design activism

Happy new year to all. Sorry I’ve been away from the blog a little longer than usual in the transition to the new year. During this period I’ve been thinking a lot about the question of legitimate causes for activists to pursue. This is a question that concerns designers, but others as well. From my [...]

I am a few days late on the climate action blog post (action day was the 16th October). I want to divide this post into two parts. First if you’re just becoming aware or trying to inform yourself about climate issues. Second if you’re already active on climate issues.  In the first case, and on [...]

I’ve heard a lot recently about how those of us working on social change issues, from climate change to health care, should avoid trying to scare people into change. We shouldn’t be fear mongers. Object Orange, a Detroit group highlights abandoned, often crime ridden houses by painting them orange But a couple of recent episodes [...]

Dear Readers, I’ve been away from the blog for about a month now due to a few large projects on deadline. In that time I’ve reflected on the role and purpose of this blog. I assume that many of you, like me, scan some of the mainstream design and perhaps even sustainability blogs. It doesn’t [...]

[addendum to this post: there was further discussion of this issue on a  discussion list focused on design research. I was prompted to write more about the national design policy in response to that discussion, from my social movement/activism perspective. The archive of the whole discussion is here. ] On January 5th a group called [...]

I read an interesting piece in the UC Berkeley Alumni magazine, California (yes I’m an alum) about how a single statistic can profoundly change our perspective on an issue—but only if we are presented with it in a certain way (“Numberstruck” by Pat Joseph). UC Berkeley’s Michael Ranney conducted research in which he asked people [...]

Previously I wrote about the notion of the economy as being made up of three sectors—public, private, and nonprofit. But recently I’ve seen a few references to “the fourth sector.” The term refers to enterprises, sometimes called social enterprises, that straddle the for-profit and nonprofit divide. social enterprises seem to ask, “how much is enough?” [...]

Some designers are activists, that is to say, they take action (typically within the context of a contentious issue) intended to bring about change on behalf of a wronged or excluded group. But once designers are out of the picture, have moved on to the next job, can artifacts in themselves be activists? Can buildings, [...]

The Ulm Foundation in Germany is sponsoring an interesting competition called, “Designing Politics – the Politics of Design” for which the deadline is 10th May 2008 and entries can be from anywhere in the world. The call for entries says that, “Ulm has set itself the task of conducting a discourse on the social responsibility [...]

If I seem like a booster for the nonprofit sector, it’s because mainly, I am. As I explained in “activism and the economy” I think by and large the nonprofit sector raises the bar for social and environmental performance in the public and private sectors. But recently I’ve come across a few thought-provoking pieces on [...]