charity stuff

puchi puchi
My “I don’t believe it award for best product of the year has to go to this: the Puchi-puchi


It is – no kidding – an electronic keyring device which replicates the sound and feeling of popping bubblewrap.

Priceless…

Charity
Ok – I’ve been banging on about a charity project, so I need to work out what it’s going to be? Well, here are a few ideas I’m toying with:


Run for water
Quite simple this one – I run the marathon to raise money for getting fresh water to remote parts of Africa.

Pros
It’s a clear, tangible, measurable benefit
In some ways it’s the easiest idea to set in motion.
I really need to get fit, but I don’t seem to be able to apply myself to doing it without a target – this provides a target.

Cons
I’m told running a marathon is quite tiring
I’m pretty lazy


Baby podcasts
I had this idea a few weeks ago: babies seem to be mesmerised by repeating shapes, colours and motions… it seems to be their way of learning about the world – trying to figure out how patterns, rhythms and repetitions work seems to give them a way of working out the world. Later, when they’re older, they look for more complicated patterns, objects, and eventually letters.

I thought it would be fun to create a video podcast for babies – in other words, a set of animations that you could download to your ipod, and show to a baby – they’d love watching the moving shapes and colours and it would keep them quiet (it certainly works with George). It’s a little like having a book to distract them, but it would be abstract animations designed for their level…

I’d upload them to the Internet and charge a couple of quid for downloads… I think it’d be simple to do, get a lot of publicity and, be fun.

Pros
The animations would be easy and fun to do.
There are mechanisms for creating paid downloads pretty simply – I could set it all up online.
Cons
I’m not a charity, so I’d have to find a way for it all to get paid to a charity without my intervention.
It might not generate any income at all
The babies would almost certainly eat the ipods



Stock-Aid: Ok – pay attention because this could get complicated. When a magazine, newspaper, book publisher or designer is looking for pictures, and they can’t afford to hire an illustrator or photographer, generally, their first stop is a stock library. The idea here is that they can buy (for anywhere between £1 and £500) royalty free pictures. The stock library takes about50% and the rest goes to the photographer or illustrator.

Stock isn’t just pictures, it can be music, 3d models, video footage or a range of other creative works. Once the user has paid for them, they can use them in whatever production they’re making and they don’t have to worry about copyright….

Now, I’ve got my work on a whole range of stock sites… here are a few:
http://www.alamy.com/
http://www.sciencephoto.com/
http://www.istockphoto.com/
http://www.dreamstime.com/
http://www.renderosity.com/
http://www.pond5.com/
http://www.photographersdirect.com/
http://www.shutterstock.com/
http://www.oceanfootage.com/

From these I get payments every time anyone downloads one of my pictures, models, video clips, etc. earnings from these range from a few pounds to thousands per year…

Now, here’s my idea:
Get these sites to set up an account into which I and any other artist who wants to contribute, can upload pictures, etc. we want to donate. At the end of every month, the money earned gets sent to a charity (I’m suggesting Oxfam).

Pros
Setting up an account with these sites is easy and quick to do and it wouldn’t require the site owner to do anything very much to do it.
Once set up, artists from all over the world could contribute and any proceeds would go to the charity.
It would keep on earning indefinitely – and the payouts would increase as more images were added.

It’s an established system which I know works

Cons
I suggested this to one site (shutterstock) a couple of years ago and they reacted very badly against the idea for some reason - they even threatened to close my account.



I also have a mad idea involving satellites and rainforests – but I think that’s not one for the moment…