01 - musings
FIRST THINGS NEXT STUDIO KNOWLEDGE OBJECT
1
studio knowledge object
2
CONTENTS Introduction
4
01. Musings (discussion posts) 02. Manifesto Reflection
6 30
03. Oxfam Pitch Reflection
46
Conclusion
60
References
62
3
studio knowledge object
Introduction
4
introduction
This student knowledge object presents an overview of my learnings and experiences in the First Things Next design studio. The subject began with analysis of the 1964 and 2000 First Things First manifestos, and then continued down the path of ethics and their place in communication design. There were three main learning activities throughout the semester, which are reflected in this SKO: weekly discussion posts, collaborative group work on an Oxfam Australia brief, and creating my own personal design manifesto. Integrating communication design with our deeply held values is essential. Today’s world is more visually saturated than ever, and all of this content we interact with is mediated by design. I believe that everything we do is political, so our design work is no exception. Politics dictates our limits and boundaries, our freedoms and liberties, and every action we take (or don’t take) feeds into it. As designers, we have the opportunity to amplify certain ideas and perspectives through our work, and we cannot ignore this. It is more important than ever for ethics to be at the core of our design learning.
5
studio knowledge object
Are the First Things Next manifestos more rather than less relevant today?
6
The original First Things First Manifesto was published in Britain at a time of economic boom. People of all classes were better off than before, enjoying an uphill trajectory of affluence which transformed everyday life, as consumer goods were rapidly manufactured and marketed to the masses. While many enjoyed this flurry of consumerism, some criticised the vapid mass-production that came out of this era, such as the manifesto’s author Ken Garland, who was also heavily involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (‘Ban the Bomb!’), which had enormous traction at the time. Then, published in 2000, the second First Things First Manifesto was a renewal of the ideas laid out in 1964 in the context of a further industrialised and urbanised world. The signatories felt that it had become even more relevant decades later, as the development of print and digital media saw design intertwine itself even further with the world of marketinvg and advertising. I believe that this trend has continued, with the First Things First Manifesto becoming far more relevant in today’s society as years go by! We now exist in a predominately visual world - people are plagued with the addiction of touchscreen technology, mindlessly scrolling as they travel from A to B. We’re bombarded with not just regular billboards, but ones where letters dance on a digital screen and wield more power than ever to transfix us.
01 - musings
All of this content around us is mediated by design, and design directs how we feel about what we see. Across the globe, designers are engaged in manufacturing this modern world we live in, and helping corporations compete to have the most attractive product. Consumers are judging every book by its cover. In today’s world, the First Things First Manifesto would campaign to weaponise the power of our visual world and use it for good. Designers have the ability to reach people through targeted algorithm-derived ads on a plethora of screens, which people are spending more and more time on each year. Our audience has perhaps never been as captive, so if we decided to use our skillset for positive social change (as opposed to advertising), it could really have an impact. However, how do we navigate the issue of greenwashing? The term ‘greenwashing’ was coined in the 1980s to describe false and misleading corporate claims that deceive people into believing they are environmentally sound. Decades later, this practice has grown even more sophisticated and insidious. It is difficult to tell fact from fiction on Facebook feeds or Google searches, and even the most evil companies have learned how to dupe us into thinking they are doing the right thing. Applying a First Things First Manifesto today would mean not only having to speak louder than the greenwash out there, but swearing never to engage in it. Modern designers cannot relieve their conscience by communicating a greenwashed vision of “ethical” values held by a severely unethical company, because this is not truth-telling. We need to dig deeper. Designers need to have a sound understanding of the ramifications of their influence. While medical students swear to a modern version of the Hippocratic oath, perhaps design students should also be pledging to use their skill set for the benefit, rather than harm, of society. The human psyche is influenced by the thousands of pictures and videos we see every day, all created.with an intention and purpose to make us feel a certain way, or achieve a certain outcome. What do we want these feelings and outcomes to be?
7
studio knowledge object
8
01 - musings
9
studio knowledge object
What are the limitations of the original manifestos?
10
While the First Things First manifestos of 1964 and 2000 offer a zealous dose of energy to reframe the design profession, they are not without their shortcomings. As moralising calls to action they are by nature designed to galvanise, rather than to be broad and all-inclusive in terms of their scope and perspective. It is therefore important to look at these writings with a critical lens while considering the ideas they express, in a similar fashion to Michael Bierut in his essay Ten Footnotes to a Manifesto (2007) and in Anne Bush’s Beyond Pro Bono (2003). According to Bierut, “Manifestos are simple; life is complicated.� (2007, p. 58). In an ideal world we would have the means to stick to our core values and convictions, however this is a luxury afforded to few. Bierut highlights that many of the original signatories built their design careers as critics, curators and academics, floating around in the elite circles of the profession rather than having to take whatever job required to break into the industry. This implies a level of preachiness in the original manifestos, but also unquestioned privilege. If an emerging designer cannot pay their rent without designing dog biscuit packaging, where does that leave them? Does meaningful work come at the expense of staying afloat?
01 - musings
Bush is a little more sympathetic to the nature of a manifesto than Bierut, remarking that they are “meant to get under our skin” (2003, p. 25). However, she critiques their ambiguous agendas and oversimplification of design practise. Bush argues that an exchange of dialogue is crucial to create meaningful design work that could begin to create a world idealised by the signatories of the First Things First manifestos. She remarks that the “ultimate goal for students is to recognise that meaning is always the result of a range of cultural and social negotiations and the designer is not the sole determinant, but rather a participant in these dialogues” (2003, p. 26). In essence, this means that intention alone can’t create meaning, it stems from extensive and measured research. Design without a dialogue fundamentally does not have the end-user’s interests at heart. Despite the criticism surrounding the First Things First manifestos, their punchy idealism still resonates with me. I love the idea of a bold and impassioned pledge to change the world and I think they’re a great starting point to provoke these kinds of conversations. Bush’s argument for a greater focus on cultural and social dialogues really resonated with me, and I think that is the major change I would also like to see if these manifestos were reimagined today. It is important to not speak for other people’s experiences and to do extensive research into communities you are not part of if you do end up designing specifically for them. The only way we can increase inclusivity in design is through these exchanges. Meaningful dialogues are the key to meaningful design.
11
studio knowledge object
On codes of conduct: This week I explored three codes of conduct from reputable design institutions in America and Australia: DIA’s (Design Institute of Australia) Code of Ethics, AGDA’s (Australian Graphic Design Association) Code of Ethics, and AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) Standards of Professional Practise. This trio of codes are alike in their formality and adherence to the standard structure of any code of ethics or practise, laid out like a terms and conditions page.
12
The two Australian ‘Code(s) of Ethics’ (DIA and AGDA) that I analysed were quite similar in their content, focusing largely on a designer’s responsibility to the industry such as in their client relationship and fees. I found the AGDA code to be presented more attractively and I found it interesting that they have an impartial “Grievance Committee.” The American AIGA code is referred to as ‘Standards of Professional Practise’ (2010), however it touches far more on ethics than the two above. I particularly liked the points about encouraging a professional designer “to contribute five percent of his or her time to projects in the public good-projects that serve society and improve the human experience.” I thought that these sections were well written and a great injection of ethics into a professional code of conduct. I also engaged with some writings on design ethics which were broader and more idealistic, including Mike Monteiro’s A Designer’s Code of Ethics (2017) and Greg Walsh’s 8 Tenets for Designers (2018). These articles are similar to the First Things First manifestos in their passionate calls to actions, but have more real-world scenarios to back up their arguments.
01 - musings
In Monteiro’s argument that a designer is “first and foremost a human being”, he applies our obligation to better the planet to our design practise, labelling our design work as our “legacy” that will “outlive” us (2018). He touched on the importance of knowing the audience we design for, however I found that he did not outline exactly how we could do this beyond just hyping up its importance. On the contrary, I found Walsh’s eight principles to be worded much clearer and rooted in reality. I found his second point particularly inspiring: “Always design for inclusion. Never design for exclusion ... we design for exclusion by using jargon and limited-audience metaphors instead of what’s best for the user. ” (2018). I liked this simplification of a complex idea without making it ambiguous. Walsh mainly focuses on user-friendliness, representation and accessibility, and spurs the reader to view the user as “a person who deserves respect”, rather than a “product”, “statistic or persona” (2018). The two codes that stood out most to me were the AIGA Standards of Professional Practise (2010) and Greg Walsh’s 8 Tenets for Designers (2018). If these two writings could be fused together into one whole, I think it could be a compelling answer to the critics of the original First Things First manifestos. It would still have the passionate rallying of a manifesto, but would be cemented in a professional policy structure. I believe creating a revised yet formal code would also be an ideal way to get more established designers on board with the social justice ideas presented in manifestos and individual writings.
13
studio knowledge object
American Apparel: A Case Study on Representation LA based clothes retailer American Apparel is infamous for its provocative and often wildly controversial advertising, having sold their brand using imagery of hyper-sexualised and objectified women for decades. Much of this misogynistic propaganda was driven by ex-CEO Dov Charney, who was fired from the company due to serial allegations of sexual harassment against him.
14
Many of their campaigns have reduced women down to little more than body parts to be ogled and snatched, and promoted the idea of our primary purpose being our sex appeal to men. Often, promotions of socks or tights feature a model wearing nothing but these accessories, with their bodies contorted in a provocative way that leads the viewer’s eye to everything but the socks. In some images, Charney himself appeared lying next to half or completely naked younger women. Their objectifying and sexualising of female bodies has certainly gained the brand enormous global attention over the years, but has been served to the public laden with patriarchal concepts about what a woman is worth. The company is strangely paradoxical in that they manufacture their products ethically (with factories based in the US that pay their workers a full wage), but they market them with rampant misrepresentation. They missed a golden opportunity to empower not only their workers, but their audience. There’s definitely space in the advertising world to promote healthy values about female sexuality, and they could have gone down this avenue if they wanted to keep their raunchy image.
01 - musings
They should have portrayed sex realistically, rather than this manufactured misogyny. If they’d shown pubic hair, stretch marks, cellulite, or even period blood, and strayed away from the gross “vulnerable young girl dominated by older man” imagery, it would have been bound to positively influence the hordes of pre-teen girls (and boys!) who see these billboards and formulate their first ideas about sex. Promoting ideas like this in their trendy, modern aesthetic could have been so powerful. Sadly, instead, I’m sure they contributed to yet another generation of deep-rooted patriarchal insecurity. This one-sided and sexist depiction of women perpetuates rape culture. Plastering images like these around cities and across the internet to sell some t-shirts or socks is so abhorrent. Is it really worth it, if your company’s brand identity is likely to convince the older men who see these billboards that it is okay to treat women like passive objects? Or that they want to be treated like passive objects? Two years ago, in 2018, an all female team took over AA’s marketing team and revamped it entirely. The brand had collapsed due to the firing of Charney and the backlash due to the controversial campaigns he drove, and they’ve decided to steer the narrative in a more uplifting and positive direction. If only it had been an all female team at the start... it seems as though misrepresentation is forever rife in situations where groups are being represented by people who do not share in belonging to that demographic, simply sharing only their often problematic views or assumptions.
15
studio knowledge object
On representation, again:
16
Earlier this month, I read a story about a local start-up gin company in New Zealand that provoked online uproar over its label and brand name. ‘Indiginous Gin’ was the project of three non-indigenous white men, and their sleek new bottle design featured a koru (Maori spiral pattern) and unique Polynesian markings. It was described as “offensive” by a leading Maori cultural advisor, and labelled as “cultural appropriation” by many members of the community. While the company owners had seemingly good intentions at heart, with the desire to “tell stories about the people, the places and the ingredients that make up our gins” and to “celebrate those things”, they had failed to research adequately and seek advice from a diverse range of Maori people. In mistakenly believing that they were ‘appreciating’ rather than appropriating Maori culture, the co-directors also managed to overlook how theproduct could be interpreted; one being the disrespectful and ignorant merging of alcohol with the word “indigenous” and sacred Maori design symbols, in a country where alcohol was introduced by colonisers and then created a string of social issues.
01 - musings
In a media interview, co-director Gavin said that they “tried to be as thorough as [they] knew how to”. This is the problem with many designers nowadays. Too often, people simply do not understand how ethical representation works.
We often fail to realise our everyday oppressor roles.
Each of us is born into societies of oppressive structures. Those born into privilege, whether it be whiteness or wealth or a male gender assigned at birth, are the least likely to ever question oppression. When the system has served you in the past, you fail to understand how it can be more difficult to navigate for others. And this is a difficult thing to shift - knowing the ‘rules’ of representation or solidarity is not enough to surpass an inherent individual bias. If we are not feeling uncomfortable when we think about equality, diversity and representation, then we are not questioning ourselves as oppressors. Understanding our oppressor roles is the first step in ethical representation, and its one that’s vital for the majority of the field, as so many designers come from backgrounds of privilege and the ability to break into an industry that is initially expensive. The next step is to research more thoroughly than we ever thought necessary. Diversity for the sake of diversity is pointless. Including certain demographics to just tick a box is tokenistic at best, deeply harmful at worst. If we are going to represent different groups of people in our work, its best to find collaborators from those communities who have lived experience and can tell their own story, rather than us telling it for them. If that’s not possible, then researching is the next best thing.
17
studio knowledge object
Designers hold an incredible amount of power over how people are represented, and this power can build up or tear down marginalised communities. There is so much that white people do not know, yet scarily, we are by far the dominant group in some major workplaces. The article Is Diversity a Problem in Design? (Teixeira, 2017) offers some staggering facts on this, highlighting that Google, Facebook and eBay all have predominately (>50%) white workforces.
18
The point that Cole made above about Chinese designers not being able to represent the whole of East Asia, let alone Asia as a continent, really resonated with me. At the moment I’m studying an elective on Aboriginal Understandings of Country, and there was a moment in our class the other week that really made me wake up to my white ignorance. We were down by the Birrarang (Yarra River) doing a walking tour, and our guide, a Wemba Wemba-Wergaia man called Dean, held up a map of Australia with the entirety of western Europe superimposed on it (relative to size). He used this tool to highlight this misrepresentation of Aboriginal people in white Australia. We would never expect people up north in Denmark or the Netherlands to be the same as those down south in Greece or Turkey‌ yet Aboriginal Australians are so often represented in the media as a homogenous group.
01 - musings
Very few of us take the time to learn about the different language groups and clans that existed here for tens of thousands of years, with cultures and rites that varied wildly as you moved across the continent. For a few years now I have been doing solidarity work with various Aboriginal communities and spent countless hours researching how to be a better ally, but I have barely scratched the surface on understanding Aboriginal culture. Where does that make me stand on understanding any other group I do not belong to? At this point it seems a little like the most ethical thing to do is for us to all cancel our Adobe subscriptions and quite design forever.... But that’s not going to change the world, or us as people. In the absence of designers from minority groups who are the best candidates to tell their own story, we can ask questions and learn more about the communities we represent in our work. This has been drilled into me in all the time I’ve spent learning how to work in solidarity with Aboriginal people. “Just ask!” “We’re more than happy to sit down and tell you white fellas everything you need to know about us so you can stop getting it wrong and teach the rest of society.” I think it’s exciting to reframe representation as a learning experience, and it’s imperative for all designers to take it seriously. This is our ethical responsibility to the world, and it’s how we’re going to change it.
19
studio knowledge object
20
Time’s tickin’ Emily Cork
01 - musings
21
studio knowledge object
How do we scope and frame design problems?
22
The scope of our design problems is what separates them from having outcomes that are “good”, or outcomes that can radically transform society for the better. For much of its commercial history, the design field has been dominated by people who carry many privileges - men, mainly white, who have belonged to exclusive institutions. These “graphic design greats” (which other students have also referred to above!) seem to have had the luxury of oblivion to the struggle of oppressed and marginalised communities, spending their careers creating a name for themselves in a world of elite design that didn’t really change the world. Or perhaps, they did realise that their design was only furthering an inequitable world, but didn’t care because their bubble of privilege was never going to burst. This trend has defined many people’s understanding of design as an execution of style rather than substance, something practised by experts hired to make something look as good as it can. But looks can be deceiving. To design for justice, rather than just for good, we need to broaden the scope of our design thinking and understanding. We need to shatter the notion of the design cycle being about a brief and a quick but eye-catching solution, and start to frame it in the context of our communities, politics and social structures. Design justice is about taking advantage of the opportunities presented to us to redesign things and improve them, and using these moments to transform existing power structures and create a fair and inclusive world.
01 - musings
In Sasha Costanza-Chock’s lecture What is Design Justice?, the “matrix of domination” was brought up often, a concept which I found really powerful. This phrase was coined by black feminist sociologist Patricia Hill Collins, and it refers to the oppressive structures that rule our society. While watching the lecture, these words resonated with me as I connected them to a concept I have discussed many times in activist theory of change workshops the ‘Master’s House’ theory. It frames our society as a house, with the roof holding all of its problems (eg. racism, homophobia, poverty, global warming). The roof is able to stand because it’s held up by three very sturdy pillars - capitalism, colonialism, and the patriarchy. If we radically restructure the house by dismantling its pillars, the whole structure comes crumbling down, including every last thing in the roof.
How can we challenge the matrix of domination? This is something I think we should all be framing in our design thinking. How can we bring the Master’s House down for good? In the design problems we take on in our practise and future careers, we need to broaden the scope of the brief and work out who we are designing for, and how we can make our outcomes as valuable and accessible as possible. I really loved Costanza-Chock’s point about how designers should view themselves as facilitators rather than experts, and this is a concept I’d like to take on board myself. What we learn in our design journey is creative, visual thinking skills that have the potential to facilitate enormous change and reshape our world. However, it’s not going to make us experts in much beyond visual communication, and we need to always remember this. In our work we need to collaborate with people who are from the social groups we design for, from marginalised groups that will be affected by our work, or who have lived experience of the issues we are trying to solve. We need to amplify these voices and use our skills to tell their stories. Not just our own.
23
studio knowledge object
User-Feedback Reflection Feedback is such an essential element of the design process, especially in campaigns like this that directly impact communities and appeal to a sense of empathy and compassion in donors.
24
Our survey responses indicated that the design is looking good so far but our authenticity and concept needs work, which I would agree with. I think that as a group we’ve spent most of our time refining the ‘look and feel’ but not as much writing copy and ensuring our point comes across crystal clear. Oxfam suggested that we write a letter explaining the purpose/stories, which we were intending to do but didn’t have it done in time for the pitch. I’m glad they gave us that feedback because I believe we do need to put more of an emphasis on the written/conceptual elements like that between now and the next pitch. Both Oxfam and our survey responses expressed support for the applications/platforms we went with, which was nice to hear! I have personally spent a lot of time in my head stressing about the ins and outs of “how is it actually going to work?” and being a little uncertain about the range of platforms we had going, but in the feedback it seemed like the favourite elements were evenly spread amongst different people, and that our campaign appeals to a wide demographic and includes all - which is great!
01 - musings
One thought-provoking question that came up in our survey response was how we communicate urgency despite it being a warm, light-hearted success story. One person seemed concerned that readers might read it and engage yet still think that the ni-Vanuatu women “seem to be doing fine so it’s probably okay if I don’t support the cause this time.” Something we can take from this is ensuring that over the next week we make it really clear in our campaign collateral that this work cannot continue without donations, which are the backbone of all of this. The money has come from somewhere and needs to keep coming, otherwise we cannot support Vanuatu through climate change-induced disasters in the future. Another thing we need to work on is accessibility in terms of legibility. Both Oxfam and one of our survey responders have said that the white text on a yellow background is difficult to read. As young people without sight issues we have the bias of assuming that if we can read it it must be legible, but this isn’t at all the case. Not only are we designing for an older audience, but we need to be mindful that many people have vision problems including hyperopia (longsighted-ness) and color-blindness.
25
studio knowledge object
After doing some research on color-blindness, I came across Tom van Beveren’s 2018 article Designing with the colorblind in mind will improve your design for everyone, which also touched on the varied situations in which people interact with design work. “We are no longer just using our websites from behind a desk, with the curtains drawn, reading from a big, well-lit screen. We use phones and tablets outside of these rooms with perfect conditions.People walk around, navigating on their phone with sunlight reflecting on their screen. On a moving train, we try to keep the focus on the finger-smudged screens of our shaking tablets.” (van Beveren, 2018)
26
I found this to be a really great point and on top of all the insightful feedback we’ve received, I really want to keep user accessibility and inclusivity in mind as we finalise our campaign.
01 - musings
How data and digital design is used to manipulate people’s behaviour: a case study
Earlier this year, Facebook made its “Off-Facebook Activity” tracker information available to its two billion users after long delay. While this is a step in the right direction in terms of transparency, it’s also a horrifying glimpse into how much the social network really knows about each of its users - displaying every single thing it has tracked in the last 180 days. Even when the app is closed, it collects data on everything we do, like our own personal stalker. It knows when we put things in our online shopping carts, what houses we search for on real estate websites, which external news articles we read and what organisations we donate to. Many Facebook users have had a hunch for a while that the app listens to us, but this feature reveal proves that it might not have had to: it has enough access to our internet habits to know us much deeper than we thought. This isn’t necessarily a privacy violation, as by using the site we have at some point agreed to its convoluted and ever-changing settings. However, it is a definite manipulation of our data with little open honesty. According to a Pew Research study published in 2019, 74 per cent of American Facebook members were unaware the social network maintains a list of their interests and traits (Hitlin and Rainie, 2019). The network changes its settings so frequently and in such a convoluted and dry way that very little of its users take the time to understand what this means for their online security.
27
studio knowledge studio knowledgeobject object
There are two main issues I see with this.
28
The first, is that Facebook is constantly grooming us to hand money over to it and its partners to buy countless unnecessary products when we engage with the desktop or phone app, and its partner apps Messenger and Instagram. We log into connect with our friends and family and are hit with not just the regular dump of internet ads, but ones that are specifically curated to what we’ve been searching for, listening to and consuming on the internet for the past 6 months. This business model has been crafted with intention and is worth billions of dollars (Matsakis, 2019). Online shopping has its perks, making it more accessible than ever for a wide range of people with different needs to acquire goods and services that they may not have been able to otherwise. However, Facebook has completely subverted this into a manipulative capitalist ploy on its unsuspecting users who log on to communicate with friends and family. Secondly, I believe that Facebook is pushing its users into an echo chamber of what they want to interact with. Over time, its ‘News Feed’ has showcased more and more articles from actual news outlets alongside content from users’ friends. But this rise in the amount of news we consume on the network correlates with the rise of its notorious algorithm, dictating the differences between its billions of users’ news feeds. According to digital marketing agency Tinuiti, the Facebook algorithm “ranks all available posts that can display on a user’s News Feed based on how likely that user will have a positive reaction” (Swan, 2020). The network is constantly pushing us to like and love react, to leave comments and to share posts with one another by making sure we like what we see.
01 01- -musings musings
In a design studio subject I did last year, we spent the first three weeks picking out one day where we would record every piece of news we came into contact with and communicate it in a huge printed out A1 broadside. It was shocking to see the differences around the classroom. The majority of the class’s articles had been pulled from their Facebook feed, and it was evident that each of us had a very tailored, very onedimensional view of the world’s daily happenings. While Facebook is leading us to believe that using the platform is educating us on what’s going on in the world, behind the scenes it is leading us to just see what we want to see - and exist in an oblivious bubble of celebrity news or sneaker brands if that’s what we choose to do. In effect, it is shaping its users as people. While years ago, we would mainly be shaped by our experiences connecting with our friends list, it’s now curating our daily news intake to fit with its substantial amount of information on us. Unfortunately, given Facebook’s sketchy track record on privacy it seems like we will remain at the will website and its schemes for as long as we continue to use it. It’s a necessary evil for many, in particular millennials and early Gen Zs, due to it hosting the majority of our social events and groups. To quit Facebook can often mean severing ties with hundreds of friends and acquaintances and becoming out of the loop with countless social and local events. It’s scary that the price we have to pay for staying connected is to have our innermost thoughts, desires and connections mined by an unscrupulous company.
29
studio knowledge studio knowledgeobject object
30
0201 - manifesto - musings
PERSONAL DESIGN MANIFESTO
31
studio knowledge object
Personal Design Manifesto Reflection Creating my personal design manifesto was a really special project. It was the culmination of weeks of discussion posts reflecting on ethical practices, but also years of pondering what relationship I have with design.
32
I stopped studying design a year into my first degree (at Monash) due to thinking it was fluffy and superficial. I was beginning to engage with environmental activism and felt like my packaging design and typography projects were insignificant compared to the research a lot of my peers were doing in their science and arts courses. Yet I eventually came back to design because I knew deep down that I could fuse communication design and social change together. Through my experiences with activism I’ve learned that design can be weaponised to spread ideas, and that the ability to communicate well visually should never be taken for granted. I believe that good design is at the forefront of so many current and historical movements and campaigns, and that it really can change the world! The idea of a ‘pandora’s box’ manifesto came to me early on in the design process. I feel as though my relationship with ethics and activism is a bit like that - I don’t think I could ever really go back to being inactive or ignorant about social or environmental issues. Once you’ve opened the box and devoured all of these ideas about privilege and justice, you can’t forget what you’ve learned. I was discussing the pandora’s box idea with my housemate over breakfast one morning, and he said it would be great to display the box net on a poster. I loved this idea, and obviously ran with it. I loved the poster format of the 1964 manifesto, so it made sense for my box to also be displayed like that - and the pdf can be viewed at a high resolution online.
02 - manifesto
Pandora
Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1871 oil on canvas 131 x 79cm
It took me a while to start writing the manifesto text, delaying the task due to my desire to do it justice. When I did start writing, I couldn’t stop. After the routine of a weekly discussion post, I found it easy to get in the groove and spill out all of these ideas onto paper. I loved having the time to create a manifesto that is just my own. I ended up splitting the text into six main sections: environment, indigenous sovereignty, anti-capitalism, truthfulness, accessibility and community leadership. On the poster I also included my acknowledgment of country that I had written in one of the optional discussion posts.
33
studio knowledge studio knowledgeobject object
90s rave poster Artist unknown
34
When designing the box graphics, I wanted to add in a hint of the two First Things First manifestos. Although they had their flaws and oversights, I found them an inspiring way to start the course and I also love that designers were getting together and discussing these concepts (or renewing them!) decades ago. I used an off-white background and bold black heading reminiscent of the 1964 design, and also drew in a touch of a 90s-2000s aesthetic in some of the graphics and typefaces I chose. Originally I was playing around with a green and brown/red colour combination, but I then realised that this wouldn’t be legible to people who are colourblind, something I had been coming across in my research for discussion posts. I ended up going with a purple and orange theme which is an optimum pairing for visibility.
0201 - manifesto - musings
Dr. Bronner’s logo
Another inspiration during my design process was the Dr. Bronner’s soap packaging. I have used their soaps for years due to them being organic, fair trade and sustainable. Their iconic soap packaging has paragraphs on the unity of mankind and the need to “unite spaceship Earth” crammed into the labels: a design decision made by Emmanuel Bronner in the 1940s. He was a third generation German-Jewish soapmaker who had fled to the US during WWII and lost both of his parents in the Holocaust. Bronner created his lengthy ‘Moral ABC’ calling for world peace and unity amongst all ethnicities and religions, which he would preach at outdoor sermons and then give attendees a bar of soap. After a while, he realised that people were only coming for the soap - so he squeezed all of the information onto a label where it remains today.
35
studio knowledge object
Liquid soap bottle packaging
36
02 - manifesto
Dr. Bronners is still a family company, and they are incredibly ethical under capitalism with self-imposed caps on executive pay, comfortable wages and free food for staff, and they invest millions of dollars into research that benefits society. I find this story to be so incredible, and it’s also inspiring to see a company operating so fairly under capitalism. As someone who usually has a very hardline anticapitalist stance, it’s a relief to soften a bit and realise that so much can be still done to help society even through the system. I realised the connection between the countless paragraphs of text on my box net and on Dr. Bronner’s bottles when I was in the shower one morning, and was so glad about it. As a tribute to Bronner I added a bit of cosmic flair to my design with an Earth graphic and some stars here and there (which have also snuck their way into my SKO...)
designers can unfuck the world!
37
studio knowledge studio knowledgeobject object
I’m honestly quite proud of what I achieved with this project. I feel like my final outcome really reflects me as a person and as a designer, and I’m really happy with how it looks. It was refreshing to be able to take the aesthetics in any direction I wanted after weeks of sticking to Oxfam’s strict brand guidelines. The process was so cathartic: developing my manifesto from weeks of research, then designing the box net and poster, to finally printing and constructing it. Having a tangible end product that I put together myself makes it feel really intimate and personal, and I plan to store my future notes and learnings inside it.
38
0201 - manifesto - musings
39
studio knowledge studio knowledgeobject object
40
0201 - manifesto - musings
41
42
43
studio knowledge object
44
01 - musings
45
studio knowledge studio knowledgeobject object
46
0103 - musings - oxfam
THE OXFAM PITCH
47
studio knowledge object
Oxfam Pitch Reflection
48
At the beginning of the studio, we workd on a real-world brief from Oxfam Australia which focused on the issue of climate justice in Vanuatu. My group pitched a campaign titled “A Sweet Solution”, through which we aimed to inspire donations through sharing stories of hope and resilience. The campaign collateral included a direct mail package with a donation form, a set of illustrated postcards, a cookbook, an infographic poster and social media content. Having four of us in the group allowed us to create a wide range of design outcomes, an opportunity we used to target a wide age range - from the young and savvy Instagram users to the older donors who prefer to fill out forms by hand. At the beginning of the project I was a little apprehensive about it being so charity focused. I was wary of the “white saviour complex” and how organisations such as Oxfam pay comfortable salaries for people to tell other peoples’ stories for them. However, I enjoyed facing this concern in a collaborative studio environment along the backdrop of our weekly discussions. I found it rewarding to put together a campaign that promoted ongoing resilience and self-determination and focused on empowering women financially. I believe that our final concept was effective as the stories we focused on (Lisy, Makin and Yvette’s experiences with the Farm Support Association) were rich and empowering, and there was something for everyone in our campaign materials. Our pineapple focused campaign pitch was light and engaging, but also communicated ideas of climate justice and food resilience.
03 - oxfam
preliminary moodboard
49
studio knowledge object
50
03 - oxfam
51
studio knowledge object
Feedback I was grateful that we were instructed to dedicate a lot of time to receiving and implementing feedback in this studio. Feedback is an essential part of the design process that often gets rushed and overlooked in student projects, as many of us focus squarely on the aesthetics, thinking of it as a portfolio piece rather than trying to imagine it in its real-world context (because in the back of our minds we know “it’s not real”) (I have fallen victim to this in the past…)
52
I found that the critiquing stage tied in beautifully with some of our concurrent discussion topics about personal bias and accessibility in design. It was great to hear from a range of age groups who pointed out things such as the text not being legible enough, and to hear from Oxfam workers with years of experience working in this field. This process really solidified the importance of feedback for me, which I will take into my future design work. Without receiving comments from people who will be interacting with the final outcome, it is almost impossible to anticipate how it will be perceived by an audience of varied backgrounds and experiences.
03 - oxfam
audience
“Name the ladies with the photograph, improve the visibility of the words written in white. White space on page 6 should be utilised.” “I thought it was very authentic it highlighted to me an issue but showed the valuable work of the Oxfam program.” “How do you deal with readers that may develop a false sense that they seem to be doing fine, so it’s probably okay if i don’t support the cause this time?”
“It’s evident that you carefully consulted the brand guidelines throughout the creative process”
oxfam + studio lead feedback
“It’s great to see that you have intentionally made your text highly legible, as though to make it accessible to your entire audience!” “ You’ve demonstrated that you really understand out target audience by creating all the elements you’d find in a traditional ‘Oxfam appeal pack’, which our ageing supporters have grown familiar with” “The cookbook looks great and is a lovely keepsake for our dedicated supporters.” “The mockup seems to suggest that the book would be quite heavy, almost magazine like. While this would be more expensive to post, perhaps this is something that we would send to a few high value donors (our most generous supporters) to keep costs down. Alternatively, this could be a digital publication or something that was printed on something more similar to a newsprint to minimise postage costs” “The mock-up of your landing page looks great but it’s a shame we can’t see more of the actual page at scale. This is a really important touch point, so if the creative team at Oxfam was sharing a concept with stakeholders, we’d try to portray our entire vision (even if it was just a series of screen grabs from desktop/mobile). That way you can see how a supporter would navigate through the entire page.”
53
studio knowledge object
54
This is a page from our initial cookbook concept submitted in Pitch A. Using white text on a light yellow background was a stretch even to begin with, and after receiving some feedback and spending classtime researching accessibility in design we knew we had to scrap it.
01 - musings
Final work
Donation form & appeal letter
55
studio knowledge object
Postcard design
56
03 - oxfam
Infographic
57
studio knowledge object
58
‘A Sweet Solution’ cookbook
03 - oxfam
59
studio knowledge studio knowledgeobject object
Conclusion
60
01 conclusion - musings
I believe I have grown as a designer through this studio, with my personal manifesto serving as a tangible outcome of my learnings. Engaging with ethical design academics such as Mike Monteiro and Sasha Contanza-Chock has opened my eyes to the wide existence of this field of practise, and inspired me to keep on researching and learning. This studio has also allowed me to dedicate time into exploring my own inherent privilege and bias even further, and to build my understanding of the myriad lenses of accessibility and inclusion that people view the world through. I feel reinspired in my practise and like I am finally beginning to “find my feet� as a designer. In the future, I aspire to use design to elevate marginalised voices and to communicate the need for climate justice and social equality. The content explored in this studio has given me a broad understanding of considerations that are necessary in this field of practise, such as ethical representation, designing for inclusion, deconstructing bias and ensuring that user-feedback is obtained and used.
61
studio knowledge object
References Bierut, M., 2007. Seventy-Nine Short Essays On Design. pp.56-58. Bush, A., 2003. Beyond Pro Bono. Hitlin, P. and Rainie, L., 2019. Facebook Algorithms And Personal Data. [online] Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. Available at: <https://www.pewresearch.org/ internet/2019/01/16/facebook-algorithms-and-personal-data/>
62
Matsakis, L., 2019. Facebookâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S New Privacy Feature Comes With A Loophole. [online] Wired. Available at: <https://www. wired.com/story/off-facebook-activity-privacy/> Monteiro, M., 2017. A Designerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S Code Of Ethics - Mule. [online] Mule. Available at: <https://muledesign.com/2017/07/ a-designers-code-of-ethics> Swan, G., 2020. How The Facebook Algorithm Works + 5 Best Practices [2020]. [online] Tinuiti. Available at: <https://tinuiti. com/blog/paid-social/facebook-algorithm/> Teixeira, F., 2017. Is Diversity A Problem In The Design Industry?. [online] Medium. Available at: <https://uxdesign.cc/ is-diversity-a-problem-in-the-design-industry-2d58bc019a91> van Beveren, T., 2018. Designing With The Colorblind In Mind Will Improve Your Design For Everyone | Inside Design Blog. [online] Invisionapp.com. Available at: <https://www. invisionapp.com/inside-design/designing-for-colorblindimproves-design/> Walsh, G., 2018. 8 Tenets For Designers. [online] Medium. Available at: <https://medium.com/@gxwalsh/8-principles-fordesigners-3e3378e9f48f>
63
First Things First manifesto http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/there-is-such-athing-as-society Pandoras box https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dante_Gabriel_ Rossetti_-_Pandora.jpg Rave poster https://dancingastronaut.com/2018/01/photo-gallery-vintagerave-posters/ Dr. Bronnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s label and logo https://www.drbronner.com/all-one-blog/2020/04/behindlabel-heal-earth/
studio knowledge object
EMILY CORK 2020
64