Building on its 2004 strategic plan, the Practical Power of Design, the UK Design Council has launched “The Good Design Plan”, a new three-year national strategy for design. Defining good design as ‘sustainable design’, it highlights five objectives for the council.

Objective 1: Business and public service innovation.
Objective 2: Public and community engagement.
Objective 3: Design skills development.
Objective 4: Design policy and promotion.
Objective 5: Organisational and operational efficiency.

Design Council Chairman Sir Michael Bichard explains;

“Now, perhaps more than at any other time in history, we need to tap the creativity, the skills and the ingenuity of our world-class design community. The UK’s design track record is exceptional by any standard. We now need to nurture and support the talents that are available to us, and put them at the disposal of the nation’s business and public service managers.

This sets the context for today’s design agenda. Design’s traditional strengths – such as adding value to business in the global marketplace – are more important than ever. But design’s proven ability to help ideas and innovation flourish can also help us create better public services and exploit our strengths in science and technology. Overall design can improve our everyday lives, help create a more sustainable society and make us more competitive.

Earlier this month, Design Week reported that “…the council anticipates a budget of £7.85m, £7.82m and £8.44m for 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 to cover these activities.”

To coincide with the launch of the Good Design Plan, eight designers offer their definition of good design in a video from the Design Council. Contributors include Sebastian Conran, Tom Dixon, Sophie Thomas, IDEO’s Ingrid Baron and Joe Ferry at Virgin Atlantic Airways.

+ Design Council: Good Design is Good for the UK
+ Design Council: The Good Design Plan
+ Design Week: Design Council Looks Abroad to Push Design

The New Views 2: Conversations and Dialogues in Graphic Design symposium and exhibition opens at London College of Communication this week.

With introductory speeches from Design Council Chairman Sir Michael Bichard KCB and Live|Work Founding Director Chris Downs on Wednesday evening, the symposium running through Thursday and Friday will bring together leading academics, professionals and students to explore the practice of graphic design for the future.

Co-ordinated by Professor Teal Triggs (LCC) and Dr. Laurene Vaughan (RMIT), New Views 2 is structured with intent to allow open dialogue. Over the two-day symposium, six topical clusters - formed from the selected paper submissions, allow attendees to join discussions specific to their interest areas:

• Cluster 1: Design Writing/Criticism: Repositioning the Debate.
• Cluster 2: Graphic Design: Interdisciplinary.
• Cluster 3: Graphic Design: Practice and Methods.
• Cluster 4: Research/Innovation: New Critical Thinking.
• Cluster 5: Responsive Curricula: Shifting Paradigms.
• Cluster 6: Graphic Design: Changing the ‘Real World’.

The clustered group propositions are now available for download from www.newviews.co.uk

David Wilcox reported this week about an inspiring initiative founded by Simon Berry:

Twenty years ago Simon Berry was a development worker in North Zambia, conscious that while he could buy a bottle of Coke anywhere, children were dying through inadequate distribution of simple medical treatments. In many cases they simply needed rehydration salts. Wouldn’t it be possible to reach an agreement by which Coca Cola used a small part of its superior distribution capacity to get the medicine to children?

Simon explains:

“The idea came to me - but I had no mechanism for sharing it with people. At least, I did have mechanisms, but they were one to one mechanisms, and the thing never got any traction. But now, with the whole Web 2.0 thing, one person can have an idea, and gather other people around that idea, very, very easily.”

Simon has done just that. Starting with a blog, and then a Facebook group, Simon has been interviewed on BBC radio, and attracted the support of New Seekers’ Eve Graham. The New Seekers original song ‘I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing’ was adopted by Coke. Coca Cola were at first unresponsive, however have now said they would be happy to talk to Simon.

David Wilcox interviewed Simon Berry this week at 2gether08, a two-day festival exploring how social media and digital technologies can tackle social problems. Simon continues to document the projects developments on his blog and urges us to join the Facebook Group and come up with other ways to gather support.

Via: David Wilcox. Photo Credit: Nick Gripton

Last night saw the launch of the radical architecture manifesto ManTowNHuman. In the words of Nico Macdonald, it’s “[...] more progressive than First Things First.”

Founded by Director of The Future Cities Project, Austin Williams, the ManTowNHuman Manifesto was co-written by Alastair Donald, Richard J Williams, Karl Sharro, Alan Farlie and Debby Kuypers.

Toward a New Humanism in Architecture:

Austin Williams’ opinion on The Future Cities Project website states, “Sustainability is killing creativity” …really!!? As an advocate of creativity and sustainable design, I feel, this is a debatable argument. How can architecture and building be as imaginative as it is (required to be) ecologically sound? Saddened to have missed the launch event last night.

+ ManTowNHuman.
+ BBC Newsnight: Architects to Launch Manifesto.

Over the past week, I had the pleasure of meeting the multi-talented Graphic Designer Alex Ostrowski. Alex, a 2008 UK Graphic Design graduate from Bristol’s University of West England, recently won the RSA and NESTA’s competition ‘Engage!’.

Tagged to “catalyse social change through design-led citizen participation”, the Engage! project, aimed to encourage social responsibility in young designers. The 2008 RSA Design Directions brief asked student designers to consider how they could best use design to bring about positive change within a community and instigate a project solution of this nature.

In response to the brief, Alex took his skills as a designer to The Frenchay Brain Injury Rehabilitation Centre in Bristol. Through immersive time spent within the Rehabilitiation Centre Alex soon discovered that many patients suffer from post-traumatic amnesia and experience confusion in their sense of time, place and person. The term for this lost understanding is disorientation, something the unit is responsible for regaining with patients. Through speaking with staff, Alex established that the process of re-orientation contained some inefficiency and needed addressing. Working closely with staff to establish an appropriate colour system to bring holistic navigation to the unit, which could dually apply to patients’ timetables, orientation boards, and the building itself. The project proved very useful for the unit, who have continued with an improved re-orientation strategy.

Winner of the Engage! project, Alex received the RSA Design Directions Award for his supporting book ‘I am here’ (pictured). To find out his motivations for the project, you can watch an interview with Alex over at the RSA.

+ AlexOstrowski.com
+ RSA Design Directions 2008.

Short feature written for Inhabitat:

In the heart of South African city Johannesburg, a green focused community is transforming one urban park into a seedbed for sustainable living. Directed by Dorah Lebelo, The GreenHouse Project takes a holistic approach to integrating green building and design, efficient and renewable energy, recycling and organic farming into the city’s mindset. The Global Oneness Project recently interviewed Dorah to find out her motivations and intentions for this fantastic sustainable initiative.

Located in the northwest corner of Joubert Park, Johannesburg, The GreenHouse Project is an environmental NGO demonstrating sustainable living and development. In the Global Oneness Project video interview, Dorah explains how the five-pronged project approaches sustainability, by utilizing the skills of rural South African people and describes how this urban environment has everything it needs to sustain its community, without demanding more from further afield.

+ The Global Oneness Project
+ The Berkana Institute
+ Leader Network: Dorah Lebelo

Copyright photos courtesy of The Global Oneness Project.

To launch the much anticipated MA in Design Writing/Criticism at London College of Communication, Stephen Bayley (design critic for The Observer) presents the first of a series of new talks this month, surrounding the current state of design writing and criticism.

EVENT: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 from 6:00pm - 7:30pm.

For more information visit, The State of Design Criticism Today

Today, I came across “The Girl Effect” movement - described to be when powerful social and economic change is brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate in their society.

“When adolescent girls in the developing world have a chance, they can be the most powerful force of change for themselves, their families, communities and nations. But while those 600 million girls are the most likely agents of change, they are invisible to their societies and the world.”

The campaign logo, promotional video and supporting posters are equally an inspiring example of when contemporary Graphic Design and Typography is used for Social Change. There is something really unique and approachable about the sketched ‘G’ letters laid out onto one of the posters (detail pictured above).

CoolHunting reported last week that Norfolk-based design studio Grow Interactive, teamed up with leading independent advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy for the campaign design.

For more information:

It is continually inspiring to discover new social design initiatives, increasingly springing up from a wealth of industry sectors, however this week I came across a project that (I feel) deserves huge creative and social credit. It’s name, The Global Oneness Project.

Founded and directed by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, The Global Oneness Project offers a remarkable insight in to the creative intelligence of human nature. This web-based video initiative aims to explore “how the notion of oneness can be lived in our increasingly complex world.”

The Global Oneness team are traveling the world, filming interviews with people from a variety of disciplines, asking them to share their stories about living and working from a perspective of interconnectedness. The films and interviews document an array of social initiatives from across the planet - in the fields of sustainability, conflict resolution, spirituality, art, economics, indigenous culture, and social justice.

There are already countless videos on the site, documenting some really insightful social projects, namely the “Not Just a Piece of Cloth” video about the Goonj recycling centre in New Delhi (the western world could really learn a lot from this one) and Johannesburg’s “GreenHouse Project”, run by Dorah Lebelo.

The library of films is available for free from the website or on DVD for event and educational use. This resource is an inspiring example of how design and social technologies can globally promote human creativity and social change.

Award winning public service and communication design agency ThinkPublic launched The Social Lab last night, a project space set up for people to meet and discuss design-led concepts to address social challenges.

Each lab event is given a theme and invitations sent to an array of people with professional expertise spanning countless industry sectors. During the labs, attendees explore particular challenges using design tools and techniques, gain fresh insights and propose future steps for social development. Current Social Lab projects include The Real Work Experience, Public Service Thank You and ithinkpublic.

I am looking forward to watching this project evolve.

For more information visit www.thesociallab.com or contact the team at hello@thesociallab.com

It has been some time coming but it is here, a comprehensive exploration into what is ‘Social Design’. This great (if promotional) video comes from the team at the socialdesignsite.com.

During the first few months writing for sustainability design blog Inhabitat.com, it became immediately and increasingly evident how many designers were bathing in the new challenges of sustainability. The worlds of fashion, architecture, interior and product design continued to excel with an ecological conscience, launching countless contemporary designs every week. Although not focused to the work of Graphic Design, taking a quick look around Inhabitat it is evident a sense of contemporary Communication Design is appreciated. Critical dialogue however, discussing the relevant relationships between sustainability and graphic design, is almost vacant (with no more than 15-20 graphic-related features). This, it would seem is a recurring trend in the sustainable design communities.

“I wish I could report that it [graphic design] was doing its bit. Trouble is, tap “sustainable graphic design” into Google and you get a thousand suggested links. But, tap “Helvetica Movie” in, and guess what, you get fifteen thousand. So in cyberspace at least, that makes people 15 times as interested in a movie about a typeface than how to design responsibly. Great.” [Johnson Banks]

I am therefore, excited to have read this week that respectable designer, writer and critic Anna Gerber is currently writing a new book on Graphic Design and Sustainability, scheduled for publication by Laurence King in Spring 2009. I hope this book will give the Communication Designer a friendly kick in a sustainable direction and ultimately help our discipline play catch up to the rest of the creative industry.

Designer and author of the 2004 publication All Messed Up, Unpredictable-Graphics, Anna Gerber continues to write extensively for the likes of Creative Review, Print, Varoom, Idea and Eye. Furthermore, in collaboration with Teal Triggs, Gerber also wrote a dialogue for Blueprint last year, introducing the new postgraduate course, MA Design Writing Criticism at London College of Communications, which is scheduled to start this fall.

Resources:

The 2008 National Design Awards, by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum have announced this years winners. I am not overly surprised to see that Michael Bierut (DesignObserver / Pentagram) has been awarded the Design MInd Award (a well-earned achievement all the same), but it’s great to see that Scott Stowell (of the cleverly branded studio Open) has been awarded the Communications Design Award. Congratulations chaps, I look forward to seeing some females in the shortlist next year though.

Via. DesignObserver

This October sees the latest AIGA design educators’ conference address the social life of design. The event entitled Social Studies: Educating Designers in a Connected World, will be hosted by the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) on October 17-19, 2008. Co-chaired by Ellen Lupton, Jennifer Cole Phillips and fellow DesignSessions contributer Brockett Horne.

Graphic designers work with clients, institutions, users, and communities to make things happen in the world. Yet education often focuses on the individual voice. How are we preparing students for a lifetime of working with and for other people? How are our students connecting to the world? Come participate in a relaxed and stimulating weekend of lively discussions, hands-on workshops, and informal activities.

With the intention to host “dozens of presentations and workshops led by designers, educators, and graduate students”, this looks to be a thoroughly engaging event that is currently calling for speakers!

+ Social Studies: Educating Designers in a Connected World

Whilst ploughing through new design talents, the last thing we expect to find is a teenager hitting the design headlines, however Armin Vit recently interviewed 18 year old Ethan Bodnar “…graphic designer, author and entrepreneur.” What surprises me (apart from his forthcoming book!), is not entirely Ethan’s skills with the computer, or his portfolio of work per se, but its his wider knowledge of the industry that is admirable. Just a quick click through his blog illustrates his quite unbelieveable comprehension of Communication Design and its power to influence change. In his interview, he comments:

“I don’t think I want to spend my whole life being your normal designer. I would like to take design thinking and apply it to other areas. I will use the power of creativity and design to have a positive impact on the world. Coming up with new ideas and new ways to solve issues and problems. It is my belief that creativity can solve anything.”

(Sounds like something I would write in my diary). I hope the early promotion helps Ethan to follow this belief and show us that such recognition can assist him to make a positive impact on the industry. Ethan, well done, I wish you the best of luck!

Via. Ethan’s Flickr

Whilst admiring the work and words of C&G Partners graphic designer Scott Ballum (aka. Sheepless) this evening, I soon found myself exploring the online pages of GDUSA’s January issue, “People to Watch in 2008″, where Ballum was featured. The 2008 annual feature of “newsworthy designers”, asked each designer about the future of their profession, the health of the economy and the state of planet Earth. The responses are certainly worth a browse.

Reading the archive of MotherJones this afternoon, I came across a photo essay entitled “American Happiness and the Need to Consume”, featuring the work of American photographer Brian Ulrich, who is known for his photographic exploration of consumer culture.

+ Brian Ulrich
+ Photo Essay: American Happiness and the Need to Consume.
+ CoolHunting

Last night I came across a magnificent online resource and initiative dedicated to socially conscious design, its name Creative For A Cause. Founded and set up by Denver based Graphic Designer Heidi Cies, Creative For A Cause (A Resource for Visual Communications Educators) aims to assist teaching social responsibility in design education.

“While social responsibility is being discussed more and more frequently within the Visual Communications industry and among educators today, no standards or guidelines currently exist to aid in the implementation of these concepts into the higher education curriculum. Where social responsibility is not already part of a Visual Communications program, and there is little or no administrative support for inclusion, it is left to individual instructors to decide how to best integrate this topic into their syllabi.

This site is a collaborative resource for educators of Visual Communications who wish to instruct their students on the importance of adopting a social and ethical approach to their work. If you know of additional resources that you feel would be of value, please contact us.” (Heidi Cies, Creative For A Cause).

Heidi, well done - this is a fantastic project that is certainly going to prove useful. I look forward to our future conversations.

+ Creative For A Cause
+ Via. Randy J. Hunt

In my search for socially-based designers, working with contemporary and intelligent design thinking, I have come across a number of inspiring U.S based designers/agencies/projects this evening.

The first I am going to mention has to be, Citizen Scholar, Inc, founded by designer Randy J. Hunt. This New York design consultancy specialise “in creative services for cultural institutions, educators, artists, non-profits and social entrepreneurs.” Although the website only profiles the work in a blog format, it is worth a look around.

Hunt also blogs on design, for UnderConsideration and AIGA/NY at Designy.

Article for DesignSessions: Are You a Good Designer?

When I was first asked to contribute a piece on design ethics to Design Sessions: Notes on Design, I wondered how I could credibly comment on such a complex and highly academic topic. Whilst sitting at the early stages of my creative career, I wondered how many of us really understand what it means to be a “good” designer, and asked myself, if and how, I am a “good” (socially-responsible) designer?

Design Ethics

Throughout every stage of my creative training, I have echoed the belief that design is “quintessentially an ethical process” (Devon and Poel 2002). I strongly believe that Communication Design has a positive and negative ability to affect social change, but recognize that its influential power should be treated with respect and careful consideration, of its use, from all its designers.

Ethics is not an appendage to design but an integral part of it, and we advocate using the moral imagination to draw out the ethical implications of a design. We will stress and develop the social ethics paradigm, because design is an iterative social process for making technical and social decisions that may itself be designed at each stage with different people at the table, different information flows, different normative relationships, different authority structures, and different social and environmental considerations in mind. […] One might make the distinction that professional ethics is concerned with the `good’ […] (Devon and Poel 2002).

Designers Need to Catch Up Fast

The debate over what is “good design” or what is good in design has forever bewildered me, and as the legendry Milton Glaser suggests, determining ethics in Communication Design is complex and something to be carefully considered. Although a “good designer” may, in academic circles, represent ethical motivation and practice, the majority of students are taught to equate “good design” with aesthetic value. We have all been there haven’t we, admiring a beautifully crafted poster, wishing it was our name underneath it. Unfortunately, with the ease of computer skills and rising consumerism, our industry is saturated with technology and this has failed to naturally associate “good design” to ethically or socially intelligent practice. The socially conscious designer therefore appears to the masses to be running against the grain, and often becomes tagged as a Political- Green- or Eco- designer, just to name a few. In order to ensure the Communication Design sector remains as credible to the public as it does to its internal networks, we must keep up to speed with the ever more socially conscious worlds of Architecture, Fashion and Product design. In the words of Rick Poynor (2007), “If communication design is to play a role – and it must – designers need to catch up fast”.

(Thomas Matthews)

What is GOOD Design?

There are, however a small number of socially and ethical responsible designers that match the contemporary nature of today’s leading Visual Communication. Globally known agency Pentagram, sustainability design firm Thomas Matthews, public service design from Think Public, and the socially responsible work of Spencer du Bois, The Helen Hamlyn Centre and The UK Design Council’s RED Project are just a few great examples of the marriage between intelligent 21st Century design thinking and real-life social challenges.

Are you a good designer?

On discovering last month, that only 23.2% of UK design graduates find work in the creative sector (Think Public 2007), I felt marginally happier in the knowledge that I was possibly not alone in the struggle to secure “credible” work in the UK creative industry. Yet, I continue to wonder where that leaves the remaining 76.8% of us? Are we caught up in the celebrity spin of the design industry and perhaps forgetting the real purpose of Communication Design? Are we intimidated by the technological revolution that has taken over our practice? Do design students and graduates have the appropriate knowledge to utilize their skills to positively impact cultural, social and public challenges? (I am sure, given the chance the majority of us would love to have been involved in Bruce Mau’s Massive Change). In a critique written for Creative Review this month, leading critic Rick Poynor hits the nail on the head, asking if we should be demanding more from our conferences than simply a showcase of (beautifully executed) portfolio pieces from our famous designers?

The Real Work Experience

Wodcast recently interviewed Think Public’s founder Deborah Szebeko, who gives her definition and belief in “Public Service Design” and continues to explain Think Public’s recent project “The Real Work Experience”. This initiative is perfectly fitting to this discussion; The Real Work Experience is a small London based initiative, offering a form of career guidance to socially conscious design graduates, and potentially challenges the pre-conceived ideas of a typical designer career path. Interestingly, explaining her motivation for founding Think Public, Szebeko confidently describes her frustration of how unaware design students are of how they can use their skills to design for the greater good.

(The Real Work Experience).

During my degree, design thinking, research and risk-taking were highly credible attributes (due to which I perhaps naïvely accepted high grades). Little did I know throughout those years of caffeine-driven creative freedom that the industry I was about to approach was not looking for a design graduate like myself. However, amongst the freelance work and placements, I dedicated time to explore what was happening in the wider creative industry and its surrounding society. Delving into studies of design theory, critique and ethics, I read 2-3 books a week for over 12 months, followed many an online design community, often contributing my research findings, anecdotes and commentaries in an attempt to spread the knowledge that ethics in Graphic Design are far from stale or unfashionable. In contact with creative’s and non-profits across the globe, exploring themes surrounding ethics in Communication Design, research has taken me from Creative and Emotional Intelligence to Educational reform, from Social and Ethical Design to Sustainability and back, and has left me today with a body of design knowledge and a plethora of resources that I am proud to be able to discuss and share in context of the future of Communication Design.

(Design21 Feature)

Now, with the intention to return to the designer table, I am excited to think how I can use my wider knowledge of the creative sector to assist whatever design team I work with. I will continue to bathe in social research and ultimately I look forward to finding the suitable platform and balance between developing my graduate skills in Graphic Design and the evident opportunities of socially responsible practice.

(Pentagram)