“[In 1996,] the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Building Museum sponsored the first national search and collection of images showing examples of universal design excellence in the fields of architecture, graphic design, industrial design, interior design and landscape architecture. This collection was completed in September of 1996 and is intended to encourage and assist universal design by providing examples that can be used in design practice and education. The jury selected images feature and credit the work of designers who are reaching beyond compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act to create products and environments that are usable by people with the broadest possible range of abilities throughout their lifespan.”

The project was managed by Universal Designers and Consultants of Takoma Park, MD. The list of winners links to four project profiles:

• sidelight windows next to entrance ways
• the wayfinding system at The Lighthouse, Inc.
• an alternative to bench-type public seating
• and a uniquely detailed kitchen

adaptiveenvironments.org links to four others:

• the Hopedale Town Hall terrace and ramp in Massachusetts
• the Cuddle Tub for safely bathing babies
• the StorTrac modular kitchen storage system
• and a universally designed tent site at Rogue River National Forest in Oregon

Read the introduction for an overview of universal design principles and the project selection process.

Support! Vote! Strike! From the International Institute of Social History, 150 Dutch social and political posters from 1870 - 1998. The posters are divided into twelve periods and two special themes. The index is in Dutch, so here’s my rough translation:

• The nineteenth century
• 1900 to 1920
• The first World War
• 1920s
• The red family
• Photomontage
• 1930s
• Under German occupation
• Rebuilding
• 1966 and beyond
• 1970s and early 1980s
• The last fifteen years
• Election posters
• Controversial and prohibited

In April 2001 MIT President Charles M. Vest announced the plans to make MIT’s courseware freely available on the Internet. On September 30, 2002 MIT launched MIT OpenCourseWare. The online courses include lecture notes, course outlines, reading lists and assignments.

“MIT OpenCourseWare will provide the content of, but is not a substitute for, an MIT education....”

The material is free for non-commercial use and is not for acaedmic credit. From an OpenCourseWare factsheet:

“MIT [OpenCourseWare] is not a distance learning initiative. Distance learning involves the active exchange of information between faculty and students, with the goal of obtaining some form of a credential. Increasingly, distance learning is also limited to those willing and able to pay for materials or course delivery.

MIT OCW is not meant to replace degree granting higher education. Rather, the goal is to provide the content that supports an education.

From President Vest:

“We hope the idea of openly sharing course materials will propagate throughout many institutions and create a global web of knowledge that will enhance the quality of learning and, therefore, the quality of life worldwide.

The pilot falls short of the 500 courses initially planned for the launch, but it’s a very nice start.

We are opening our pilot to the public for review and feedback. It contains a sample of MIT courses, offering an early look at the content and design of OCW. As we pursue our intensive work to find the most effective way to make OCW a valuable resource for all who use it, we will continue to add courses, until virtually all are available.”

“Save America’s Clocks is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to locating, inventorying and assisting in the preservation and maintenance of all of America’s public clocks. By public clocks we mean any and all clocks that the public sees. That includes street (post) clocks, tower and church clocks, digital clocks...you name it. Non-working clocks betray the public trust and send out a message that nobody’s home. When these clocks are left to deteriorate, we all lose part of our rich heritage.”

Not much on the site yet, but there are lots of pictures of public clocks.

Is this ‘Social Design’? More design in the public interest. I should do a more substantive entry on public clocks. In the meantime, three days of meetings in Tokyo and the jet lag is still killing me. Still haven’t quite shaken the grip of U.S. time.

Found via Ruavista.

October 2002 is October 18, 2002 is Media Democracy Day, “a day of education, protest, and calls for change in the interest of the people.”

Media Democracy Day pushes for and promotes a mass media system that informs and empowers all members of society. Media Democracy Day connects existing critical and creative media with active social movements, creating a coherent message for public attention and local and global action.

Following the rise of social movements for feminism, racial justice, and environmentalism in recent decades, international efforts to democratize the media are now mobilizing for education, protest, and change. Media Democracy prioritizes diversity over monotony, citizen control over corporate choice, cultural development over company profit, and public discourse over public relations.

Visit the Web sites in the U.S. and U.K.. Events are planned around the world. This flyer lists some in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

“The Peace Pumpkin Project is a simple way to demonstrate your opposition to a war in Iraq. The idea is this: this year, carve the words ‘No War’ into your [Halloween] jack-o-lantern. That’s it. Do it to as many pumpkins as you want, and put them wherever you want as long as you don’t break the law or hurt anyone. If you’re carving-knife impaired, You can download a stencil in .pdf form. You could carve other words into the pumpkin, if you feel that ‘No War’ doesn’t express your opinion well enough, but I think it would increase the overall impact if people keep seeing the same simple message over and over: NO WAR.”

Found via Metafilter. Pumpkin shown is by the author of the Project Without a Name.

The first time I took the Tokyo subway system I noticed the lyrical little melody that announced that the doors were about to close. A sort of well-tempered Casio clavier running up the scales. I noticed it, but didn’t think much of it. It’s certainly more pleasant than NYC’s generic bing-bong sound, but is nothing to write home about. After all, lots of rail systems have some kind of audio cue. Then I heard the bossa-nova variation at the Harajuku Japan Rail station. Wow! That’s some funky stuff! It turns out different lines have different tunes. They also change the tunes periodically to keep people on their toes. Stay tuned to this station.

NYU’s Grey Art Gallery is showing some of its photos and posters from the Iranian Revolution in Between Word and Image: Modern Iranian Visual Culture.

“While the posters were produced by a wide range of political groups, most make direct appeals to action by defying power, subverting authority, and inverting icons as a means to authorize oppositional ways of thinking and behavior....

As social discontent increased throughout the 1970s, some of Iran’s leading contemporary artists assumed an active role in the production of political posters. Inspired by the French student movement of 1968, a group of Iranian artists opened a workshop at the University of Tehran in 1978. The workshop provided the materials and equipment for printing posters to members of various political groups. Professional artists worked alongside amateurs. Their results were displayed throughout Tehran — in schools, in factories, and on the walls of other buildings, often defacing public monuments built by the Pahlavi regime as symbols of its authority and grandeur. As government agents tore them down or covered them with paint, protesters would replace them with replenished supplies.”

The show juxtaposes some modern painting and sculpture from Iran in the 1960s and ’70s.

See other photos, murals and posters from Staging Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran. (Annotation but no thumbnails at the last link, just keep clicking ‘next image.’)

More posters (with a nice thumbnail index) at islamicdigest.net.

Grey link found via American Samizdat.

“Chrissy Levett, is a London-based designer and campaigner for Mines Awareness Group... a nongovernmental organisation which aims to clear mines and unexploded ordnance which are bombs dropped from aircraft, in war-torn countries. Levett created an accessible and effective visual system in order to reduce incidents of injury and death through land mines.”

There are a few images here, perhaps of her work.

Global Information Networks in Education is an international NGO whose Land Mine Awareness Education program produces posters, brochures, T-shirts, and other materals as part of its educational campaigns. Click on the country names here for region specific examples.

See also UNICEF’s International Guidelines for Landmine and Unexploded Ordnance Awareness Education.

And while on the subject, check out MineFinder, a Palm Pilot application from FedSoft.

“MineFinder lets you visually identify over 150 different types of landmines. An easy to use, graphic based system allows you to quickly determine critical information about any mine. Includes scaled drawings and detailed descriptions including size, weight, fuze type, and explosive content/type. Sort mines by type, characteristics, or country of origin.”

Not convinced? A testimonial on the product page from LT. Joseph Danilov, June 25, 2002:

“This is a great app. A must have for a NATO peacekeeping units stationed over-seas. I am no demolition expert but this manual was worth its weight in gold about 2 weeks ago. A 7 year old afghan child had found a M-22 AP mine, a.k.a. stepped on. The manual identified this mine and I defused it. Thank you very much to the maker of this application. Go Army.”

As the page says, use this software at your own risk.

“Talking Signs technology is an infrared wireless communications system that provides remote directional human voice messages that make confident, independent travel possible for vision impaired and print-handicapped individuals....

The system consists of short audio signals sent by invisible infrared light beams from permanently installed transmitters to a hand-held receiver that decodes the signal and delivers the voice message through its speaker or headset. The signals are directional, and the beam width and distance can be adjusted. The system works effectively in both interior and exterior applications.

Talking Signs may be used wherever landmark identification and wayfinding assisstance are needed. To use a Talking Signs system, the user scans the environment with the hand-held receiver. As individual signals are encountered, the user hears the messages. For example, upon entering a lobby, one might detect ‘information desk’ when pointing the receiver directly ahead, ‘public telephones’ when pointing to the right and ‘stairs to the second floor’ when pointing to the left.

Messages are unique and short, simple and straightforward. The messages repeat, continuously identifying key features in the environment.”

The site notes that the San Francisco City Council has passed a resolution calling for the installation of talking signs at all public facilities, including 600 in the San Francisco Airport. The devices have already been installed in several San Francisco public spaces including subway stations, crosswalks, libraries, and public toilets. The Japanese government is installing 2,000 signs at key intersections throughout Japan.

Here’s a diagram of how it works.

Talking Signs’s Ohio representative writes:

“With remote infrared audible signage we [the vision impaired] can independently become oriented to unfamiliar places, cross streets safely while staying in the crosswalk, create mental maps that translate to a broader orientation and enjoy a type of freedom that the sighted community just takes for granted. Orientation to public places is a civil right, as surely as getting into the building or using the telephone. Yet, when you look around you, where are the talking signs?... As the old saying goes, we have the technology. What we now need is the advocacy.”