Interview with Phil Collis, Creative Director of Skoll Foundation, US

Much of our work is based around the Skoll World Forum—a yearly event held in Oxford, England that brings together social entrepreneurs, artists, philanthropists, government leaders, and activists for a week of networking, learning, and inspiration. We’ve been fortunate to have incredible leaders speak at our events such as Malala Yousafzai, Jimmy Carter, and the late Kofi Annan amongst others.

We’re thrilled to receive this award because we’re a small team that puts on this event, but we pride ourselves on pushing the envelope and bringing a fresh look to social issues. There’s no reason why design in social issue events can’t be fresh, exciting, and inspiring and that's what we hope we’ve achieved this year.

This was the first time we’ve had an integrated approach across branding, art, collateral, and stage. It was also a fresh look for us – we wanted to make sure we were diverse and inclusive of a range of issues, cultures, and geographies without seeming cliché. Hopefully, that’s what the judges saw as well!

Our biggest challenge was to come up with a visual that matched the theme of the event – “Accelerating Possibility”. We wanted something that felt forward-looking; highlighting some of the innovations (such as mobile-enabled community health workers) that were born from our community. We intended the Escher-esque styles of the main image to also demonstrate how issues are connected, another key theme at our event.

Talent can come from anywhere – especially in the rise of digital/social. Our field has a tremendous ability to look at the past and remix, re-work, and refresh styles and messages into something new. Art and design can truly change the conversation – especially when to the global conversation.