Urban Jacksonville

art via arimoore on flickr

A few locals designers are using their talents to help others and a beard blogger is growing a stache to bring attention to men’s health issues – specifically prostate and testicular cancer. These are just a few notable items in an emerging local trend: creative people finding ways to help others. They’re illustrating that there is more than one way to give back to the community.

Brand Sprout From Greenhouse Studio

You may have noticed the Brand Sprout ad on the blog last week. Brand Sprout was a contest to award one new company a complete branding package:

We will create your identity, messaging, vision, website and overall brand framework. We’ll even host your site and support your branding initiatives for one year.

While not completely without motives (new business and PR) the idea of giving away weeks and maybe months of work is very generous. Although the contest is over, you can see who the winner is when it’s announced later today.

AIGA Jacksonville’s Designers in Toyland

AIGA is hosting its first custom toy show, Designers in Toyland, at the December Art Walk, December 2 from 5-9 pm downtown. Both AIGA members and non-members are invited to build a toy from scratch, choose an existing toy and take it to another level, or paint a blank vinyl toy — anything that makes the toy a creation unique to you. A portion of the proceeds from the event will be donated to The Big Fun Box.

The Big Fun Box donates thousands of goodie boxes, each year, to children who are experiencing frequent and extended stays—for any illness or injury—in pediatric hospitals across the country.

Movember With JaxBeard

Movember Jax encourages people to raise money to fight prostate cancer and improve survival rates and quality of life for young adults with cancer between the ages of 15 and 40 via the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Here’s how it works. A “Mo Bro” starts Movember (the month formerly known as November) clean shaven and naked-face. He grows a moustache all month long, and as he’s doing this, he’s gathering support from friends and family in the form of donations. This helps us get the subject of men’s health out in the open and gives us the opportunity to talk about the cancers affecting men. The moustache becomes a symbol, much like the pink ribbon is for breast cancer.

Sean Collins who organizes JaxBeard is a solid dude and you can help out by joining up. Contact Sean if it’s something you’re interested in.

We Inspire Grant Program

Similar to Brand Sprout, the We Inspire Grant Program is donating creative services too, but this time it’s going exclusively to a non-profit somewhere in the US. It’s a collaborative effort between Studio Orange Design, Subtle Technology and Tiffany Manning Photography.

Providing a yearlong partnership will enable us to develop a strategic and integrated approach to your marketing. Once a recipient is announced, a kick-off meeting will be scheduled to establish the goals and objectives of your organization. At this point, we can collectively determine what creative services will have the greatest impact on your cause.

The We Inspire team and each of the other organizations in this post are friends of the Urban Jacksonville blog. It’s quite an honor to be affiliated with people who are doing such good things in the local community. This is a trend I expect to see continue throughout the end of the year and into 2010.

If you have any other examples please share them along with links to the organization on the Urban Jacksonville Facebook page.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Activism, Art, Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.