In a world where we are constantly bombarded with countless media messages, in which there are more non-profit charity organisations than ever before competing for donations for a million good causes from human rights, to animal rights, to environmental issues, to health promotion, to... designers of non-profit campaigns are having to get more innovative in their design approach in order to grab the attention of the public. This is leading to the use of new techniques within graphic design in which the viewer is physically involved in the campaign, and in which the visuals step out of the two dimensional space of print and becomes a three-dimensional experience. The representations still convey the same messages, and attempt to move us through guilt, pity and awareness, but do so in a clever way by using design 'gimmicks'. This has the effect of both making the campaign cool, while 'bringing home' the message in a new and striking way.
Here are a few examples, most of which use life sized children as a visual strategy: (many more can be seen on osocio)
This UNICEF campaign was displayed in Amsterdam a few years ago. When you peeped inside the box you got a message saying "Look into the world of UNICEF" and a link to the website.
These ads created by the Swiss department of Amnesty International use new techniques to place human rights violations within the comfort zone of the viewer's world, making them hard to ignore. The whole series can be seen here.
Here the same idea used by World Vision in the Netherlands:
A few more examples:
