Displaced Designer

Thanks to those of you who wrote in to post about the online art sale/exhibition going on at 25abovewater.com. Each artist created 12 limited edition posters to be sold online in an effort to raise money for American Red Cross, 10 posters for sale, 1 poster for the traveling exhibition and 1 poster for the artist’s personal collection. Head on over, browse the gallery, (get em while you can!) there is some really great work up for grabs.

The 2005 AIGA Design Conference featured a number of sessions focused on disaster relief. “Working with a net: Design for Disaster,” one of the panel discussions, is available for download via podcasts. The panel included: David Gibson, Two Twelve Associates; Lori Ann Reed, AIGA/New Orleans, Dori Tunstall, Design for Democracy; and was moderated by John Hockenberry.

The City of New Orleans has posted a status for every part of town by zip code at NOLA.com:

http://www.nola.com/cityofno/

The Society of Publication Designers has donated $10,000 to the AIGA Disaster Relief Fund, and another $10,000 to help students at Department of Art at Mississippi State University. This is the email sent from SPD:

Our community needs our help. Many designers and design students in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina have lost their homes and businesses, had their studies interrupted, lost files and equipment, and are struggling to cope with the aftermath of this disaster, and even more bad weather on the way. The Board of SPD has searched for ways to help.

On behalf of all SPD members, we are donating a total of $20,000 (approximately $25 per member) to two worthy sources: the AIGA Katrina Emergency Fund and its work with Displaced Designer, an online initiative to help designers displaced by Hurricane Katrina get back on their feet; and to the Department of Art at Mississippi State University, where many students have suffered extensive losses, including those transferring from schools on the Gulf Coast that are closed or no longer exist. This donation will help graphic design students whose families have been affected buy books and supplies this semester and continue their education.

As a community, we have tremendous power to help our fellow designers in this crisis. We encourage each of you to visit the Displaced Designer site: http://www.displaceddesigner.com. Please make your own contributions of funds, space, jobs – whatever you can do to help – through one of the many links on this site. If you wish to help design students affected by the hurricane, contributions can be mailed to: (Please make checks payable to the MSU Foundation and note Fine Arts Advancement Fund/SPD on the memo line.)

Kay DeMarsche
Head, Department of Art
College of Architecture, Art + Design
PO Box 5182, Mississippi State, MS 39762

Sincerely,
Fred Woodward, President, Society of Publication Designers
http://www.spd.org/

With every tragedy – independent of its magnitude – those not directly affected desperately seek ways to help: Some give money, others provide hands-on help, others pray… Yet there is always the feeling that more could be done, that, perhaps, if we had asked in which way our efforts would best be utilized we could have helped in a bigger way. With this forum we hope to offer a space where creatives struck by hurricane Katrina can provide a glimpse into their needs at this turning point in their lives. Besides the running list of petitions for help on this site, it would be valuable to hear what can designers do to help, what can we do in the next five hours, the next five days, the next five months? What can we do for the next five years, as a collective profession, to help restore the creative industry and its practitioners on the aftermath of this tragic ocurrence?

Hello everybody! Due to the overwhelming amount of response and support we are changing things up and adding a handful of new features and resources to this effort. In the interest of time we will most likely just start making changes to this build. New posts are frozen until the new system is in place (keep sending them in tho). We aim to have things up and running even better in 12 - 24 hours.

thank you all!

William Drenttel emailed earlier and contributed two fantastic offers to our listings. Those of you looking for even more resources should check out the full post over at designobserver.com.

On a side note: We are starting to hear from some designers/illustrators in need so keep checking back. This is a two way effort!

We just posted 5 new offers and now have spaces available in 10 different states spread out over the country. Brains on Fire informed us that they have a rather large and furnished space in South Carolina, enough to accomodate a small studio. Have a look at their blog entry about it.

We would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to everybody who has sent us information and leads so far. Keep the help and information coming!

Hello fellow displaced designers and friends. It’s still hard to imagine how much the storm has changed the lives of so many people in such a short period of time. Just 2 weeks ago I was meeting with new clients, art directing photos shoots, and building my business up to where I always wanted it to be. Katrina has been a devistating event for a lot of people, but it has motivated me to do whatever it takes to continue doing what I love. Enough of my rambling, I wanted to post some photos of what I saw yesterday of what the landscape looks like in Jefferson Parish right outside of New Orleans. Thanks to Matt and The Chopping Block as well as Shalin at Noise 13. Coincidently, I was able to finally get through to FEMA today and they have proven to be very helpfull. I was able to register my personal losses as well my business losses. So if you are a freelancer you are eligable for Personal Property Help, Small Business Losses in income, as well loss of equipment. Call as soon as you can. I will be meeting with several designers here in Arkansas and hopefully they can offer some help to myself as well as others. Below are some photos to took when I made the 36 hour journey home to New Orleans :

Scott Simon from SIMONSAYSDESIGN emailed us earlier today to let us know that not only is he an evacuee from New Orleans (currently safe in Arkansas), but that he wanted to help other folks in the Louisiana and Mississippi areas.

Seeing how Scott knows the community and area a lot better than we do, we have invited him to post.