I was contributing visuals to a very innovative 2-day event organised by some powerful women in University Limerick. It was part of a longer process to develop interdisciplinary research proposals to tackle wicked health problems. This part of the process was a design-thinking workshop in which participants identifies "opportunity spaces" between their disciplines and built on the ideas that emerged from those spaces. 

Here are some images that were part of a graphic harvest for Suas Educational Development, a great NGO that focuses on transformative education, both overseas with its partners in developing countries and at home with third level students. It co-hosted a day exploring the role of Higher Education on global justice. I was there to do three things: 1) A 14-page graphic harvest of the entire day which could be emailed out to everyone afterwards, 2) graphic tweets from the keynote and other speakers and 3) harvest the conversation circles which I did in an analogue (!) way- with coloured paper circles distributed and collected and made into a network-type mural for all to see. 
All of the work was done in Illustrator and projected at the end of the day- even though it was not quite finished! 
It is great to work with supportive clients like Suas who really value the visual contribution. I really like working digitally.... but my heart is still with ink and paper!

On March 10th I was facilitating creative activities and doing some live graphic recording for Think Visual. Their client, Cork Local Enterprise Office, had organised a networking event for young entrepreneurs in Cork City Gaol. The venue permitted no use of any wall whatsoever. We decided to use a digital visualiser with a large HD monitor. I really enjoyed it and thought it worked pretty well. A good digital alternative to projecting a working doc in Illustrator.

Afri are an NGO committed to global justice and as part of their "Just a Second!" schools project they created a campaign with transition year students from Mount Temple Comprehensive to urge leaders to take serious action at the Paris Climate Talk last November. This illustration is based on the words of the young people and accompanies the other project outputs. The actual size of the piece is about 3 x a2. Once imported to Photoshop it was stitched together, cleaned up, coloured and then vectorised in Illustrator. Some close up details are included below.

November 25th is International White Ribbon Day. The ribbon is a symbol of support to end men's violence against women.The Irish White Ribbon Campaign was launched in the Pillar Room at the Rotunda last Wednesday with a powerful event, hosted by Miriam O'Callaghan and featuring an incredible range of individuals telling their professional and personal stories.
Support the campaign @Whiteribbonirl and whiteribbon.ie
​

Friday the 13th! A great gathering organised by Cork Food Policy Council, exploring the opportunities for growing at least some of our own food in our urban landscapes. Veronica Barry presented some findings from her own review of what currently exists in Cork and this was followed by a lively set of conversations about what might be possible in the future. I don't have any great final shots of the fantastic ideas that emerged unfortunately- the light was so bad at the end of the day, it was virtually impossible to photograph. A really nice addition was to have a doodle wall beside me (using whiteboard paper) where people could add their own doodles and thoughts. Because some of the attendees were non-verbal this was a great addition to the facilitated conversations.

DESIS is the international network for Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability. On November 6th Ireland launched its own DESIS platform and brought together designers and change-makers for an exciting and inspiring symposium hosted in the design school at the new campus in DIT Grangegorman. There were 3 speakers followed by 5 breakout sessions, each looking at how design thinking can solve "wicked" problems. The event was organised by a group of design educators from University of Limerick, NCAD and DIT. Search for the hashtag #DESISirl to get the latest on their next steps...

UCD is preparing to become a "Health- Promoting University" and began this process with a consultation event on the 7th Oct. The event consisted of speakers in the morning, followed by facilitated dialogue and finishing with a plenary. The organisers wanted paper graphic recording but we were not permitted to stick any paper ANYWHERE in the venue. Instead, UCD proposed using an A3 camera. It worked fantastically and I will definitely do it again. I was also involved in creating digital illustrations for the events including slides and a detailed visualisation of an Audit of existing Health initiatives within the university.