Re: Design for Good

I think that design as a field appeals to a certain kind of person who sees problems and wants to make things better, so I’d say it’s likely that we all think that design can make a difference. But what I’d like to ask is how it makes a difference or why—for me, there’s a direct connection between design and education or learning. And I’m going back to Dewey here, which may not have made sense as a design philosophy at first glance, but the idea that every interaction with others, with the world around us, is an opportunity for learning, a potentially educable experience, I think that idea is fundamental to design. Only through a structure or format that supports the desired communication will the audience/viewer have an educable experience [opening the audience/viewer to more learning and engagement] as opposed to a mis-educable one [closing the audience/viewer off to further experiences].

So, I don’t necessarily think that pro-bono work is the only way to contribute to positive social change. Obviously, it’s a great way to do so, and yes, we all get a surge from altruism. BUT I think that any design project, if approached with care and compassion, can be a force for change for the better, and any design project, if approached without research or understanding of the audience, can fall flat. I’m not saying that I always think through the consequences of my design decisions—or that it’s possible to do all the time, but I do think it’s worthwhile to start making an effort to do more than just meet the design brief, whether that brief is specifically for a social campaign or not.

To be honest, I’m wary of social campaigns in general. Maybe I’m too cynical, but I think successful social campaigns are few and far-between; the ones that work, I think, are locally-focused, though, and stem from the designer’s/content creator’s understanding of the community being served.

When that doesn’t happen, when the content creators are so concerned with doing good that they forget the message, or the people they’re working for, in their push to do good, you may end up with something that looks really cool but is mis-educable. Consider the controversy over InvisibleChildren’s Kony 2012 campaign, which earned worldwide recognition, thus achieving their mission. But how much good was that mission? They were criticized for over-simplifying the situation, encouraging western audiences to contribute to a western charity instead of one created by Ugandans working more directly with the Ugandan people, working with corrupt government officials, and providing misinformation about the state of the conflict, including ignoring the fact that Kony hadn’t been in Uganda for six years by that point. And why make a warlord famous so that everyone knows his name instead of the names of the people whose lives he ended, or the people who have survived and made a difference in their own country? It was a wonderfully-designed campaign, and got all kinds of attention, but was it really in the best interests of the people it said it was helping? For me, if the information isn’t accurate, it doesn’t matter how many people like the video on Facebook; you’re doing a disservice to your audience, and therefore your cause.

One example of considering positive social impact that I read about a while ago now, but that Sharmia’s initial post made me think of, is Aaron Mickelson’s thesis project from Pratt Institute about the “disappearing package.” He designed options for turning a product into its own package so that once you’ve used the product, you don’t have an empty box or container to throw away. I don’t know if sustainable, eco-friendly, design was what you had in mind, Sharmia, but I find the possibilities of different materials and inks interesting as possibilities for making our work more beneficial. I love looking at projects designing packages with compostable materials or recyclables, but this idea is even more exciting—that the package dissolves or is used up with the product so that there isn’t anything left over even to recycle. (True, that’s not the case for the trash bags, but for the tea or the Tide pods.) It makes the point that improving things and being more aware of impact might not be a huge leap, but just a different way of thinking. And we’re back to design supporting education and change through new ways of thought.