Design is a practice used for so much more than making something look good. Good design can take complex ideas and turn them into ideas that sink in - ideas that become practical, emotional, functional, inspirational, and action-bearing.

We've seen this employed throughout our American history, most recently with Obama's iconic HOPE poster and even during the WWI & WWII campaigns to recruit soldiers and encourage stateside rationing. Good design communicates sometimes hard messages, boring messages, or even non-existent messages and creates an emotional trigger within us.

Where has this practice gone…?

To Uganda.

With infant mortality on the rise in the developing world, an NYC agency saw this problem as more than just a health problem – they saw it as a design problem. Research has shown that much of the infant deaths are preventable, something that simple education about the practical aspects of raising a child could solve. Information that may seem obvious and readily available to many of us is not in the developing world – infant health instructions like: breast-feed 8-12 times a day, schedule regular doctor's appointments, & warning signs to look for when a child may be sick. Would handing out pamphlets or sending aid workers around to give presentations about these steps do the trick? Unlikely.

Their design solution: The Information Blanket. A double-knit baby blanket complete with simple graphic illustrations to communicates these health principles. Even women who cannot read are able to understand the messages. The result is genius. It keeps the information visual and in front of mothers as they use it daily to swaddle their infants.

Back to the U.S., and to subject matters less inspiring – I'd love to see this thinking applied to the current debt ceiling dilemma. Imagine if the complexities of the problem were boiled down to its most essential facts and a campaign were created to encourage the American people to get behind a REAL solution. Solutions inspired by those old WWII posters that kept America rationing – something that required sacrifice and discipline.

Greatest-generation design thinking for the new millennium.

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