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.
- This year PSDTUTS is participating in Blog Action Day (October 15th) and helping raise awareness about poverty. It's not too late to register your blog and change the conversation for one day -- today!
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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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )Mac Tyler October 15th
Sweet, it’s always good when designers put their skills forward to help others.
Mac,
( )http://www.iphonedevforums.com
Mr_LeE October 15th
I like this post.
Very interesting designs here that support good will.
There’s another student in my class doing a greenpeace series of posters.
Their really great, and ill post a link here if i can once he is finished.
Cheers
( )Lee
macias October 15th
very interesting and touching…
( )insic October 15th
nice post. this helps some people to be aware of poverty problems.
( )Freddywang October 15th
These are good examples where designs are not portrays of sexism as most ads designs do
( )Niek Urbain October 15th
Very nice post , lots of great designs , fresh and straight to the point idea’s .
( )Some are actually funny
Drew Douglass October 15th
I cant help but be proud of psdtuts for this post, sure they will receive income off of the traffic, but instead of another design tutorial, they took the time to mention something of great importance. I can only reward that with my dearest respect. Way to go guys
( )Roshan October 15th
Wow, that’s very touching. combining skill, idea with a good cause.
Roshan
( )http://www.instantshift.com
Frederik October 15th
Personally I would like to see more of this, It is very inspiring. I love creative advertising like this, especially when it’s for a good cause.
( )NaldzGraphics October 15th
nice post.lets help get rid off poverty.peace on earth.
( )That Namelezz Guy October 15th
Nice post, I especially liked the Denver homeless billboard sign. Puts things in perspective.
( )Grafiko October 15th
Design is a very powerful tool. Very nice article. Strong imagery.
( )Jonathan October 15th
These are pretty effective. Number 10 strikes me as somewhat irreverent though.
( )revy October 16th
fantastic, inspirational, beautiful. thanks!
( )Mohamed October 16th
Really fantastic move ,
( )but where’s Palestine , Somalia ,Sudan and other developing countries all those posters focuses on developed countries
Justin October 16th
Wow. Some really creative work here.
I love the change cup/coffee lid; very creative and effective.
It’s great to see really excellent design made for a useful purpose instead of just selling products to a consumerist society.
Well done, PSDTuts!
( )DanOhh October 16th
Sounds like we need more like #17 the home(less) billboard in Denver. Shows progress/motivation to people.
( )VertigoSFX October 16th
Those are some great advertisements. Very inspirational. I recently made an ad about saving the world and it was a picture of a young girl with her face morphing into a skull…creepy but effective.
( )loswl October 16th
Very Cool Adverts, I think these are sometimes the hardest to work on, because although you want to send a message to the given audience, sometimes it can back fire and some may think the homeless or poor are being violated in the ads!?!
( )CPG October 16th
I think it’s really hard to advertise on such a difficult subject.
In fact, I do not like the culpability they wanted you to develop. I do not like irony for this sort of campaign like SuperHomeless by the salvation army.
great post anyway…
greetings from france!
( )Bob October 16th
All these ads are effective but I think the only way real change is going to come is if people stop giving money to the homeless on the streets. I saw an advertisement in Philadelphia that said the “The more change you give, the lesser the chance they will change” or something to those effects and it had imagery of somebody handing a dollar bill to a homeless person. Homeless will continue to panhandle if they can make the money. Why get a job at a fast food chain for $7/hour when you can beg on the streets and make $15/hour
( )Craigsnedeker October 16th
Wicked post! Awesome work!
I liked “Homeless in Denver” the best. ^_^
( )Enrique M October 16th
Wow im lovng how effective are the ads….
( )Afrix October 16th
Brazilina kids look ementional Love it
http://afrix99.deviantart.com/
( )Stefan Drakulich October 16th
I am actually with the UNHCR, or United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. I worked on helping them spread the word to schools, as I am a student myself. I helped with their main project, the NineMillion.org campaign!
I am glad to see they are fixing up some major problems in this world.
( )Yaser Azrak October 16th
good post I don’t think of design as the thing that make us just buy. design is about marketing for ideas not just sell
( )Simon Vallee October 16th
Number 2 made my day!
( )Seraphim Collective October 16th
Great ads! Thanks for sharing.
( )Renee October 16th
These were so amazing. I loved the “bum change cup” one. These were really inspiring and touching!
( )Patrick Byers October 16th
What a terrific post. What a moving collection of images.
Thanks so much for pulling this together and sharing.
Patrick Byers
( )The Responsible Marketing Blog
http://responsiblemarketing.com
Abethebabe October 16th
Wow! Some of those are really clever
( )Web Design Adelaide October 16th
Some very moving images there. Thanks for that.
( )Ellen Degeneres October 16th
number 10 looks fake. it looks like a cutout from another picture photoshoped (badly) on to it.
ok, aside from that everything else is really good. i really liked number 23 and the one with knife and forks on top of the bin, they really good art as well as good way of getting the message accross.
( )loswl October 16th
Bob, I think the Ad you mentioned that says,
“The more change you give, the lesser the chance they will changeâ€
Is a pretty insensitive Ad, and it does not lend itself to helping these people change! it assumes that they have the opportunity to change, it’s hard enough for someone who is upstanding in society to get a Job for $7/hr much less a homeless person who has not had a bath in who knows when!! Would you hire them to work in your company?
The homeless has always been with us as and they will always be with us, so we must have compassion. It’s easy to sit back and say they could change!..but have you ever spoken to one of them or feed them or give them clothing? We ourselves could be in the same situation, some of us live from pay check to pay check, it’s by the grace of God, that we ourselves are not on the streets! There are many reasons why people are homeless and poor, some have Physiological problems, drug problems and some just fell on hard times, we just don’t know.
I know there are some lazy people and scam artist out there who work the system every day, but do we know the legitimate poor from the scammers…no!, so we can’t generalize and say all of them are lazy folks, you know what I mean? It could be one of us out there in the cold
)
This is one reason I feel the concept for these kind of Ads are hard to put together because, one person may think it is cool and others think it is not!
Here is one I created for “The Coalition to End Homelessnessâ€
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2237/2380391548_9356c7b4be_o.jpg
I personally like it, but others may see other messages in it and hate it all together! Art speaks to people in different ways, as Graphic Designers we need to remember that
)
( )Un Mundo Libre October 16th
Incredible! Nice work and congratulations to designers
( )Jiff mason October 16th
Excellent! Very well done and too the point!
http://www.privacy-tools.at.tc
( )Eddie Thieda October 16th
An excellent display of imagery, with a powerful meaning!
( )Moksha October 16th
wonderful ads.
( )mattems October 16th
Creativity and Brilliance combined to produce a REAL goal.
Great post.
( )ll October 16th
very inspiring
( )Johnson Koh October 16th
Very meaningful. Was touched by no.8 and 11 especially.
( )Charles October 16th
Very moving stuff.. projects like these are why I became a designer. Keep up the good work, thanks for all the great insights and tutorials.
Charles
( )(http://www.i24designs.com)
Yuva October 16th
nice collections.. good work..
( )Sam October 16th
Amazing ads. Really great ideas!!
( )dilip October 16th
Nice post, all the ads r good except first one.
( )podkor October 16th
Excellent! Can some ideas to print on T-shirts?
( )sky October 16th
Very Nicely Done!
see my work
( )http://www.khalid.googlepages.com
Ernest Ojeh October 16th
I love creative ads. Thanks. Lovely post.
( )dadadoll October 16th
good round up!
( )Dainis Graveris October 16th
Awesome advertisements..very well thought through..
( )Ionut Puiu October 16th
Poverty, hunger, disease… very well covered by this ads.
( )Rahul October 17th
Wow, must say that these are quite simple but very powerful advertisements. Thanks for the effort to bring together this article.
( )Justin Leaf-Wright October 17th
Awesome ADS…
Best selection I have seen for a while that strikes at where it hurts.
http://www.leafydesignz.co.za
( )Matt October 17th
This is a very good post to help us people realize that there is people when more needs that us.
greetings from Kansas!
( )Mark October 17th
Bang! In your face.. That’s how you reach people. Great post!
( )abe October 17th
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
( )distorted-boom October 17th
Wow, nice post PSDtuts.
( )Love the ad designs.
J Badlands October 17th
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
( )Kirsten October 17th
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
( )Fubiz October 18th
Stunning work
( )yojan October 18th
creativity at their very best
( )Min October 19th
Love ‘em. Gives me inspiration too (:
( )phong October 20th
very clever
( )Cindy October 20th
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.
( )K3v October 22nd
Those are some creative advertisements!
( )momatoes October 22nd
very touching. it makes you feel happy knowing that somewhere out there, there are people who are really trying hard to help.
( )Buzu October 26th
Wow, really nice examples.
( )Brian October 26th
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.
( )Jordan Anton October 29th
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
( )neil October 29th
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.
( )mike w November 5th
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?
( )Josh Kamler November 7th
You seen this: http://www.replate.org
( )Another example of design as a source for good.
Ersan November 8th
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.
( )Kovi November 24th
very creative
( )Visual Mushroom January 30th
WOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW! AMAZING!
( )waqas February 20th
EXTREMELY WELL
( )Bobbie Sweets March 7th
So great… i love the level of creativity and thought put into this.
( )restless48 March 26th
AWESOME!!!!
( )Alessio Gallo May 6th
Some of those are really good, have to say great site.
( )Dev The Web May 18th
wow, awesome collection. Thanks!
Tihomir,
( )dev-the-web.com
Jeremy Tuber May 18th
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
( )Landscape Photography July 12th
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.
( )Jew July 26th
I liked the part where it showed my dinner plate!
( )namcha August 3rd
cool !! I really love print ad XD
( )madman01 August 9th
some very innovative pieces
( )Dale Partridge August 11th
Hopefully they are doing all this in the name of Jesus.
( )Juan Carlos August 28th
Excelente! Wow!
( )Web Tasarım Grafik Tasarım September 9th
this, very thank you..
Your site full professional and very beautiful…
( )...mr. Geengles September 17th
good job fo’ real!
( )JimJam October 28th
this is AWESOME !! I give 5 stars for u
( )That’s touching me at all
geoff November 1st
some of the English is a bit dodgy: the posters don’t want to “promote homelessness”
( )Cheryl Cudmore, Canada November 22nd
#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.
Sicily November 28th
That’s a really great and creative works.Like that imagination of the authors.Thanks a lot.
( )Web Design Adelaide January 21st
Very powerful… I like it
( )