While design is too often used as a means to persuade us to buy, buy and buy some more, it is less often but more importantly used as a means to communicate positive messages and encourage action. Here we showcase 23 examples where graphic design has been used not to sell us products we don’t need, but instead, to fight poverty.
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1. Red Cross
The Red Cross foundation in Pakistan used this ad to encourage donations for those who needed support during the winter.
2. Red Cross
This is a general ad from the Red Cross aimed at trying to get the younger generation to help those less fortunate.
3. Child Labor
To help raise awareness about child labor, the Dutch House of Parliament created these ads on revolving doors.
4. Homeless in Portugal
Here is a creative advertisement that was placed on the underside of trash can lids that reads; “Help. So that no one has to come here food.”
5. Homeless in United Kingdom
These stickers were placed around the United Kingdom and read; “Your Trash is someone else food.“
6. Brazil’s Children
In order to help get kids off the streets these floor advertisements look as though there is a child stuck under the street. The ad reads; “Help a child escape the streets. Donate to our children’s villages in Brazil“
7. Focus
Here is a cool ad designed to look like a large cardboard sign like that used by many a homeless person.
8. Homeless India
A billboard used in India to help raise awareness of the rising growth of homelessness there.
9. Salvation Army
Another super creative ad by the salvation army to help gain support for their fight on homelessness in Brazil.
10. Homeless in the United States
Homelessness isn’t just in other countries. This ad was placed on trash cans around the US.
11. World Food Program
This ad reads; “Freeing them from malnutrition and poverty is in your hands.
12. Brookeline Community Foundation
This origami jacket is made out of a personal check. The ad reads; “Clothing. Just one of the many things your money helps provide to those in need.“
13. Berlin Child Hunger
This is a unique bag advertisement in Berlin to promote the need for support with child hunger.
14. UN High Commissioner for Refugees
An advertisement design to help raise money for refugees.
15. UNICEF
An ad that tackles the issue of bad water. Ad reads; “Bad water kills more children than war.”
16. Father Bob Maguire Foundation
Another trash can ad to help raise awareness about the homeless. The ad reads; “For the homeless, every day is a struggle. Donate today and help us feed the homeless. “
17. Homeless in Denver
The ad is actually made up of pictures of homeless people in Denver. The images were removed once each person was helped.
18. WSSCC: Babies
An advertisement aimed at help improve water sanitation.
19. National Coalition for the Homeless
A creative advertisement the uses a coffee cup lid to look like a homeless persons change cup.
20. Association Against Poverty in Belgium
A startling ad used in Belgium to raise awareness of poverty. Ad reads; “Having to count your pennies every day isn’t fun.â€
21. Amnesty International
This advertisement is designed to get people to donate money to help build refugee camps. The ad reads; “This is where I was when I helped building a refugee camp in Pakistan. “
22. Salvation Army
The goal of this advertisement was to get people to donate their old clothes for the homeless. The ad reads; “Any old clothes will do. “
23. Israeli Food Bank
Another advertisement to promote homelessness. The ad reads; “Too many people eat on the streets. “
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By Danny Outlaw
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Poverty, hunger, disease… very well covered by this ads.
Wow, must say that these are quite simple but very powerful advertisements. Thanks for the effort to bring together this article.
Awesome ADS…
Best selection I have seen for a while that strikes at where it hurts.
http://www.leafydesignz.co.za
This is a very good post to help us people realize that there is people when more needs that us.
greetings from Kansas!
Bang! In your face.. That’s how you reach people. Great post!
wow, thats some heavy stuff, but also extremely creative. the homeless/home billboard looks like lots of effort for a billboard, but amazing to do it
Wow, nice post PSDtuts.
Love the ad designs.
I can’t help get a sense that our world is starting to wake up. And this is the reason why I am so passionate about the internet. Those creative designs are no longer just posters on the inside of a rubbish bin in some city on the other side of the world.
I am sitting in my bedroom in New Zealand and those images have STIRRED me.
People have always been aware of such issues raised by these images, but even this post itself is evidence, that now the messages of the Aware individuals on our planet can be shared at the click of a button.
Cheers
Hey, these are great, for anyone interested in putting their design skills to work helping a worthy cause you should consider entering the sappi ideas that matter campaign. This is how they explain it, ‘Ideas that Matter’ is a program from Sappi to support design for the public good.
We award monetary grants to designers throughout the world to help them create and implement projects that serve the causes that are closest to their hearts.
We want to encourage ideas that have the potential to change our lives, our communities, and our world.
If you have a cause you would like to support, we invite you to make your idea a reality.
go to http://www.sappi.com/SappiWeb/Initiatives/Sappi+Ideas+that+Matter/Sappi+Ideas+that+Matter.htm
Stunning work
creativity at their very best
Love ‘em. Gives me inspiration too (:
very clever
Creative and Insightful. Too many things happen in the world and this just helps everyone else who is too oblivios to want to notice these atrocities to pay attention. Love it.
Those are some creative advertisements!
very touching. it makes you feel happy knowing that somewhere out there, there are people who are really trying hard to help.
Wow, really nice examples.
The main image is a little offensive. It doesn’t “STIR” me, it merely pisses me off that some hipster designer wants to shove his pet cause down my throat.
These are all very creative and very well done. Love ‘em.
Though in number 23 you labelled it as “Another advertisement to PROMOTE homelessness.”… I don’t think they want to “promote” homelessness. They want to promote awareness. Poor choice of words, might want to rephrase
I think these are great ads, and a great selection. Thanks for sharing. Truly inspiring work.
For real problems to be tackled though, we need to shift the way we think and view the world. Here in the US, we still think greed is good. We still think that wealth buys happiness. Look at the current election to see one man talking about sharing the opportunity for everyone, and his opponent smearing him as a socialist — one who thinks society matters.
I’d like to see some ads urging us to think differently, to change our culture, our outlook and our minds. Getting a few homeless people off the streets is a great thing to do, but we need to attack the inequality of opportunity that got them there in the first place. We can’t have a world without poverty if we have a world where some people think greed is good, and think nothing of paying $100 for an appetizer at a swank restaurant.
Share the opportunity.
Great ads, and very well executed. Though it would be great to have some more examples of how design (not just advertising) and individual designers (not just agencies) are making change also. Kirsten mentions Sappi’s program above – some extremely inspirational, home grown stuff in there. What a great program, congrats to Sappi. Any other similar links that have examples of how we as individual designers can be a force of good?
You seen this: http://www.replate.org
Another example of design as a source for good.
Awesome. Thanks for this compilation, Danny.
These examples were particularly inspirational to me, because they demonstrate that excellent graphic design isn’t just about eye-candy or a mastery of directing attention; excellent design is also about how the piece is used. My favorite examples of this are the underside of the trashcan lid, and the billboard, and the revolving door.
There are no ceilings in design. Anything is possible; there is so much that hasn’t been done yet, just waiting for someone to envision. This is why I started designing a few months back and am proud to be a part of this industry.
Thanks again.
very creative
WOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW! AMAZING!
EXTREMELY WELL
So great… i love the level of creativity and thought put into this.
AWESOME!!!!
Some of those are really good, have to say great site.
wow, awesome collection. Thanks!
Tihomir,
dev-the-web.com
Thanks Danny for sharing these images, this was a sobering reminder that while I and other designers feel our work is important, there’s a lot more going on in this world beyond the latest version of PS or AI.
Impressive and yet very sad at the same time.
@JeremyTuber
Some really well thought out, simple yet really clever campaigns. Good to see advertising space being put to use in a positive manner.
Top notch work.
I liked the part where it showed my dinner plate!
cool !! I really love print ad XD
some very innovative pieces
Hopefully they are doing all this in the name of Jesus.
Excelente! Wow!
this, very thank you..
Your site full professional and very beautiful…
good job fo’ real!
this is AWESOME !! I give 5 stars for u
That’s touching me at all
some of the English is a bit dodgy: the posters don’t want to “promote homelessness”
#15 is excellent, superb, ripping. It’s my top choice of all. First, the child has a wide-eyed innocent face. Some drinking water sources in the under-developed nations are simply small streams that double for laundry, bathing and
and the elimination of human wastes. No accident here that the toy water pistol is yellow. The wrap the child is wearing is a drab dark gray like a funeral shroud a body might be wrapped in and creates a striking contrast with the yellow toy water pistol aimed at the child’s head. The visual impact this image creates is stunning, jarring, disturbing. The fact: “Bad water kills more children than war,” is very disquieting.
That’s a really great and creative works.Like that imagination of the authors.Thanks a lot.
Very powerful… I like it