Last week 30,000 newspapers, beautifully designed in black and bright cyan and not looking anything like a boring political paper, came off the printing press and began their journey around the country. To inspire people to camp to this years Climate Camp which sets up at Kingsnorth in Kent in less than a month's time.
The originally designed newspaper is filled with full pages images of last years events at Heathrow Airport, portraits of hot climate campers, a stunning map of this years camp and texts that describe the politics of radical climate activism. If you would like copies to hand out in the street, festivals, drop off in cafe's etc. contact 
distribution@climatecamp.org.uk with your address and they will send some to you. The pdf's is now online at 
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/node/23.
distribution@climatecamp.org.uk with your address and they will send some to you. The pdf's is now online at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/node/23. 
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Looks great
07.07.2008 11:16
Some might consider it a waste of paper, energy and resources and I doubt that many of the 30,000 copies will happen to find somebody who wasn't already planning on going to the camp but now will. But if some of them do, and their camp experiences changes their lives and the lives of those around them, then it's definitely worth while.
agitprop
You Are Here - but we are all over the place...
07.07.2008 23:01
I think that as propaganda this paper fails. (It might sound like that Media Watch programme but) Here's some points...
* The paper takes far too long to get around to clearly stating what it's about - and it's only on the second to last page that the details are spelled out - it's not until half way through the paper that you know what it's about. The first 6-8 pages could be anything - for instance BP's latest bit of greenwash - and you can't assume that the 'new' reader has got that far into the paper... The front and back covers are simply too obtuse, and don't state whatsoever what this paper's about - it's a gamble I don't think works.
* Page 2 - a full-page picture of an eye welling with a tear - and the caption 'and sometimes it doesn't make sense' - you're not wrong there.
* Page 3 - ask any tabloid paper editor the importance of page three - yet - this paper uses it not to ram a point home, but rather, a de-cluttered white page with simply the words 'sometimes it feels as though our world is coloured in sadness. And you just want to be somewhere else' Again - am I being led up the garden path by BP's PR department again? By this stage a lot of disinterested readers will have thrown this paper to one side. Like I nearly did.
* Page 4-5 - finally some bad-news factoids on a spectrum of topics - without any particular context - apart from an ill-conceived dot-to-dot graphic and a line drawing of the Famous Five... Now I'm thinking this paper isn't by BP, but the 1950's school children make me think it's the work of a Christian NGO...
* Page 6-7 - 'Perhaps things used to be a little simpler'. This article starts - "There was a kind of certainty to our lives, there was little doubt that we, our friends, our families would have a future, probably brighter than the past..." This statement suggests that there was once certainty and security in our lives, but now there isn't. I mean there was over 30 years where people had good reason to believe that we were all going to be annihilated in a nuclear war (we still might), and before that was two world wars.. you get the picture. This first sentence is so poor, you'd have to strap me into a chair to read the rest of the article. ...The reader is getting the gist about climate change but still doesn't know about the Camp.
* Page 12-13 - The article begins - "Eleven months of every year go by without a place for people to gather and collectively work out how we are going to respond to the climate crisis that we face..." This is another opening sentence I don't agree with, this time suggesting that people need a climate camp to do climate activism, as though it doesn't go on the rest of the time. Many people do climate activism every day - fair play to them - and anyway of course it's also about incorporating it all into our lives - not just during a camp. But at least I'm reading about the Climate Camp - but this should be page 3, not page 13.
I won't go on - basically the second half of the paper does more what it should, having squandered the first half on ill-conceived graphics and badly out of context and waffling rhetoric.
What do others think about this paper?
Drama Queen
I'm with drama queen
09.07.2008 01:50
I'm really sorry to knock climate camp cos I really support it but getting the publicity right is just so important and I don't want mainstream media to be handed stuff like this that implies that we're all just a bunch of wooly headed hippies. Arty stuff is NOT going to save the planet so stop churning so much out. We need all sorts of practical skills, common sense, understanding of technology and new ways of thinking and organising if we want to stand any chance of succeeding at this incredibly difficult task ahead.
down to earth guy
but 'arty' is mainstream
09.07.2008 17:12
you are right that not everyone will like it but I think you are wrong that it is the only approach tried, or that it is a failed approach.
x
Arty For Arts Sake doesn't work in advertising
09.07.2008 19:07
But having said that a lot of 'arty' ideas in advertising are the result of types of market research and 'profiling consumers' and all that sickening stuff. Obviously those people get it wrong a lot of the time as well, but I just think that 'You Are Here' is an attempt to play that game which doesn't come off - but then who knows maybe it'll prove me wrong.
I don't think it comes across as 'hippy' - but the design and text has an overwhelming naivety about it.
Drama Queen