Gorta brief

This week’s brief concerns a logo design and poster campaign for Gorta, the Irish charity for famine relief and long term development. I think it is fair to say, judging from emails exchanged between the Upstart group over the course of the week, the task has emerged trickier than first thought. Without losing sight of the objective goal of the brief, it certainly raises wider questions.

The concept in this brief presents a challenge in itself. Standing on the outside, detached, uninformed, and slapping up a swanky new logo on such vital humanitarian projects seems very cynical. Do you think that Humanitarian Aid lends itself to branding exercises in the same way that a new business, product or service does? A reputable designer or studio assigning kudos to a charity from the safety of their desks adds a few brownie points in the eyes of our material culture.


Consider too the grubby Gorta shops in Dublin city centre:


Does everything have to look stylish, ‘designed‘ for people today (especially young people) to take it seriously? I think it is the 'audience response/perception' to the work of the charity that this brief attempts to address and this must be kept in mind; it will certainly be interesting to see the different approaches presented by the group on Monday night.

But a few other questions… do you think aid work is enhanced - and if so, in what way - with the acquisition of a new logo? Does the concept of identity function in overseas aid areas in the same way it does in the high street or online? What about the mark of the Red Cross, or ‘UN’ daubed on aid convoys, how would you classify these in this scheme of things?

In a practical design sense, a can of worms is opened too. In terms of the poster campaign alone, take the hideous search for stock imagery for starters, 'Starving African Children' or 'Third World'. Or devise icons, colour pallettes or fonts for concepts like 'Saving Lives' or 'Creating Hope'. Dismissive assumption, even arrogance are easy frames of mind to - unintentionally - adopt when dealing with this topic.

Questions raised approaching this brief reminded me of a Design Observer debate from this time last year. The initial article by David Stairs was titled ‘Why Design won't save the World’ and discusses an exhibition that had just opened in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City. Worth a read; interesting points bought up, far better put than mine here:

Lots of things to think about over the last few days.