Make Better is an awareness program designed to help local communities engage with social issues relevent to them. Put simply, Make Better is an organization dedicated to doing exactly what it’s name suggests. To bring each issue out of hiding, Make Better designs a conversation with the community, and creates a disruption to spark the dialogue. The logo itself was designed to be interactive, both in it’s need to be visually reassembled when read, and in it's application accross the system.

Issue 1: Public Green Spaces. Park(ing) Day is a worldwide event that turns metered parking spots into temporary parks for public good. Make Better rolled out green-grass in 25 parking spaces across Minneapolis. Benches, maps to each park, and literature underlining the benefits of urban green spaces all played an important role in getting the public excited and involved. Many visitors made it a goal to get to as many of the parks as they could, others simply enjoyed the benefits of a little break.

Issue 2: Art From The Streets. Working to help the homeless in Minneapolis, we commissioned twenty in need to paint their story from life on the street. The paintings were then held in public display and auctioned in a temporary Art Exhibition at Peavy Plaza, in the heart of downtown. The event proceeds went directly to Sharing and Caring Hands, an innovative homeless shelter in Minneapolis. Highlighting both the life and works of the artists, the event gave our community an opportunity to step into a world we so often step away from.

To use each dollar as efficiently as possible, each piece produced fulfilled many needs. The poster was designed to fold up into a flier, a mailer, and a newspaper insert, allowing us to take each cent further. Bikes were used as guerrilla billboards, wrapped with invitations to the event and chained to signs up and down busy streets.

The event itself was designed to create focus on each artist's story. To do this, twelve foot tall portraits of each artist were hung behind each painting. A book was designed to share each artist's story, and was distributed as gifts for those who donated to Sharing and Caring Hands at the event. The auction was conducted over twitter so bidding could take place across the social web, over text message, or at kiosks set up within the gallery itself.