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I don’t often read articles on design anymore, but I happily make time for design educator and researcher Danah Abdulla, who wrote one of my favourite design-related pieces in 2021 titled ‘Against Performative Positivity’. (See also DD126 and DD181)
In ‘Design education, disrupted’, Abdulla argues that the pandemic was a missed opportunity to reset the way we teach and practice design. The disruption caused by COVID was largely seen as a nuisance – a temporary limitation – rather than a chance for structural change that could help us think beyond our normal repertoire of solutions.
For example, Abdulla points to design’s persistent, hard-coded relationship to capital which prevents it from offering real solutions to many 21st century problems:
“For more than a decade, we’ve heard calls for transforming design’s role in society by tackling community, political, and social issues that contribute to human well-being. But the propositions and critiques thus far do not offer viable alternatives. These alternatives remain within the conventional definitions of design and are devoid of any politics. We look to the same examples, rely on traditional teaching and learning methods, remain in the service of industry, and define design as an activity exclusively aimed at capitalist economic development.”
Another reason why current design practices fail to address structural issues is that they almost exclusively rely on traditional, Western-centric views of ‘good design’:
“Design education can no longer dismiss other traditions, looking only to Europe and North America as frames of reference for histories and theories. These frames often exclude the histories of colonialism, imperialism, migration, slavery, and wars, in spite of the fact that designers have always been involved in these activities (although not explicitly being called designers). Moreover, design education centred on the individual lone genius, that encourages students to work alone and not collectively, is not one that prepares them for the current industry sectors nor twenty-first century problems more broadly.”
Abdulla calls for decolonial, feminist perspectives that “inform and make us question what, how, and why we design”. Her vision of good design demands intellectual seriousness: “A design that crosses disciplinary boundaries, that is internationalist in scope, that develops a keen sense of social responsibility, with informed notions of civic engagement. A design that connects teaching with important social problems and the operation of power in society, enabling students and faculty to view themselves as self-reflective and autonomous critical agents.”
As I read the piece, I kept thinking of the many other fields – including ‘tech innovation’ at large – that could benefit from such a break with established practices, from a new ‘seriousness’ that asks and addresses the hard questions, from disrupting the old class of disruptors. – Kai
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You receive this email because you subscribed to Dense Discovery, a weekly newsletter at the intersection of design, technology, sustainability and culture. Writing to you from Melbourne is Kai Brach. Do you have a product or service to promote in DD? Find out more about advertising in DD.
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Apps & Sites
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It’s been a while since I featured a calendar app! Routine is a nice-looking, new contender in this space (currently access by request only) that lets you send to-dos from a range of different apps to your ‘task inbox’. From there, you can place tasks into your unified calendar that syncs with your personal and professional calendars. There are lots of other great features, like natural language processing to enter new events. Friends of DD enjoy early access.
Become a Friend to access specials like this.
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Free macOS browser picker
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With Velja, you decide what links to open in which browser. You can also create rules to always open specific links in a specific browser, e.g. open all Google Meet links in Chrome or open all links clicked inside the Slack app in Firefox.
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ShareDrop is a web app for transferring files to anyone via an encrypted peer-to-peer connection. Simply drag and drop files onto the avatar of people on the same network or share it via a unique URL to people on a different network.
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A beautifully designed platform for travellers looking for a more socially and environmentally conscious experience. “Collaborating with our community to uncover stories that are found at the intersection of social and cultural boundaries. Combining guides and experiences with podcasts, films and the written word to create an ecosystem that empowers people to travel more consciously.”
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Worthy Five: Ana Sofia Pinho
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A video worth watching:
I love standup comedy, and this short by Alingon Mitra on Batman vs Elon Musk is so on point! Whether it’s a superhero or a super millionaire, idolising even the most amazing individual can cloud our critical thinking and let them get away with counter-productive solutions to the world’s problems.
A question worth asking:
‘Am I being intellectually honest?’ It is becoming harder and harder to have productive conversations due to lack of intellectual humility and the emotional attachment to specific beliefs. This question brings us back to the topic, allows us to listen with curiosity, and creates room for breakthroughs.
A book worth reading:
With How to Keep House While Drowning, author KC Davis deserves as much attention as Martha Stewart or Marie Kondo. With a kind and functional approach, we learn to make our homes nurture all versions of ourselves. In KC Davis’ words: “Maintaining a house is not a journey of worthiness. It is a journey of functional self-care.”
A recipe worth trying:
Kefir – dairy, plant or water based – is delicious, versatile, supports our health and helps preserve biodiversity. We know that roughly 50% of the microbiome biodiversity has gone extinct within urbanised populations. This trend deserves our attention as our microbiome is critically essential to us – from regulating our immune system to producing nutrients.
A word or phrase worth knowing:
“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.” This lesson from one of Oprah’s interviews makes the act of forgiving accessible and attainable. It helps us move forward – with a lighter heart and a clearer mind.
(Did you know? Friends of DD can respond to and engage with guest contributors like Ana Sofia Pinho in one click.)
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Books & Accessories
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How to champion racial equality
Australian journalist and diversity advocate Antoinette Lattouf unpacks the complexities surrounding racism, religion and immigration. This poignant, inspiring and funny book will help you with the balancing act of being activist, advocate and ally. “Unlike Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, it won’t advise you not to ‘criticise, condemn or complain’ but instead explores the fallout when you do just that. With searing insights into the popularity contests you’ll forgo, and how to decide which races are worth running – and crucially which simply aren’t worth time or energy.”
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The slow journalism magazine
Congratulations to the folks at Delayed Gratification for publishing their 50th issue! Producing a quarterly independent print title for that long and weathering pandemic-related logistical chaos is no easy feat! If you’re looking for a slower, more reflective type of journalism that takes the time needed to process and analyse recent events, get a subscription and support their work. Friends of DD enjoy a 15% discount on new subscriptions.
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Overheard on Twitter
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You should get paid overtime if you have a dream about work.
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Food for Thought
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Trees are integral to human life. And yet, humans have been responsible for the destruction of one third of the Earth’s forests in the past 10,000 years, with most of that loss occurring in the last 300 years. This ‘tribute’ to trees sheds some light on what we know and what we have yet to discover about these vital coinhabitants of our planet. “Trees are the new polar bears, the trending face of the environmental movement. But it’s not clear that planting a trillion trees is a solution. In terms of biodiversity, killing forests and planting tree farms isn’t much help; a forest is an ecosystem, and a tree farm is a monoculture. ... A forest of trees, Wohlleben argues, is like a herd of elephants. ‘Like the herd, they, too, look after their own, and they help their sick and weak back up onto their feet.’ Like elephants – like humans – trees have friends, and lovers, and parents and children. They have language, and they also have, he argues, a kind of sentience.”
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Let primatologist Frans de Waal – who inadvertently popularised the term ‘alpha male’ – debunk common stereotypes of what an ‘alpha person’ really is. “People sometimes ask me, ‘what does it take to be an alpha male?’ And they think the answer from a primatologist would be: ‘what it takes is to be the strongest and the meanest – the most intimidating’. But that’s not really what an alpha male usually is. An alpha male is usually also admired. They protect the underdog, they break up fights, they have a high level of empathy.”
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I don’t often share Umair Haque’s writing because he has a tendency to bend facts into the theatrical just to get more eyeballs. That said, I do largely agree with this piece, making the case for smaller, human-scale businesses and organisations. “You walk down your high street. What do you prefer to see there? The economist will say: Walmart, Best Buy, the Gap. Scale economies – cheaper prices – better for ‘consumers’! But the human being will say: an independent cafe, a good bookshop, a boutique clothing store. Why? Because they offer many things that mega scale organizations don’t. ... we built an economy according to industrial age rules, rewarding organizations to strive for mega scale, tilting the playing field against smaller ones, and so we end up with an economy of such dinosaurs. But such an economy is also a lumbering, stagnant, and predatory one.”
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Aesthetically Pleasing
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Located on public land with a leasehold of 75 years, Barcelona-based La Borda cooperative housing is a self-organised development with the aim to access decent, non-speculative housing. It is built around three principles: collective housing; sustainability and environmental quality; and user participation.
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After last week’s book recommendation on Design Fiction, here’s a great example: a project by IKEA’s design lab Space10, Products of Place is “an interactive map of speculative place-based plate concepts made from abundant local materials. It visualises a near-future where AI supports designers to make better material choices and rebalance our relationship with the planet.” The project used ChatGPT to collect data points from agricultural residues, construction waste and manufacturing offcuts to help identify materials that might be locally available. (via)
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Crochet art is experiencing a come-back. One of the many talents behind the revival of this art form is Marianne Seiman, a swimming coach with a strong passion for crochet.
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Ottessa combines humanistic Dutch construction and ‘French’ apertures with a heavily modulated vibe. It’s a flexible, variable font with 860 glyphs per style, in more than 270 languages.
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Notable Numbers
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A new paper that breaks down inflation numbers in Europe shows that higher company profits account for 45 percent of price rises since the start of 2022.
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The top four Indian states leading the transformation towards e-bikes have breached the 10% penetration mark, rising from just 1% in 2019.
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Charitable giving in the US declined in 2022, only the fourth time in four decades. Total giving fell 3.4% in 2022 to $499.3 billion in current dollars, a drop of 10.5% when adjusted for inflation.
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Classifieds
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The Week in a GIF
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Reply or tweet at DD with your favourite GIF and it might get featured here in a future issue.
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