Advertising vs. Advocacy
A few months ago I was asked to take photos and video of a march to the house of representatives. It’d be for a coalition of environmental groups fighting for 3 “green bills” in congress. It made me reflect a lot on my transition from corporate or commercial designer to non-profit advocacy designer. I once wished that money grew on trees, but today, I wish more people grew an appreciation for what trees already give us.
Speaking of design, my colleague at the time Eric, alongside Alyansa Tigil Mina or ATM had also asked me to design a huge 6′ by 10′ foot banner for the protest. ATM works to uplift communities affected by mining companies in the Philippines. I then got real excited that I’d be creating a print job for this effort for hundreds of people to see, and that my hard work wasn’t for someone else to make some green, but for more people to appreciate the green already all around us.
The brainstorm session about the design was no different from design meetings back in California. There, I’d sit in my cubicle beside a co-worker conceptualizing a new advertising project and ask: Who was our audience? What was our message? What did we want them to do? These were the usual questions we asked ourselves when creating an advertising campaign.
This time around however, we weren’t making print ads to generate sales. Our clients weren’t companies with advertising budgets and profit margins. We were making banners to generate awareness for people with no budgets or profits at all. We were advocating for people who couldn’t see the forest from the trees because they had to focus on getting by, one day at a time. For many of them, they had to log the forests by their homes or mine minerals for a living to stay alive.
But this would also be another project using solely tagalog words. I’ve spent my design career so far using colors, images, and space to convey images that were in english. One of the pre-requisites for any designer is to first understand what needs to be said. But with this project, I had no idea what was being said at all.
Luckily Eric, as well as Farah from ATM, were patient with me. After translating they gave me a gist of the sort of imagery they wanted to see: “before” and “after” photos displaying a healthy forest and a dilapidated area, and messaging in tagalog about the 3 bills these groups were pushing for. I felt since this was going to be a graphic that pertained to national laws, I couldn’t help but imagine the banner not only portraying what Farah and Eric wanted, but also reflecting a sense of nationalism as well: the national flag.
Within a day or so from the rally, Eric taps me on the shoulder and asks, “Would you like the chance to see your work in action?” I was then recruited to join the team that was to photo document the green march to the house of representatives.
The morning of, I hopped on a jeepney with Jean and Liezel from Haribon’s admin department and Khariza from HR to the march’s starting point. Once we got off the jeep, I immediately started taking photos…
Here’s Jean and Khariza letting people know about the FRB or Forest Resources Bill the Haribon Foundation (the NGO I design for) has been pushing for a few years now.
Here’s Eric, one of my art directors on the banner project. He also educates me on Philippine politics and history once and a while too.
There we met another colleague of ours, Lira from Haribon’s research site-action department. Here she’s having ice cream after the long march in the rising morning sun.
Near the end of the rally, hundreds of people began tying green ribbons with the 3 “green bills” we were pushing for written on them: The National Land Use and Mining Act (NLUMA), The Forest Resources Bill (FRB), and the Alternative Minerals Management Bill (AMMB).
And by the end of the rally, I got the chance to take a photo by one of my proudest works yet. A banner that involved collaboration and shared ideas, all for a cause that involved hundreds of people from different sectors and beliefs.
I’m looking forward to see how much I grow as a “Filipino”, but most importantly, as a human being, an artist here to help people help our planet become a better place for us and our kids.
So what does this mean for my future as a designer? Do I plan a return to the “for-profit” sector? As of now my future in commercial design looks bleak, and despite designing for communities I have yet to understand, and receiving pay lower than I’ve ever earned, I’m learning tagalog and bisaya much mabilis dito sa Pilipinas than dyan sa California. I’m closer to family. And I’m around other people who’ve taken similar risks or are on the verge of making big changes in their lives just to make a small change in the Philippines.
Yep, so far my transition from commercial advertising to community advocacy feels like a one-way street. But my Kuya John warned me once a few weeks ago that “the current flows strongly against us”, and we can turn back anytime. I keep that in mind when embarking on this mission. I hope one day everyone else will join us and make the current flow in the direction that is advantageous for all. That would make this work that much easier. Oh, and we’d get to a better Philippines faster than ever.
More about the “3 green bills”
All three bills have been filed in both houses of congress but I’ve been having a hard time getting the house bill links. I’ll add them here once I find them. I have yet to do further research, but year after year, congress after congress, these groups continue to push for these bills with limited funds. But the hope and faith they have in their constituents and each other outweighs the riches commercial industries hold within their banks.