1948 in Donora Pennsylvania (20 residents died and 14,000 residents have been sicken), and 1952 in London.

Although levels of pollutants that occurred during these acute episodes are now unlikely in the United States, ambient air pollution continues to be linked to increases in respiratory illness and death rates. The attachment is the brief table that shows the health effects of some of the common pollutants found in our air and examples of some of the sources of these pollutants. The other table is the combined effects of estimates daily mean particulate pollution. As we can see, the air pollution can cause cancer, respiratory, lung, eye, skin illness.

Here are some facts about smog and health:
  • A 1989 study funded by AQMD and conducted by Dr. Jane Hall of Cal State Fullerton found that meeting federal clean air standards for ozone and fine particulates in the South Coast region would provide $9.4 billion in health-related benefits each year. The study found that 98% of the four-county basin's population of 13 million is exposed to unhealthful air, with children especially vulnerable. In addition, 1,600 people die prematurely as a result of exposure to air pollution, according to the study.
  • In 1991, as a follow up to the study, Hall looked at how air quality impacts minority communities. The study showed that minorities as a whole were shown to be exposed more often to poor air quality since they tend to live in more polluted air where housing is affordable. African-Americans and Hispanics generally breathe the worst air, partly because they tend to work in outdoor occupations. 
  • In 1987, Drs. Russell Sherwin and Valda Richters of USC examined the health of 152 young people, between the ages of 15 and 25, who died suddenly from accidents or homicide. In lung autopsies of over 100 of the subjects, slight lung airspace inflammation was found in 75% of the group, with severe damage in 27%. In addition, all of the youths examined had some degree of airway inflammation, while 39% had severe illness in the bronchial glands and 29% had severe illness in their bronchial linings. Combined, about 54% of the youths examined had at least one site of severe illness. While no evidence has been found to deter-ine the levels of smoking or other contributing factors that could have affected their health, these youths appear to have provided the first positive proof of health damage from long-term exposure to poor air quality.
In order to narrow down the concentration, I decided to focus on the traffic and create a campaign for mass transportation. As we can see in the previous chart, cars and trucks are common examples of sources. Here are my stages below:
 
Create a campaign to encourage the public to use mass transportation, especially people who are used to drive cars. Media including prints, website, and video (animation) are considered.
  • The benefits of taking mass transportation. Focus on the optimistic aspect (Infographics)
  • How green can you be? Interactive calculator
  • light-hearted design
  • story telling
  • Teach people what to do
  • Example: CITGO Fueling Good. http://www.fuelinggood.com/ This program is about giving thousands of gallons of gas to charitable organizations in our 27-state area. They promote them self as a positive image to the communities. The warm and positive design (colors, graphics, and typefaces ) make the viewers feel like they are doing something good. I like the video focusing on the good things beyond gas.
There are some non-profit organizations about clean air all over the world. Their goal is to raise people's awareness, and furthermore, to take action. People can donate or join the events. I feel like these non-profit organizations provide a lot of information to the public, but they don't get "graphic design" involved into their campaign. Although they do have logos, the whole campaigns are lack of the visual corporate identity.


Case study 1: Clean Air Campaign in Atlanta, Georgia. http://www.cleanaircampaign.org/
Their tag line of the Clean Air Campaign is less traffic, cleaner air. For individuals, it's a way to save money, and beneficially in many aspects. I like the idea of calculator, you actually can "see" how much money you saved. I would like to take the idea and go further like how much energy you save or how green can you be. The video is very realistic. There's no fancy design in it, and I think it's a little bit weak to convince people to take action.


Case study 2: Clean Air Network in Hong Kong.  http://www.hongkongcan.org/eng/

The organization held several events on the street to raise people's awareness, but I didn't see design in posters, stage background, or prints. They don't have a "consistent" visual identity in the campaign, so people can receive the information immediately. The first two TV commercials has completely different styles. The different events also have different design style. It's hard for the audience to perceive the organization as a whole.
In the TV commercials, it's interesting to see they make fun of our life without clean air. They tell you the truth and impact but they don't teach you how to improve the air quality. I would like to know how to take action.
Their recent campaigns are Clean Air Auction and Air Mazing Race. Although the target audience is different, I still feel like there should be some consistency in design. I like the simplicity and cleanness composition in Clean Air Auction. Here is the artists' interview: http://www.youtube.com/user/CleanAirNetwork#p/c/8F64125CB4DB16C1

I like it's fun and friendly design, especially the first three. The white clouds imply the change of life style is making air cleaner and healthier. The following four posters use images, but I think the images didn't correspond with the tag line very well.

They also interviewed individuals who take the transit as their radio ad.

And at last I am also curious about how design affects people's behavior. How do I know the design is working? How many people are changing their thinking and behavior? I still have to figure out how to analyze all the result.


Reference
Posted by Lena Lin at 1:15 PM

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