Displays raise awareness of today’s social problems
- posted: 30 Oct. 2007
- scrollcampus@byui.edu
Walking through the David O. McKay Library, one cannot help but notice the photos on the wall. All but two of these 1,000 black-and-white, card-sized pictures is an identical picture of a new born baby. Two among the thousand are highlighted blue, distinguishing them from the rest. On the adjacent poster, a sign reads, “Cerebral Palsy: affecting 2 in 1000.”
This is just one of the many products of what has been a lengthy project in Shawn Randall’s Art 331 class, Information Design. Students chose their topics from social issues, diseases and disorders relevant to today’s world. They then created an educational tool to raise awareness of their topic. The projects were to include statistics, graphs, charts and informative content on their topic, as well as a compelling visual display.
“Rather than giving the students a paper with some statistics on it and saying, ‘Here, make this look pretty,’ what we have them do is select a topic of their choosing. Their goal is to create a tool to help people either directly or indirectly affected by that [issue],” Randall said.
The students were required to do heavy research on their chosen topic, which they chose because of personal interest in the subject. Amanda Smith, the student who created the McKay Library display, chose cerebral palsy because her twin brother has the disease.
“It was quite a lot of work. We had to research a lot, and basically find out everything we could about our topic and then present what we thought was important for the public to learn about it,” Smith said.
The projects’ creators have noticed the impact art and design can have on information.
“When information is presented in a way that is maybe intriguing or unusual, I think that it promotes interest where there otherwise may not be any,” Randall said. “It is very powerful to be able to present information in a way that makes people care about it, even if it’s just for a moment.”
The design projects cover a variety of issues, from the importance of eating dinner as a family to anorexia.
These projects and exhibits will remain on display for another two to three weeks. They are currently on display in the Library, as well as the student gallery on the third floor of the Jacob Spori Building. 
