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Ad Council Creative. Archive of public service announcements produced by pro-bono by ad agencies on issues related to health, safety and education.

screenfont.ca. Discussion of readable type for captions and subtitles from the Open & Closed Project. See, for instance, this critique of existing typefaces for HDTV captioning.

The Open & Closed Project. “A new research project headquartered in Toronto. Our main goal is to improve quality by setting standards for the four fields of accessible media – captioning, audio description, subtitling, and dubbing. We’ll develop those standards through research and evidence-gathering. Where research or evidence is missing on a certain topic, we’ll carry it out ourselves. We’ll test the finished standards for a year in the real world, then publish them. Then we’ll develop training and certification programs for practitioners. ” Not much there yet, but I like this direct approach. I hope legislative advocacy will follow.

Changes. Excellent video montage of the 2008 U.S. presidential candidates pushing "change."

Anti-War Films. A list on Wikipedia.

Sands of Sorrow. Via YouTube, a 28 minute black-and-white documentary from 1950. “On the plight of Arab refugees from the Arab-Israeli war. Dorothy Thompson speaks on the refugee problem. Refugees live in tents in the Gaza Strip, are given blankets and food by Egyptian soldiers, and receive flour from UNICEF. A Lebanese priest conducts services. Refugees work as plumbers, carpenters, tailors, and shoemakers in the city of Jerusalem. Doctors vaccinate refugees against disease. Shows the squalid living conditions in refugee camps, starving children, and emphasizes the hopeless condition of the refugees. Producer: Council for the Relief of Palestine Arab Refugees”

There Are 12 Kinds of Ads in the World. Slate digs up a 1978 analysis of propaganda techniques by Donald Gunn an ad man for Leo Burnett. Posted as a slideshow with associated YouTube videos of recent ads.