Designing for Social Change

Essay by William Drenttel
http://designobserver.com/feature/designing-for-social-change/33188

Drenttel begins his essay speaking about a workshop he attended called "Design for Social Impact" and a topic they discussed at this workshop was 'whether design could be an avenue for poverty alleviation.' I feel this could be relevant to my dissertation topic as I am looking at the morals and social responsibility of creatives.

'We might make our living producing branding for large companies, but we carved out a portion of our design practices to do "good work".' 

• This quote makes me think that the writer only considers his work to be 'good' if he is not getting a wage from it. I think this is an interesting point because I feel it should be possible to do work for a good cause but to also get paid for it, however this makes it sound like it should be totally selfless for it to be considered 'good'. 
• Maybe this is something I need to investigate further to understand whether it is possible to do good with your work but still make a living from it. 

The essay goes on to talk about 'non-profit' work which is done for no money, but it says this is the type of work where you have your most creative opportunities and it formed 'the basis for many a creative reputation.'

• This implies that the work done for no monetary profit was still profiting the designer in terms of publicity and building a name for themselves. Is this enough? Is it too much?

'It was often about the work we could showcase, not the people we were helping.' 

• This is an interesting point because it contradicts the previous idea that 'good' work should be selfless. 
• Focussing more on the work and how you will be perceived as a designer rather than the intended purpose of the work makes the production of it a selfish act. 

'It was too often design about design, design for the sake of design, designers preaching to one another about design's capability to create impact.' 

• Too much focus is on arguing the point that design is able to make an impact but not enough time is spent actually doing it. 

'Social design cannot be a subspecialty of the design profession' ... 'but is a larger activity that depends on design in all its forms.' 

• This makes me think that social design is not a discipline in itself but a way of thinking and how you go about making work within your chosen discipline. It is a broad thing, linking to the morals and intentions of your work rather than the process of making.

Social innovation: is a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than current solutions. The value created accrues primarily to society rather than to private individuals.

Social justice: justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.

Systemic change: Perhaps the most broadly valid definition is “change that pervades all parts of a system, taking into account the interrelationships and interdependencies among those parts.” We find it useful to distinguish systemic change from piecemeal change. Piecemeal change entails changing one or several parts of a system.

Nascent: (especially of a process or organization) just coming into existence and beginning to display signs of future potential.

This article does have significant relevance to the areas I am researching at the moment. I may be able to use links stemming from this essay to find potential case studies of where design, or more specifically illustration, has been used for social change. It links strongly to the concept of social responsibility but almost rejects the idea that creatives producing work for non profit are doing this as a selfless act. 

Questions

• Is it possible to produce a piece of design or art that is entirely selfless?
• Would creatives be more inclined to work for the intentions of the project rather than for self benefit if they were actually getting paid for it?
• Can 'good' work be produced as a self directed project or does it need to be justified by an organisation or charity for the cause to be justified?