onlab Summer School 2011 – Publication

September 2011 - Initiators, concept and coaching: onlab, Nicolas Bourquin and Thibaud Tissot
Project Management: onlab, Niloufar Tajeri
Assistance: Magdalena Gorgieva, Susanne Vetter
Content: betterplace lab (Joana Breidenbach and Dennis Buchmann )
Designers: Marie Artaker, Tereza Bettinardi, Anja Büchner, Miriam Busch, Lucia Del Zotto, Jessica Doria, Maria Eugenia Hernandez, Gustavo Inafuku, Sara Kabiri, Esa Matinvesi, Vasco Mourao, Elizaveta Oreshkina, Christina Pfeifer, Tommaso Pucci, Alice Rzenzonka, Ilaria Roglieri, Lauren Thorson, Francesca Valade, France Vannier, Elsa Westreicher, Gloria Zanotti

Paper: Symbol Tatami White, 115 g/m2 (provided by Fedrigoni)
Typefaces: New Fournier BP, Romain BP, Sangbleu BP, Simplon BP, Suisse BP (provided by b+p swiss typefaces)
Print: Printed by Gallery Print, Berlin, September 2011 Gallery Print
Assembling: Lankwitzer Werkstätten gGmbH, Berlin

The publication was developed and produced during our Summer School 2011

Chronology of a Failure

Beginning right after World War II, the fight against poverty has seen a new fad nearly every decade. Major institutions such as the World Bank, national governments and a growing number of NGOs declare a new ideology which promises to reduce hunger, and improve health, education and human rights at a stroke. Alas, neither the Green Revolution nor Structural Adjustment Policies nor a focus on participation led to real improvements in the lives of the poor. Has progress really been as disappointing as it looks, and do new approaches give any hope for improvement?

The publication has seven chapters and is printed in the two colors blue and red, giving it a consistent look though every chapter follows a different design approach. Each chapter is a poster of 50 x 70 cm on one side and once folded it reveals the double spreads of the publication on the other side. The seven chapters are bound together with rubber bands.

With a photographic approach, the first chapter tells the story of the 50s optimism for and trust in big institutions like the World Bank to solve global problems.

A diagrammatic approach was chosen in the second chapter to visualize the chain reactions caused by the ‘Green Revolution’ - a structural aid programme that aimed at fighting famine by means of food modification, fertilisers and pesticides.

‘Development Vocabulary for Western Donors’ is the title of the third chapter that winkingly shows the use of language as a tool in fundraising. Drawings of the typical visual language used in fundraising illustrate this chapter and ironically confront the seriousness of the dictionary.

Development aid as a new form of colonization that introduces free market economy is the topic of the forth chapter. Typography is used here to express the structural adjustment policies at place.

In the fifth chapter participation is examined as a transitory strategy to improve human development. The transition from big organizations to grass-roots organizations representing the voice of the people is visualized by means of color gradients.

It was decided to juxtapose this chapter with the second chapter by superimposing the two layouts. The second chapter describes a large-scale strategy that went wrong. It is literally standing on the backdrop of this chapter that deals with the necessity to admit failure in order to stop it from being repeated on a global level.

The final chapter ‘Brand New Ways to Save the World’, examines the ideas and potentials giving a positive outlook.

Dennis Buchmann from betterplace lab presents the publication