UMD News Releases

More than 30 graphic design students at the University of Minnesota Duluth designed posters for the upcoming "Take Back Your Time Day" campaign, a national movement to draw attention to the problems of overwork and time pressures in America. Their posters and other art work will be honored at two special UMD events on September 18.

John de Graaf, book's editor
Take Back Your Time Lecture and Discussion
Thursday, Sept. 18, 2 p.m.
UMD Tweed Museum of Art Lecture Gallery

Take Back Your Time Book Release Celebration
Thursday, Sept. 18, 7 - 9 p.m.
UMD 4th Floor Library Rotunda

Both events are free, and the public is cordially invited.

The posters the students designed serve as illustrations in the new book Take Back Your Time (Berrett Koehler, 2003) and can be seen on a special Timeday poster site (at www.timeday.org) designed by UMD student Katie Just. Recent UMD graduate Jessica Backer (class of '03) crafted the logo used for the national campaign and throughout the book. Design students worked on the Time Day project in Joellyn Rock's graphic design courses at UMD during the spring semester of 2003.

At the book release celebration, contributing students will be on hand to sign copies of the book along with editor John de Graaf, the national campaign organizer for "Take Back Your Time Day". A portion of the proceeds from the book sales at the event will benefit the UMD Student Design Organization.

"The publisher and I were blown away by the creativity and quality shown by the UMD art students in designing the posters and other art for the campaign," said Take Back Your Time editor John de Graaf.

Take Back Your Time is the official handbook for "Take Back Your Time Day", a national event scheduled for October 24, 2003. On that day, thousands of Americans will join in hundreds of activities focusing on work/life balance and how we can reclaim it. Organizers have enlisted the support of colleges, universities, religious organizations, labor unions, businesses, activist groups, and non-profit organizations to create events that will take place across the country, calling attention to the ways overwork and lack of time affect us--at home, in our workplaces, and in our communities--and to inspire a movement to take back our time.

In the book, well-known experts in the fields of health, family therapy and policy, community and civic involvement, the environment, and other fields examine the problems of overwork, over scheduling, time pressure and stress, and propose personal, corporate and legislative solutions. The stellar list of contributors to the book includes such bestselling authors as Vicki Robin, Anna Lappe, David Korten, Bill Doherty, Cecile Andrews and many others.

In an afternoon lecture and discussion session, John de Graaf will lead an interactive session about overwork and time poverty in America, pointing out the contrast between American work time and leave policies and those found in other industrial nations (for example, those found in France, Germany, and other European countries). He will discuss the new national campaign "Take Back Your Time Day" and goals and activities related to the campaign. He will explain how a small grassroots campaign, with few resources, has snowballed into a major national event and attracted the attention of national and international media.

A former Public Affairs Director of KUMD Radio, John de Graaf has been producing documentaries (nearly 40 at last count), primarily for public television, for 26 years. More than 15 of his programs have been broadcast in Prime Time nationally on PBS. De Graaf is the recipient of more than 100 regional, national and international awards for filmmaking. He also produced the popular PBS specials, "Running Out of Time", an examination of overwork and time pressure in America, and "Affluenza", a scathing and humorous critique of American consumerism.

For more information about the Take Back Your Time events at UMD, contact:
Joellyn Rock, Assistant Professor, UMD Art and Design
jrock2@d.umn.edu

For more information about "Take Back Your Time Day", go to:
http://www.timeday.org/

View student posters at:
http://www.d.umn.edu/~jrock2/timedayposters/

"If you only have time to read one book this year, then this is absolutely the book to read!"
-Barbara Ehrenreich, author of the bestselling Nickel and Dimed