– From the charity water staff: – [All] Don’t forget to be awesome! – Hey everyone, welcome to
Project for Awesome 2012. For the past few years, I’ve done all of my videos on charity: water and this year is no different. However, to step it up a notch, while last year I filmed my
video at YouTube headquarters, this year I’m filming from
charity: water headquarters. So here’s a quick montage to
check out the amazing office. (indie music) Isn’t that office so cool? Though don’t worry,
everything in that office is donated by private donors. charity: water works with
the 100 percent model, which means that every single dollar that the public donates
goes straight into the field to help people get clean water. As with every year I have
started a my charity: water campaign called Nerdfighters for Water. I’ll put the link down
below if you want to donate. Never in the past have
we actually gotten up to the 5000 dollars
needed to build a well, but this year I think that we can do it. So while you decide if you want to donate, I’m going to go talk to the designers who work here at charity: water. Hey guys, I’m here with Vik,
and she is the lead designer for charity: water. – Hey guys! I have a small creative
team and our team is basically responsible for
everything that charity: water, everything that you see on our site, everything that you see at our events, all of our videos, we travel to the field to help tell stories of the water project that the organization is building, and we just kind of crank out lots of different projects
all throughout the year. – What is one of your favorite projects that you’ve worked on lately? – We just wrapped a
campaign where we raised 1.7 million dollars for
water projects in Rwanda. We took two trips out to Rwanda, got to learn about the
country and the history of it. We did a series of six,
actually five videos to learn different facets of the stories. – So can you talk a little bit about your process of starting
one of the designs for this campaign until
when it finally launches? – Yeah, definitely. For Rwanda specifically,
it was interesting because of the sensitive
history of the country. I don’t know if you guys
know a lot about Rwanda, but in 1992 there was a
genocide that happened. And what we actually started with? We read some history books about Rwanda, and got familiar with
the story of the country. When we launched, the entire organization got behind promoting, so a lot of people would reach out to
their personal contacts, everyone that they knew to start spreading the word in
a really organic way. – So a lot of people who watch my videos are also designers themselves, or people who want to be designers. Do you have any advice
for anyone who is maybe at design school or is thinking about getting into design?
– Yes, definitely. This kind of happened to me,
and I think it’s happened to every designer that comes kind of seasoned and experienced. First, don’t give up,
because at first when you’re just learning about
design, if you really are, and to be a designer you
probably have good taste, you see what good design looks like, but first you kinda don’t know how to reflect that in your own work. At least I didn’t at first. Everything that I designed at first, I hated, and I felt looked stupid. And then, when you keep
doing it over and over again, and you keep taking on
projects, slowly, for me, what started happening was
one out of every 10 things that I designed, I liked. Then two out of every 10 things
that I designed, I liked. And then slowly it was five, 10. It’s a struggle and at first you’re like, “Man, everything I’m doing doesn’t really “quite look right, and I don’t know why, “but I really want it to look like this.” So I would just encourage
people to keep trying, keep going, because now,
after having been a designer for a really long time, you know, now I love everything I do of my own work, but it took a long time to get there. – Well, thank you so much
for being in my video. – Thanks Karen! Bye guys. – So thank you everybody for checking out my 2012 Project for Awesome video. I’ve supported charity: water
ever since I interned here back in 2009, which is
like three years ago, and I hope that together
we can all build a well, and we can have the Nerdfighter well, halfway across the world
and it’ll just be awesome. So thank you so much for watching, please don’t forget to donate to the Nerdfighters for Water Project, or if you don’t want to
donate directly here, you can also donate to the Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck over
on projectforawesome.com. If you want to check out my previous Project for Awesome videos,
I’ll link them here and here, and I’ll also link some of my favorite Project for Awesome videos from this year down in the description. So thank you for watching,
happy commenting, happy Project for Awesome, and
I will see you all next time. (upbeat distorted 8-bit music)
DFTBA!
Penny for your thoughts!
DFTBA!
Thanks fo the video, Karen! DFTBA
DFTBA KAREN
You rock Karen!! I LOVE YOU
PORTUGAL loves you!! DFTBA
DFTBA!
:D! you're so happy, all smiles. I love it π Going to donate. right. now.
DFTBA!
DFTBA Karen!
Oooooh I didn't see this one.
Dftb!
water is awesome!
SPAM WOWING YOU!
montage! hooray!
OH yay! this is awesome!
DFTBA!
DFTBA!
DFTBA! π
Great advices she gave!
I love the video. dftba
Amazing, DFTBA!
I see the nerdfighters livestream beat me here π Great video!
Haha DFTBA
Powerful video, Karen! Thanks for making me aware of this great charity!
awesome
I am supporting Ocean Conservancy for P4A, but think Water is a great charity too! I am most looking forward to seeing people who I haven't been able to see in a while this holiday season. Also my favorite holiday drink is probably peppermint hot cocoa π
Great video and a great charity! DTBA!
DFTBA
Trololo #DFTBA
Wonderful video, Karen!
DFTBA!
dftba
I love all the awesome being spread on youtube!!
awesomn
great cause!
DFTBA!
pennypennypennypenny
Not sure we'll get $5000, but I'll do my part.
We should support this one!
penny
Oh snap. Someone just lucked out at the school where I work.
keep up the great work
DFTBA!!!!
DFTHE and happy P4A. π
Yeah!!!!! Water!!!
DFTBA and water is awesome!!
DFTBA
P4A 2012!!!
penny
DFTBA π
H2O FTW!
money
DFTBA!
great video, as always, karen :)!
I like this cause
Sadly I already donated/bought something at the Indiegogo campaign, so I don't have any money to donate… I hope you meet your goal, though!
DFTBA
Great video and such a cool, wonderful organization π DFTBA!
Very cool
awesome charity
Great cause
dftba!
dftba!!! π
great!
DFTBA!!!
DFTBA!!
DFTBA
commenting on comments
Awesome stuff! Way to really show off charity:water.
Sounds like a great cause!
penny
Pennies!
Great video for a great cause!
I just discovered your videos! I love DIY and subscribed! It's frightening that a few corporations are buying up bodies of water just to bottle them (as is) and sell them to the very people they stole the water source from… Water is such a precious resource that we all need and yet some of us waste it watering our front lawns to prove to Ned Flanders how great we are instead of actually BEING great and preserving water and not caring what Ned Flanders thinks! DFTBA.
penny
dftba!
cool
It's nice to have something different with the interview. Good idea!
DFTBA!
DFTBA π
Yay water!
you guys are seriosly awesome. keep it up!!
Trying to give you a shoutout in the comments on the featured videos. With all the people spamwowing I don't know if anyone will see, but if anyone's reading this, consider finding the featured videos and doing the same. π
pennies
Just voted for this one π
great video!
penny!
DFTBA
dftba
DFTBA
Dftba
DFTBA!
DFTBA!
dftba, karen!
DFTBA
DFTBA!
OMG! These videos make me wan't to do projects like this!
I feel peer pressure so I must say DFTBA
It was great to hear from a fellow, but considerably experienced designer. I found a lot of her advice, very useful and was able to identify with, her own experiences getting started. Also, she was a lot easier to listen to, she was slow and articulate, something you need to work on, for the information to be more effective. I'm missing half of what you're trying to say, it's frustrating, because I think what I'm able to catch, is good information, but YOU REALLY NEED T SLOW IT DOWN!