Creative Sparks Cover and Back Cover | 18 November 2010

 

© David South Consulting 2017

Creative Sparks Magazine Almost Ready for Publishing | 17 November 2010

The new magazine Creative Sparks is now receiving its final read-through and approval. The first issue’s theme is Mobile Phones and Information Technology and chronicles what has been called the Development 2.0 Revolution: the use of innovative new technologies to radically alter the dynamics of development. The proliferation of mobile phones across the global South and even into some of the poorest places on earth is probably the most graphic example of this force in effect. Here is another snapshot of what to expect inside Creative Sparks:

Bringing Modern Design to British Healthcare | 7 November 2010

Expertise: Strategy, vision, team leadership, managing suppliers, design vision, digital strategy, content creation, editing, project management, innovation, child health, public health, modernising large institutions. 

Location: London, UK 2001 to 2003

Project Manager: David South

Charity Content Coordinator: Ramita Navai

Click here to view images for this case study: CASE STUDY 5: GOSH/ICH Child Health Portal | 2001 - 2003 Images

From 2001 to 2003, I led a transformational project simultaneously bringing a modern child health web portal and a modern online brand image, to the UK’s top children’s hospital. For younger people, it will be difficult to recall how out of step the UK was with the wider developments in new media and design at the start of the 2000s. My work in Mongolia, an isolated Northeastern Asian nation undergoing the worst post-WWII economic crisis in the 1990s, proved valuable in guiding the GOSH Child Health Portal project. Understanding the value of the internet as a communications tool, and how critical design and strategy were to the successful use of this technology, came about from raw need. The combination of geographical isolation and the urgent desire to communicate with the wider world, meant innovation was the only route to take. I dug out this image from the archive that sums it up nicely: on the left is before the launch, on the right after the launch:

Another key element to the success of the project was communication. It was highly unusual at the time for a health service project to so publicly and transparently communicate its progress and achievements. At every stage and milestone, the project team informed the wider public, the national and international media and colleagues and patients and their families about what was happening and what needed to be done. Below is a typical excerpt from the hospital’s newsletter:

Fast-paced and award-winning, the GOSH Child Health Portal deployed a number of techniques pioneered in my work in Mongolia. It partnered with high-quality content-makers such as the BBC and drew on the talent and expertise embedded in the organisation. It created a cascading cycle of success and achievement. Some of the design from the project is below:

© David South Consulting 2017

Bringing Modern Design to Development | 6 November 2010

A sample of design used in a project document from Mongolia in 2005. In this project, we took a complex mix of data and tried to build a snapshot of the country situation that was also visually appealing. Note the people icons: specially custom-designed for the Mongolian milieu.

Mongolian MDGs Media Project Infographic 2005

In the development of Creative Sparks, we are drawing on this past experience to create visually clear and instructive images and design for the magazine. One example follows:

Dynamo Smart Charger

 

© David South Consulting 2017

Creative Sparks Magazine Coming | 5 November 2010

Creating a new magazine never fails to engage. The new magazine Creative Sparks is no exception. This new magazine for UNDP’s Special Unit for South-South Cooperation is currently in development for a launch in the coming weeks. I shall detail the creative process fully when it is published, but here is a sneak peek at what could be inside:

Woman with Mobile Phone.

Design Team

Locations: London, UK and Reykjavik, Iceland.

Editor and Writer: David South

Graphic Designer and Illustrator: Sólveig Rolfsdóttir

Graphic Designer and Illustrator: Eva Hrönn Guðnadóttir

© David South Consulting 2017