Designing for Social Change
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- d_rek
Is anyone buying into this industry buzz-phrase?
http://designingforsocialchange.…
Now they have a book about it. A colleague of mine is being recognized in this book for her work in PieLab. Although by all accounts her retelling of what they did at PieLab was far from glamorous or life-changing for the community they were in. The biggest eye-opener to her was how little the community they were trying to help cared about a bunch of designers wanting to impact their community. In her words, "They didn't give a shit about graphic design or making posters or logos or how creative we were or anything I was taught in school. What they cared about was feeding their families, keeping a roof over their head, keeping their cars running, paying their bills... things that mattered."
I'm really torn on this subject. Anyone else have opinions on 'Designing for Social Change'?
- fadein110
3rd world problem
- pango0
oh look another side scroll site.
- bored2death0
Design is not a necessity, it is a luxury. It only becomes important once a certain level of comfort is achieved.
- Interesting. I was having similar thoughts.d_rek
- http://en.wikipedia.…non
- futuremongolian0
The quote makes the person sounds retarded so I didn't click.
- The quote is not from the link. It is from a colleague of mine whom i've had personal conversations with.d_rek
- omg0
Firstly its important on how you define the term "design". Also its important to see where a designer sits among his or her own designs. Who is making the important decisions in your designs, and what kind of role are you doing in your designs. On designing for social change, I relate to a similar quote made to Sculley.
"Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?
- ideaist0
This is a morality issue; you're either a designer with a strong, positive moral compass or you're in advertising, as omg mentioned "selling sugared water..."...
; )
- omg0
At the same time, our designs end up affecting people's behavior on moral issues, so in turn its also a design issue. You're a designer who is either concerned with how your designs impact people or not.
- whhipp0
hmmm...
- MrT0
Isn't this just over-intellectualising and ultimately selling a book on something that designers have always done?
- omg0
- pango0
"Design is not a necessity, it is a luxury. It only becomes important once a certain level of comfort is achieved."
The type of designer you're talking about is pretty objects design.
it is arguable that design can performed at necessity level as well.
http://www.15belowproject.org/- the dilemma IMO is that pretty design makes more money when there is money to be made.pango
- uan0
without reading any of this here...it's quite an old subject from the 60ies - 70ies, to my knowledge put into practice in Chile before the dictatorship:
http://www.doyoureadme.de/blog/2…
- vaxorcist0
Reminds me of grad school.... everyone trying to do stuff like this.... and prof's with tenure and pensions encouraging it all, while we could have actually learned a few, uh, business skills for the, uh, real world we would be swimming amongst the sharks upon graduating with a huge student loan....
oh, well, sorry for my idealism
- Nah, right there with you dude. Same shit with my undergrad program.d_rek
- monkeyshine0
If you think design can't change the world then I think you live in a sad little bubble where design is just pushing pixels around and selling unnecessary crap to people.
Design is about problem solving. Remember that? Social design is not about designing a pretty poster with a clever tag line. Go out into your communities and apply some of your critical thinking skills (assuming they haven't been eaten away by complacency) to some existing problem...if you look around, you'll find many.
- d_rek0
@monkeyshine
This is exactly why i'm torn on the subject. For what you and Vaxorcist said. I feel like the majority of design students (and some professionals) are being poached into the 'social change' movement before they have a chance to get a leg up in a shark-eat-shark industry. Todays grads don't need to volunteer their time and ability after they graduate. They need jobs so they can start paying off their massive student loan debts.
I think altruism is good. I think taking a positive moral stance in this world is good. I think that applying critical thinking to social and humanitarian issues is good too. However, I am just extremely skeptical and cynical that graphic design as a discipline is the proper vehicle to address social change. It seems very presumptuous to think that graphic designers are better equipped to solve basic (and complex) humanitarian and social issues. Most of the issues go well beyond a graphic designers ability to simply 'solve the problem', which is why i think the movement itself is rather disingenuous.
- mostly agree... also I do think that industry-experienced mid-career designers can do great social change workvaxorcist
- monkeyshine0
d_rek, I see your point but I still can't help but feel it is a very narrow, linear world view. Who is saying that graphic designers are better equipped to solve anything? In this context of social design, I think we're talking about a broader set of designers, not just graphic designers.
Designers are trained (hopefully) to leverage critical thinking skills to solve sometimes complex problems, particularly in the case of interaction design. Those skills can be leveraged to solve broader problems...and why shouldn't they?
I'm not advocating that designers (particularly graphic designers) take the lead on this movement. I'm also not necessarily advocating volunteer work over paid work. I'm just saying that design is bigger than a poster, a brochure, or an app. It disheartens me to hear other designers being so dismissive and cynical...and so narrow in their idea of what design ultimately means.
- vaxorcist0
hmmm... monkeyshine and d_rek both have interesting ideas here.... especially about how critical thinking is a much more than just purely graphic design skill, and how we can bring different mindsets to things that might be stuck in trench warfare of political hardliners, and able to illustrate our ideas rather than just shout them. That can be a great thing, and I'd like to see more designers put themselves out there.. but without the ego stomping oddity I sometimes see...
I have learned that I have to pick my battles and comrades carefully, as I once worked in a nonprofit that was great, involved and successful till a the boss left for annother gig and it became a rather political and backstabbing environment.
The key to me is to make sure you're surrounding yourself with emotionally health people who could make a living elsewhere, rather than insecure people who are trying to plug a hole in their souls with the social design work and probably could never get a job elsewhere.
- bjladams0
i've been involved with similar projects - the sad thing is that they often are more focused on designer personalities&egos than on the people that they're meant to benefit.
not in every case.
but the real change i've seen in them has to do with the relationships that are built thru the interaction.