http://backspace.com/notes/ en 2012-05-18T09:38:17-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/2012/05/road-emergency.php It’s a design emergency. Road trauma is the number one cause of death and injury for children in every country of the world. And crashes disproportionately affect the poor with 9 out of 10 deaths occurring in low- and... john 2012-05-18T09:38:17-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/links/2012/04/data-driven-journalism-handbook.php The Data Driven Journalism Handbook. Data, storytelling, news apps, visualization, tools, and resources — The Data Driven Journalism Handbook is a great resource for NGOs, too. A nice complement to Visualizing Information for Advocacy.]]> john 2012-04-28T09:29:44-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/links/2012/04/newsjack.php NewsJack. What would you put on the front page of the New York Times? Or Fox News? NewsJack lets you remix and edit web pages to create and share your own parody site in an instant. Read more about it here or download the source code from GitHub.]]> john 2012-04-25T16:39:43-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/links/2012/04/occupy-honduras.php Occupy Honduras. There’s occupations and then there’s occupations. More than 3,500 families started squatting 12,000 hectares of arable land across the country in a massive coordinated movement on April 17, the International Peasant Day of Struggle. While police have evicted many since then, at least 7,000 hectares of land remained occupied by 1,500 families. Some 53 per cent of Hondurans live in the countryside and 72 per cent of rural families are below the poverty line.]]> john 2012-04-25T15:58:51-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/2012/04/crowdsourced-poster-for-may-day.php I crowdsourced a crowd scene for a May Day poster using Mechanical Turk, Facebook and Twitter friends inviting them to draw a robot holding up a sign. In just five days, I assembled a protest scene with 250 unique characters.... john 2012-04-09T20:27:48-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/links/2012/03/posters-from-the-revolution-in-syria.php Posters from the Revolution in Syria. Stunning Flickr set. A few favorites below:

]]> john 2012-03-26T14:04:46-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/2012/03/telling-stories-with-photographs.php Leigh Vogel, a professional photographer, working with the Center for Social Impact Communication at Georgetown has published an excellent little primer on the use of photography by NGOs: Images can play a vital role in how effectively messages can reach... john 2012-03-23T10:42:05-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/2012/03/million-hoodies.php Order a hoodie at cost from Spreadshirt. Or download a printable PDF poster in black or white.... john 2012-03-22T12:59:20-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/links/2012/03/stateface.php StateFace. I love maps and I love type, so its no wonder I love StateFace, an Open Source font you can use in your web apps when you want tiny U.S. state shapes as a design element. Thank you ProPublica!
]]> john 2012-03-20T13:58:22-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/2012/03/power-lunch.php If you think culture eats strategy for lunch, Larry Lessig adds some historical context to that whole cultural decline at Goldman Sachs thing: structure eats culture.... john 2012-03-15T17:29:43-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/2012/03/real-money-for-an-imaginary-war.php Since September 11, 2011, the Department of Homeland Security has doled out between $30 and $40 billion to state and local law enforcement and other first responders for weapons, surveillance networks, tanks, drones, and submarines to police U.S. citizens in... john 2012-03-13T21:57:54-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/2012/03/occupy-kickstarter.php Occuprint, a volunteer-run collaborative project that curates, collects, prints and distributes posters and graphics produced by and for the global Occupy movement. The group is running a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a massive print run of posters, to... john 2012-03-12T09:35:50-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/2012/02/making-policy-public.php There are two places where plastic goes in New Jersey. Damon Rich takes it to the bottom line and helps launch Newark's recycling campaign at City Hall in style with a lovely infographic poster "Where Newark's Garbage Goes."... john 2012-02-17T15:47:50-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/2012/01/things-to-be.php Happy birthday Angela Davis. The quote is from this talk of hers on how change happens. If inclined you can download the image as a PDF.... john 2012-01-26T14:16:21-05:00 http://backspace.com/notes/2012/01/tahrir-revolution-and-design.php Stunning photos today of the millions of Egyptians out in the streets to commemorate the start of the revolution a year ago that turned out Mubarak — and to demand transition from military to civilian rule. A few things have... john 2012-01-25T21:17:45-05:00