From time to time we help Avaaz.org with campaign and web graphics to be used in a variety of ways online.

Avaaz.org today released poll results regarding whether Palestinians should have the right to their own state, in the opinion of citizens in Germany, France, and the UK. In conjunction with this, they are "installing a 20 metre (four-story) high giant Palestinian flag outside the European Council, delivering a 913,171 signature-strong petition, and will run a full page ad in The Guardian calling for European action."

As a follow-up to their global petition against stoning and protesting the unjust judgment against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, we worked with Avaaz to design a set of ads in the global push to save Sakineh and stand for human rights.

Avaaz, continuing in what has become a great tradition of parody ads, took out space in the "Green New Deal" supplement in the Financial Times today. A quarter page ad on the front page depicts Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Yukio Hatoyama in shiny black outfits and dark sunglasses, posing the question "What is the CliMatrix?" and inviting readers to turn to the back page to find out.

Avaaz took out an advertisement timed to coincide with a summit of EU leaders to try to push for support of a climate finance package and set the stage for Copenhagen in December. The proximity of the summit to Halloween lent itself to a concept that was a lot of fun to work on. As usual, the timing was short, but it turned out well and is printed full page, in full color, in today's international edition of the Financial Times.

TckTckTck had a chance to put a full page, full-color ad on the back page of the Financial Times the day before UN climate talks began in New York and leading up to the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh. We were able to work with them under tight time constraints to develop a visual for their message. See below for the text of the ad, encouraging the leaders that will be attending the talks to take advantage of the opportunity to lead the way towards a fair, ambitious and binding deal in Copenhagen.

We recently helped Avaaz with the design of a t-shirt concept they had conceived as a fundraiser, with proceeds going "to support projects that enable Iranians to freely access the internet." Here's how they describe the concept:

This project blossomed into a four page spread after initially being conceived as a single page. Continuing on a successful theme of parodying pop culture to drive home a point, Avaaz.org embedded the drama of the UN global climate talks (in Poznan) and the upcoming EU summit (in Brussels) into a blockbuster storyline emphasizing the epic battle that faces Angela Merkel as she makes some very important decisions regarding the environment and the economy. We created the digital illustrations and other visuals to accompany it -- and we even managed to get a few Ewoks in on the last page.

We helped design an Avaaz campaign advertisement targeting Gordon Brown and David Miliband of the UK, encouraging them to "support a neutral EU force to protect Congo's civilians." Shortly after, Avaaz sent out an email describing how "[the UK] Africa minister called us immediately, and their position has shifted -- the UK has moved toward supporting a European force!"

Avaaz developed two ad campaigns to run in African countries neighboring Sudan offering a strong defence of the International Criminal Court and the trial of Omar al-Bashir after he was indicted for genocide.

The Avaaz Olympics campaign was wrapped up with an advertisement online and in Ming Pao in Hong Kong. The headline asks "As the Olympics draw to a close, what do 200,000 human rights and democracy loving global citizens want to bring to China?" The answer: A Handshake.

Avaaz developed a broad campaign relating to the Olympics in Beijing and unfurled it in advance of the opening ceremonies, continuing all the way through to the closing ceremonies. A large piece of the overall campaign that we helped with was the "Love China Love X" theme, which was pushed online, in newspapers, and in unique formats like pedicabs, scooters, and pediwalkers. The three prongs of the campaign were: [1] Love China Love Tibet [2] Love China Love Darfur and [3] Love China Love Burma.

The third ad in the G8 series by Avaaz.org parodied Street Fighter II, the video game popular in the early nineties which "featured a roster of eight playable characters that could be selected by the player. Ryu and Ken, the main characters from the original Street Fighter returned along with six new characters from different nationalities." [Wikipedia]

[Download a printable PDF of this ad]

Second in a series of three, this ad ran in conjunction with the G8 meetings in Japan. The subject matter was a pop culture reference to something from Japan, a parody of "Hello Kitty" to call out the leaders who are blocking progress on the climate change issue.

This ad was the first in a series of three which we worked on with Avaaz.org in conjunction with the G8 meetings in Japan in July of 2008. The opening of the meetings coincided with the beginning of the Tanabata festival, "when people in Japan write their wishes for the year ahead and tie them to bamboo trees." A number of other groups also partnered on this ad (Oxfam, Save the Children, ONE, and GCAP), and they had been collecting virtual "wishes" from their constituents.

This ad was developed in typical Avaaz fashion -- in response to current conditions on the ground, with very little lead-time. It was an attempt to pressure Japan, the USA, and Canada, who were holding up the Bali climate talks by refusing to consider emissions targets.

The concepts evolved slightly in the little time we had available to work on it. The resulting parody of the widely recognizable Titanic poster garnered much press attention and reports indicate that it was instrumental in helping nudge Japan towards accepting emissions targets.

The Ceasefire Campaign (now Avaaz.org) developed a plan for a new direction in Iraq and we helped design the visuals for the newspaper ad. We went with a bit of a "trompe-l'œil" effect to make the memo stand forward, including a slightly bent corner in the bottom right, and we tacked the memo to a map of Iraq.