Several organizations are attempting to help designers find activist opportunities — although none of the organizations call their opportunities “activist.” Sounds too political? There are a few different models, from online, searchable databases of designers and organizations in need, to organizations that themselves do the work and take on volunteers to help them. Below are… Continue Reading… Continue Reading
Is it something about October? Or is activism really taking off in the design community? Architectural Record offers a special issue on socially responsible design for October 2008,… Continue Reading
In this series I’ve tried to highlight a range of ethical issues that underpin design activism. At the start I referred you to my colleague, Tim Jordan. He says that whatever activist do, their underlying motivation is a sense of what is morally better than the status quo. Often activists even put forward a vision… Continue Reading… Continue Reading
In the past couple of days I’ve come across two new publications on the theme of design activism, and interestingly one comes from a product design perspective, Design for Social Impact, (namely IDEO with the Rockefeller Foundation) and the other comes from the architecture perspective, Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism (Metropolis books by way of… Continue Reading
In previous posts in this series I’ve dealt with the ethics underlying design activism in terms of professional ethics and the ethics of production (labor, environment, consumer). In this post I’m looking at ethical issues associated with vulnerable populations. Since I’ve argued in part 1 that activism, for my purposes, typically results from an ethical… Continue Reading… Continue Reading
The Art Director’s Club of New York are hosting the 3rd annual “Designism” event to debate and support design for social change. What they say: “Join the third annual gathering of leading creatives committed to social activism and instigating change through media. The evening promises controversy, conversation and includes a moderated debate, lightening round presentations… Continue Reading
In the previous post for this series on ethics I looked generally at how activism is typically triggered by ethical failures, and then examined professional duty of care as an area of ethical responsibility and the types of activism it typically generates. Here I’ll look at some of the ethical issues associated with the production… Continue Reading
We interrupt the series on ethics to announce some resources that may be of interest to those of us teaching sustainable design. First is a conference, “360 Degrees – Charting New Territory in Sustainable Design Education” on September 19th, 20th and 21st in London and Brighton, United Kingdom. Find out all about it on The… Continue Reading
I hope that, like me, you are on vacation during parts of this July and August, so you have not noticed the scarcity of my posts over the past few weeks. And now here is a post, and you may also be thinking, “oh no, ethics is too heavy for a holiday.” But at heart,… Continue Reading… Continue Reading
I recently learned about two resources that seem pertinent to design activism. The first is an upcoming conference called “A Better World by Design” to be held November 7-9th at Brown University in Providence RI (USA). What they say “A Better World by Design asks the question today’s designers, engineers, and economists should be asking.… Continue Reading… Continue Reading