Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 3
Creative Waves
Exploring Emerging Online Cultures, Social
Networking and Creative Collaboration
through e-Learning to Offer Visual
Campaigns for Local Kenyan Health Needs
Andy Polaine
The University of New South Wales, Australia
Rick Bennett
The University of New South Wales, Australia
AbstrACt
The past few years have seen the promise of online collaboration vastly augmented by developments
in online technologies and emerging creative practices. Through our work with the Omnium Research
Group, the authors argue that design should never be a solitary activity and benefits from many levels
of collaboration - never more so than when dealing with complex issues facing today's world. The
highly connected global society in which many of us now live frequently uses web-technologies to en-
hance nearly every facet of day-to-day life. The authors strongly believe that design education should
not isolate itself from such communal and collaborative potential. This chapter explores what happens
when online creative collaboration is applied to a real-world design project tackling critical health is-
sues affecting local communities in Africa. It offers an account of the most recent, fully-online Creative
Waves project - Visualising Issues in Pharmacy (VIP) that saw over 100 graphic designers join forces
with a similar number of pharmacists from over 40 countries worldwide to produce graphic proposals
for public awareness campaigns about six health issues seriously affecting the people of a village com-
munity in Kenya. The three-month VIP project is explained in relation to its aims, objectives and graphic
outcomes, as well as the online environment in which it took place. Creative Waves is a concept created in
2005 by the Omnium Research Group, based at The University of New South Wales in Australia, to form
online communities of design students from many institutions around the globe. Consisting an array of
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