AIGA, the professional association for design, has mounted a relief effort to aid designers in the Gulf Coast region devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The organization has created a network to account for designers affected by the disaster, which will assess their needs and provide assistance from other designers and organizations across the country.
All information on the status of those affected, offers of assistance, available computers or studio space, housing or donations should be directed to http://www.aiga.org/reliefeffort.
AIGA asks that all design publications, websites and blogs post this link so all designers, AIGA members and non-members, have a place to account for their colleagues and communicate their needs.
I see it on my big color television screen but I do not believe it.
A city as proud and historic and culturally rich as any city anywhere lies underwater like some premonition of the way the world ends.
On the elevated dry bits, police cars and big mostly empty military trucks drive right past the dying as the wives and husbands of the dying shriek for help.
As the TV cameras pitilessly record the chaos and carnage, I think, this must be some poor African country I’m seeing. Some tragic flood brought on by inept dam builders in a corrupt regime.
Now army tanks roll down the streets, as they did here in New York on September 11th. But the soldiers aren’t in New Orleans to protect the city from foreign terrorists; it’s local looters they’re after.
I turn off the television. There are times all you can do is pray, and give money to the Red Cross.