Some call it “design for the greater good.” Others call it “design for social change.” Most people skip a few syllables and call it “social design.” Whatever you want to call it, graphic designers flock to it. Some feel they have designed enough food labels and perfume packages and crave a change, while others feel an affinity from the starts of their careers. All designers who are drawn to it want to use their skills to help people live better lives. But what strategies can help them become effective community-based graphic designers?
Many beautiful graphic design books and blogs showcase these kinds of projects. This book will emphasize strategies to help designers address the complex dynamics of working with communities. Twenty social design case studies will make up the bulk of the book, which will be published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book will be a true collaboration, with the insights and contributions of designers from around the country.
Do you use graphic design to help communities with complex problem? If so, submit a design.
Princeton Architectural Press will be publishing this book as part of their Design Briefs series. As they put it on their website, "These affordable, beautifully designed and produced books are ideal points of inspiration for both students and seasoned practitioners who want an overview of the fundamentals of design, and to learn new ideas about how far a strong understanding of the basics can take you.
This book is collaborative. It’s about scrutinizing and improving our design processes: highlighting what helped community-based designs succeed and owning up to their shortcomings. Most importantly, it's about learning from each other.
This book will feature projects where graphic designers use their skills to address complex social problems. Each project will show how graphic designers worked closely with communities to develop design solutions that address specific social problems. While some of these projects made a significant impact on communities, others may have missed the mark. The design process will become transparent in both cases. These can be either pro bono or for profit and submission is free.
Do you have an appropriate project? Please fill out this form. The submission due date is July 31,2010 August 13, 2010.
I'm a graphic designer and writer based in New York City. I earned degrees in political philosophy and nonfiction writing from the University of Pittsburgh, and worked at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for six years before moving to Baltimore, where I earned his Master of Fine Art in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art.
As a graduate student, I taught graphic design courses and regularly advised students who were using graphic design to help underfunded organizations in Baltimore. The experience of seeing graphic design's impact in underserved communities convinced me to make it the focus of my graduate thesis. It wasn't long before I realized that I like to write about these projects, too, which led to this book.
My design work has appeared in Print, Adbusters, Core 77, and Metropolis Magazine P/O/V and my writing has appeared in Designer’s Review of Books, various conference proceedings, and I occationally contribute to the Core 77 design blog.
