This was it! The poster I handed out at Pacificon 2008, 28 - 30 Aug 2008, at the Santa Clara Marriott, right between 237 and 101 off Great America Parkway.
I have also been using it as a flyer to hand to all the interested and concerned citizens of the world I meet. It serves many functions: business card, talking points memo, 1-page manifesto, recruiting poster, plus conversation-and-thought-provoker. I also use it to make wild sketches and charts if I have no other paper handy, as many know I am wont to do.
In future iterations, I will likely change things. But for now, this is the historic “First Official Print Document for Global Understanding.” Or at least an electronic facsimile thereof. May it go down in history as the first printed instantiation to communicate what we are setting out to do!
To readers who have found this flyer: The ideas we are working on are like living entities. Please keep them well if you get your hands on them. I printed up 200 flyers and gave about half to Franklin Pham yesterday to distribute. Please don’t litter or destroy needlessly. If you are not interested enough to keep them, please pass them on to someone who would be. Recycle the ideas, not just the paper!
Also feel free to use the paper to its full extent however you wish. Write on the back and in the margins. Frame them and hang them on the wall in your places of work, education or leisure. Or make your own copies, and hand them on to other interested and concerned citizens of the world! I suggest 100-200 of them to be able to cover a reasonable-sized event. Contact me so I know where you will be going, and how you wish to help spread the Global Understanding movement’s word.
Use the big GU logo for mobilization, the same way the anthropomorphic Uncle Sam was used to mobilize the United States for the First World War. Because this cause is, in effect, the call to take intellectual arms against a sea of intolerance, and by integrating with the cultures involved, to diffuse it. We are staking the best ideals of humanity against our own worst nature. We hope to prevent World War III from occurring this century. Before another nuclear weapon is hurled. Before another 72 million more end up dead, as they did in World War II.
We also need to ameliorate the Malthusian problem of too many mouths to feed, earning too little to feed and care for themselves. Beyond horrific possibilities of war, billions may die of starvation, poor water and lack of medicine this century. This is also a rallying cry to achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
This poster for Global Understanding is our first to rally the people of the world. It is stark. Black and white.
Because that is the clarity of the vision we must have for now. The yin and the yang of it. We must be creative and receptive. We must write, black on white, to declare our principles and our pledges. We must be logical and forward-thinking. We must be crisp and precise. Efficient and frugal.
In the long run, we can get to the richness of full color. For now, I'm glad the logo looks sharp in black-and-white. People “got it.” Everyone seemed to like the simple acronym. With one exception: Dana Lombardy suggested we call it “Global Learning & Understanding” (GLU vs. GU). I’ll write a separate article about that.
The flyer was done in Microsoft Word. I am having technical difficulties with the Adobe Creative Suite (won’t save), and CS2 (won’t even launch). I called a friend I know who works at Adobe to consider an upgrade to CS3, but for now, I’ll hold off. I need to dig up my serial #’s for CS2 to get technical support.
So that’s the barrier for progress on the graphics front. If anyone out there has a spare copy of Adobe CS3 to grant to the organization, we’ll clear that hurdle. Otherwise, it’ll get solved in due time.
Onwards to adventure!
-Peter.
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