Embrace & Engage & Empower

AIGA recently implemented the Diversity & Inclusion Initiative at the national level. At the local level, our Nebraska chapter has begun a mission focused on education and community called Embrace & Engage & Empower. Led by friend and fellow designer Cathy Solarana, the plan is to collaborate with individuals from a variety of professions and cultural, ethnic, and racial perspectives to identify our biggest challenges. 

I’ve often thought the design community as a whole is fairly oblivious to big issues like social responsibility, advocacy, and working to make social change happen. I’m very excited about what’s to come with these initiatives. It’s a start and I think they could lead to some substantive change when it comes to how the design profession exists in the larger context of community challenges and community solutions.

First Things Next

We propose a reversal of priorities in favour of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication — a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. 

— From the Design Manifesto First Things First 2000.

An incomplete and diverse list of “socially engaged designers” was recently published by Kevin Lo of LOKI Design within the frame of this manifesto. An inspiring document to be sure. And the list of designers and studios put together here is certainly impressive. Barnbook Design. Hyperakt. Justseeds. Firebelly. Just to name a few. I’m even included on this list. All in one place, this incomplete list of varied approaches to social change through design is something to bookmark and come back to. 

Citizen Designer Pledge

No matter your politics, now is a time that demands renewed civic engagement... We must take direct action to improve our communities and our country.

The 2017 Citizen Designer Pledge, started by AIGA/NY, was recently posted to Medium by Cliff Kuang. It was posted because design is political. For individuals, it asks:

• Voting in every local election open to us, not just once every four years — while encouraging our friends and family to do the same
• Choosing at least one cause to focus on for learning, knowledge-sharing, and volunteering
• Meeting with fellow Citizen Designers to share stories, tools, learnings, and new action items at least once a quarter
• Attending a local governance session once a quarter

I signed it. I signed it because designers need to act. Because designers need to standup to the universal values we hold dear. Which, the pledge points out, are politicized — transparency, inclusion, and fairness. I’ll add open-mindedness, creativity, and thinking critically. I’ll add believing we can solve problems when we work together, believing everyone should have a voice, and believing that our differences should be celebrated. And I’ll add a firm rejection of intolerance, hubris, dishonesty, chauvinism, hate, and fear.

It’s time to improve our social fabric:

re-up-ping

It’s taking time to get rolling in 2017, that’s for sure. Looking back on work and design in 2016, a lot was packed in. There definitely was burnout and there was a need to recharge. I took a solid chunk of time off from the 23rd to the 4th which was quite wonderful. There was still work that needed to be done for a few projects but at least I wasn’t in full-on work mode.

Most of 2016 was full-on and then some. Learning new things, managing complex collaborations, and pushing the quality of design all led to a depleted well. There was a general lack of patience coming from me in the day-to-day. I was tired of doing proposals, tired of getting the vectors pixel perfect, tired of explaining the design rationale, and tired of searching for the creative spark. And for damn sure, tired of responding to emails. It also didn’t help matters the country was set to be entirely run by people who want to roll back progress in big huge ways. But I digress.

Taking a sober look at 2017, I’m starting to feel the spark again. The energy is getting back to high-burning levels. The strength to push through boldly I feel is almost fully back. Running a design business teeters back and forth between exhaustion and exhilaration. It will always be like that. It’s the designer’s responsible to manage the back and forth in the best possible way.

For me, a consequence of being too close to exhaustion was a lack of thoughtful writing about working as a designer. The journaling and the introspection stalled. Instead, what’s being put into that previously occupied mindspace is how to effectively use design to battle Trump and his cronies in the resistance age. I know, it may sound naive to think design can play any part, but I think it does. Myself and designers across the country are getting ready for the next four years—design, activism, creativity, politics, posters, art, marching, and so on.

For the purposes of this blog, I could see the thought processes involved in the work to come a prime focus, under the frame of “What Next?” The journaling will still be here, as it comes, because it makes the work better. Aside from that, we’ll just have to see how things go. Regardless, what’s shared will be honest and from the heart. 

Here’s to the exhilaration.

How will we eradicate poverty?

By practical objective and follow-through. By acknowledging its profound importance and effect on the interconnectivity of things. We end poverty to ensure that all people have a part to play in the great movement of total communication. That will increase the quality of the dialogue and continue in the betterment of democracies around the world. We end poverty to ensure that we turn to a cycle of life. Where life is bountiful, liberty is normalcy, and opportunity is there for all who seek it. The very notion of war and chaos will become increasingly absurd. Practical objective and follow-through so everyone has clean drinking water, access to food and education, safety, security, financial independence, community, and self actualization. Incremental changes will be reached and the idea that we are all in this together becomes more apparent. It will no longer be just an idealistic vision of what peace might look like. It will become real. This eradication of poverty. It is out there to take. We just need to realize that it is worth doing. And once we realize that, we might just acknowledge it will be the most important thing we will ever do.

Will we shift from the service of war to the service of life?

We must. Otherwise that’s it. All there is. Over. And in order to move from war to life, we must first realize that a shift is even possible. That our histories do not continue to simply converge into violence with nothing to be done about it. We can do something. We can make this shift. But we first must collectively say, “Yes, we will.” A rising up of one voice in unison that will break this war cycle from the hands of the powerful few. A people’s decision. A people’s action. A people’s will. A movement that grows, pulses outward across boundary, class, race, religion, sect, tribe. And shatters the idea of a political party. A movement whose voice resonates so loudly that the unpopularity of the war cycle will simple fade away into memory — a way we used to live, a way that we will courageously push out of our will — as we realize there are far better things to do with our wisdom, understanding and resources.

In the future, how will we communicate?

Locally, globally, and everything in between. On every level we will embrace new technologies. And at every turn we will continue to hone the fundamental principles essential to the sharing of ideas. Mass movements for change in the future will be about the ideas we can successfully communicate. Those movements will utilize a vast array of tools and resources with the central focus being a tolerant and engaged populace, at the heart of the dialogue where all ideas can be shared. As technology will continue to make us marvel and want to participate, we will make the human factor even more prevalent, whether right next door, in another state or across the world. With increasing levels of connectivity covering any space between people and ideas, we will be conscious of making sure that everyone is present who wants to be, recognizing the value of diverse thought and united action. No one will be voiceless. If you want to speak, you will be heard. A certain closeness will come with this total communication of the future as it becomes increasingly more meaningful and more crucial to the idea of democracy, from local to global. Ideas will be shared, people will be moved, and we will confront the most pressing issues of our times.