Category Archives: Uncategorized
Public Health Campaign Exploration and Inspiration
In order to create a gun safety campaign that is compelling and thought-provoking, I have been looking at existing public health campaigns for various other hazards. The following are examples of print, media, and installations that succeed at challenging perceptions through provocative imagery, careful design, and innovative messages. Some consistent themes/methods used in these ads include vanity, design fiction, images of children, visualizations of more abstract ideas, objectification, disturbing imagery, and symbolism.
Anti-Smoking
Drunk Driving/Binge Drinking
Seatbelt Safety
Meth- Not Even Once (Arizona)
Other
(Speeding)
(Sleeping with a baby)
(Soda)
(Lung Cancer)
Interview With Tom Stangrecki
Are accidents unintentional. child access laws reduce it? – On rare occasions children are shot b/c access to fire arms. majority is homicidal. young adults having access to guns that shouldn’t. very few children shot accidentally.
deals more with homicides.
If guns are locked up, are they not stolen as much? Do child access protection laws prevent flow of guns not being in hands of people that should’t have them? – it’s possible. it would help reduce illegal guns.
guns traded for drugs is significant. stolen from family members. purchasing guns for people who can’t purchase them.
what should we be looking at? – highlighting the issue of straw purchases.
Are straw purchases illegal? – would do a background check. past criminal record, mental health. illegal to provide a gun for someone else and would face jail time.
family member passes away, what to do with the gun(s)?
what is the best thing to get rid of that gun? – turn over to police department. could take it to an approved gun dealer.
What are your key concerns? Trends in pittsburgh? – main concern is violence with guns. a lot of guns in many communities in the wrong hands that enables them to conduct violence.
Interview with Coordinator of Community Org
Keywords: reduce crime, service pool, dispute resolution, behavior change
– interviewee works with mostly black males (20-30s) in homicides
– many gang affiliations
How do you target your audience?
– people well-known to law enforcement
– offenders known by community members as trouble makers
Other key points:
– dispute resolution is approachable and solvable
– many problems related to guns start with broken family
– other people have to take the role of family such as community organizations, churches, service pool staff members, etc.
– gangsters don’t have family to teach them values and principles.
– many young black males who fall into these issues act irrationally with a gun and only realize that it was a “dumb mistake” after the fact
– along with connecting offenders to service pools for mentorship, jobs, drug treatment, and GED, the org is trying to pair the efforts with education of values
– short term solutions are leading the offenders to a job. Long term solutions need to be paired with education
– it’s hard for programs to take place of family and family values
– mental health issues are a big problem; there are not enough resources and manpower behind the support offenders need
– revenge is a common reason for gun incidents
Interesting to look at other places in order to think about home (Pittsburgh)
Houston Group Giving Away Shotguns In High-Crime Neighborhoods To Test If Crime Is Reduced
Now this is a different tactic.
Project Proposal Update
After doing a bit of secondary research and letting the whole situation stew over the weekend, I am beginning to think that scoping my project down to a more manageable size is a good idea. Through my Risk Perception & Communication class, I am seeing a lot of writing and research about health risks. I’m wondering if there is a way I can connect the research on perception and communication of health risks to framing the gun safety issue as a public health problem. I think going back and skimming through Private Guns, Public Health will help me.
Similarly, after presenting to the students of Suguru Ishizaki’s Document Design class, I think focusing on a specific demographic or population of people will be useful. I hope to then test my design explorations with that given audience and provide insight into how useful the literature research is to the actual outcome.
Project Statement
It seems that with current gun debates, we are giving weight to certain parts of our constitution rather than others. I aim to stress the importance on other rights outlined in the constitution. We are granted the natural right to life, which equates to not being killed, nor abused or injured. If we are currently allowed to take our firearms with us wherever we go, why should we not be able to be protected everywhere we are as well. Considering some of our most violent shootings have happened in public places, movie theaters and schools, places where people think they are safe, we should have the choice to protect ourselves from the unknown. Movies and TV shows glamorize gun violence. But what if fashion could glamorize safety? This is a proposed line of kevlar apparel that would be targeted towards women and children. It would contain a range of items from pants to cardigans that were lined in kevlar for its bulletproof abilities. My aim is to further my initial design fiction exploration, and create a realistic scenario where these products could exist. By doing so, I hope to evoke conversation concerning firearm laws and what is appropriate to protect our rights as human beings.
Design Fiction No Longer Fiction
I was browsing Vice the other day, and this interview was on their home page. At first I though oh wow, this is some wild critical design- but then I realized, no this is real life. This is a real life interview with a designer that makes this, to be sold, for real. He is serious about kids needing to have bullet proof clothing, and he is willing to sell it to you.
Feminist Perspective for Guns
I don’t advocate the use of guns whatsoever I am a vegetarian after all) But I find the logic of this argument interesting.
http://retrophoebia.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/the-new-feminist-perspective-on-gun-control/
design, place & social innovation studio 