Christian Blind Mission (CBM)

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In late-2010 and throughout 2011, I have been undertaking volunteer work at Christian Blind Mission (CBM), an organisation dedicated to serving the needs of people with disabilities in many of the world’s poorest nations. On a local level, CBM also operates an audio library (in partnership with Vision Australia) and promote disability inclusion in Australian churches.

Over a few years, I have been fascinated at how organisations (including CBM) can use graphic design and photography to help bring about social change in the world. Through some networks of mine, I was introduced to CBM in 2010 and was keen to get a feel for how this organisation operates. So I took onboard the opportunity to undertake some volunteer work over summer and I have truly been blessed!

During my time as a volunteer, I particularly enjoyed having the opportunity to:

• Meet some wonderful people (both staff and fellow volunteers)
• Find out more about what CBM is about as an organisation, the work they undertake and the people they serve
• Meet the team from the marketing department (it is called Communications at CBM)
• Gain more experience working in an office environment (even though much of the work was non-Graphic Design related, I got to experience more about an office environment operates)

In addition, it also opened up opportunities to utilise them as a client for my Honours Project in 2011. I have been working with the disability inclusion officer to create visual social story presentations about Church life for people on the Autism Spectrum that are photographically-based. Examples of this work will be displayed elsewhere on this blog in the near future.

I had an opportunity to create editable templates for Certificates of Appreciation to be handed out to volunteers. It also gave me an opportunity to use my graphic design skills in a workplace environment. I utilised many skills, including:

• Creating designs based on an existing style using CBM’s style guide (this meant I followed their general page layout techniques and used specified fonts along with colour schemes)
• Utilising a contemporary, functional layout
• Using images from CBM’s image library
• Managing the design of a Microsoft Word template (not an ideal design program; however, staff at CBM need to be able to enter details into the certificates on-demand.

You can view the certificate designs in the above image gallery.

To find out more about CBM and see how their website is designed, please click here to view their website. This link opens in a new window or tab, depending on your web browser and its settings.