Artifact: “Rowe for Does: Wildfire Prevention Foundation” Project (Google Drive)

The Problem of Evil course covered various philosophers’ argument and solutions to the problem of evil. The problem of evil is a problem only to those who believe in a sort of god, and this course focused on the Christian problem/answer. For Christians (or for those who believe in a god of Christian theodicy), the problem of evil is presented as: how can an all-knowing, all-good, all-powerful God exist if evil also exists? We covered the three main branches, being the Logical, Evidential, and Existential problem of evil. The logical problem of evil was largely solved by Alvin Plantiga’s Free Will Defense, which states that God is not at fault for the evil in the world because of mankind’s misuse of their free will. If God were to inherently make mankind lean towards the “just” decisions, then it would not be true free will. If God were to intervene in every case which might be considered an evil, then our world would not be static and we would not feel free, as our actions will not ever cause their true consequences. In the evidential problem of evil, we learned that the main issue was finding evidence for/against the existence of this God. Some claimed that he is simply too complex to comprehend by mankind and only God can truly understand the extent of his goodness and power, therefore deeming it unnecessary to try to find evidence. Some argue that the lack of evidence proves that there really is no God. In the existential problem of evil, we read mostly C.S. Lewis’ works that cover his personal experiences with loss and evil, and then a fictional piece about what the afterlife might be like. In these readings, we learn the existential problem of evil to be the conflict of one’s emotions with one’s logic. For example, someone who lost a loved one would be mournful and angry at God for doing an evil thing and taking away someone good, while logically they believe that God is all-benevolent and wouldn’t commit evil. So then the question remains, how do they keep their faith? We also read a book by David Bentley Hart, which covered the existence of God in natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes.

The purpose of the artifact was to take what we learned from the course and augment an aspect of our final essay according to our major. My major is graphic design, so I chose to create a fictitious charity called the “Rowe for Does: Wildfire Prevention Foundation” and create a branding package for this charity. This branding package would include a logo, a set of posters, a shirt design, a website mockup and a case study that covers my creative process. In the .zip file linked at the top of the page, there contains all of the final aforementioned products, as well as the initial project brief that I sent to Dr. Blincoe to get approved. In making this artifact, I learned a lot of about how I have to really consider the audience and the size of the product when designing it. For example, In designing the posters, I had to make sure that it was eye catching to people passing by, and that it wasn’t so much information that it would tire the eye of readers or lose their interest. Or that in making the logo, I needed to consider that they would put it on the breast of shirts, on business cards, posters, etc. so it needed to be recognizable and memorable at varying sizes. To do this, I made it one color and fairly simple, with smaller details that can be discovered when looking closely or if the logo is on a larger medium. This project experience would help me take into consideration audience and production in future projects and assignments, especially in Design Lab.