Design At Riverside - 2X GRAPHIC DESIGN

For the first exhibit of the summer Design at Riverside is collaborating with the Association of Registered Graphic Designers to showcase two distinct groups of work: projects by local designers in Design at Work: The Best of Western Ontario, and winning entries of the first-ever international Social Good Design Awards (or So Good).

As its name suggests, So Good aims to encourage designers to tackle the challenging prospect of designing for a cause, whether for a client or designer-initiated. With 40 projects out of 200 selected by the jury, representing 11 countries, the amount of quality work and range of topics is impressive on its own. From simple matters like helping vegan tourists to the bigger task of promoting the products of developing countries, and with strategies ranging from web pages to fonts, installations to coffee cups, the melange of cause and craft is, if nothing else, a great library of works to pull ideas from for both designers and do-gooders.

The Best of Western Ontario, while only numbering 12 projects, maintains a similar range of media – the jars of jam come to mind. Shown on plots suspended in aluminum frames, these projects by local designers are by no means restricted to local clients. With designs for Aecon’s ‘One’ magazine and the website of an anti-smoking campaign in Greece these 12 projects show that Western Ontario has a thriving design community.