ICM - Leeds Design Agency

Wednesday, December 10th 2008

Young parents get helping hand in Leeds

Breast Buddies, a community group which aims to promote breastfeeding in Leeds, has teamed up with Swarcliffe Young Parents Group to produce a magazine to promote the help that is available to young parents. We will be the proud producers of this magazine, called Leeds Young Parents or LYP, and are hugely excited about starting the project.

There was a terrific article in the Yorkshire Evening Post today, which details a couple of the stories of the members of the group. This looks like it’s going to be a fantastic proje…

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Wednesday, December 3rd 2008

Christmas Cards

I am a huge fan of Christmas. I drive everyone mad here at ICM every year with my over excited ‘Merry Christmas’ on the first of December. The ICM Christmas tree went up in reception on the second of December. This morning, on the third of December 2008, I handed out my first Christmas cards to my colleagues here at ICM.

The cards got a reaction for the first time. It wasn’t because of the outstanding design, the subject matter or even the Christmas message; it was purely to do with the size. At 70mm x 70mm they are on the small side and you could debate they could be gift tags not cards. This year was the first year I put extra thought in to the cards. I am, as most people this day and age, concerned about the environment and the impact that we have on it, so I took that into consideration with my purchase. The cards I chose also donate 10% of the proceeds to various charities such as The Children’s Trust, Marie Curie Cancer Care, Help the Aged, and The Woodland Trust.

So, does size really matter? Should we be looking into using more ecards or other methods of spreading our Christmas wishes? Has purchasing, writing and posting hundreds of Christmas cards every year become a chore…

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Monday, December 1st 2008

World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day.

The statistics are still shocking.

In the UK alone
• More than 80,000 people living with HIV
• One in three people with HIV are undiagnosed
• One in every 360 pregnant women in the UK is HIV positive

Worldwide, 2 million people died from HIV-related causes last year. That’s more than the entire population of Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham put together. It’s more than the entire popluation of several African countries.

This weekend I went to see the Annie Leibovitz exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It was fantastic, and worthy of it’s own blog, which it will get in a bit. The icing on the cake was the bonus exhibition showing for this week only – a little room at the bottom of the gallery, showcasing the covers she took for Vanity Fair, about “the challenge, the promise, and the future of Africa”. They’re well worth a look…

The exhibition was hosted by (RED), who so far have helped purchase antiretroviral treatments for nearly 80,000 people in Rwansa, Swaziland, Ghana and Lesotho.

Do what you can. Get involved. Buy RED. Save live…

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