When I first heard about the idea of a collaborative brand I was intrigued. The message came in a tweet from Project M’s John Bielenberg, “world’s first collaborative brand.” I promptly retweeted (follow me on twitter @atlasann), but also watched a video of their launch. The idea is that you can shift a brand’s value… Continue Reading
I wonder if I’m the only one who read Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation (by Tim Brown) and Architecture Depends (by Jeremy Till) back to back. The effect was very interesting in that Brown seems to provide a description of design operating largely as Till suggests that it should,… Continue Reading
wishing you the best beats in the new year More results One of my fellow design activism bloggers (at Social Design Notes) asked if I would share more details of the survey results. Good Idea. I’ve created a list of the sources that people suggested for learning more about design activism. The responses are anonymized… Continue Reading
Thanks to everyone who completed the survey. One lucky person has won the $50 gift certificate (to be named upon confirmation). In the survey I asked seven questions to help me shape my results on design activism into something that you can use. Well over 100 of you took time to reveal a bit about… Continue Reading
Architects are typically licensed professionals, which means that they subscribe to a code of ethics as part of the licensing process. (I examined and wrote about a range of codes of ethics of design associations for my book, The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability). Although a recent article in Dwell magazine about the merits of architectural… Continue Reading
In the previous post I introduced the idea of a form of hippocratic oath for designers, and shared some examples of how the medical hippocratic oath has been adapted for landscape, lighting, graphic, and UX (user experience) design. In this post I turn our attention to product designers. Several practitioners and design observers have pondered… Continue Reading
Before getting down to business, a quick reminder that I would like to get your input on design activism, through the short survey found here: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/353304/your-interest-in-design-activism (you can enter to win a drawing for an Amazon gift voucher.) In this series of 3 posts, I explore the notion of a “Hippocratic oath” for designers. Recall… Continue Reading
I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been working on a big project to help designers understand and use design as activism. It’s harvest time for this project and I’m getting ready to share the juicy results, but I need your help. Would you answer seven questions for me? Your input could help make… Continue Reading
Have you been reading some of the interesting stuff about design for social impact? For example, The School for Visual Arts has recently finished up its summer workshop, “!mpact: Design for Social Change” which introduces participants to “the growing field of design for social advocacy.” One of the particularly interesting projects there was an effort… Continue Reading
What motivates design activists? In the past few weeks I’ve come across a few cases that have made me think about motivations. Are some motivations better, or more authentic than others? Does the level of authenticity, if it could be measured, influence the nature of the activism or what it can accomplish? To what degree… Continue Reading