Keeping hope for liberatory futures alive with design, care and play
13 days ago • 4 min readKeeping hope for liberatory futures alive with design, care and play November 7, 2024 | Read in your browserForwarded this newsletter? Subscribe here. This has been a tough week, especially for those of you in the United States or with connections to the country. A convicted felon, sexual abuser and authoritarian has been voted into the highest position of power. The damaging ripple effects will extend widely across time, borders and human lives — there's no downplaying it. This week's digest...
READ POSTDesign, equity and self-care
9 months ago • 3 min readIt's been a few months since you've heard from me as I've unfortunately been caught in an avalanche of health issues (as I wrote about here on LinkedIn). As a result, all plans for Design Changemakers had to unfortunately come to a screeching halt, including this newsletter. I'm finally back (but still healing). In this edition, I bring you 3 lessons learned on weaving self-care into a more equity-centered design practice (i.e. don't do what I did). And I will close with a few equitable asks...
READ POSTTo design for social change, we need more than just "best practices"
11 months ago • 2 min readIn our last digest of the year, I'll explore how discernment can help us integrate and embody social change practices. And I'll share an exciting learning event for you to put discernment into practice! Are best practices actually helpful? Best practices and guidelines around accessibility, inclusion and equity exist to guide design decision-making — for instance, ensuring colors for text and iconography meet minimum color contrast ratios to enhance the accessibility of our designs. But what...
READ POSTHow reflexivity opens doors to more equitable outcomes in design
12 months ago • 2 min readIn this week's digest, we're explore the topic of reflexivity, building upon what we covered in last week's digest. You may be asking yourself, reflexi-what? I define reflexivity as bringing in a layer of critical reflection and systems thinking to your design and research work. In the simplest of terms, think of it as a set of keys. These keys will help you open doors to more nuanced understanding of repeated patterns in our beliefs, behaviors and decisions that lead us to inequitable...
READ POSTHow tools can aid or hinder us in designing for social change
12 months ago • 1 min readTime and time again, I'll hear, "Can you give us a practical checklist or tool?" I tell teams to be mindful about how they use tools in design work around equity, inclusion and justice. While tools can absolutely transform what can feel like abstract concepts into concrete steps we can actually take, they come with many pitfalls when poorly designed or misused. They can unintentionally reinforce biases and assumptions. They're often removed from the realities of the context in which we do...
READ POSTDesign Changemakers is officially live!
12 months ago • 1 min readAfter many months of development, Design Changemakers has at last arrived! I'm so excited to bring you an ever-growing collection of courses, tools, resources and events on designing for positive change. On this platform, you'll find: Courses: We're starting with our Design Changemaking Accelerator that will equip you with Tools: Digital card decks built around our changemaking frameworks that will enable you to move from theory to action Events: One-off workshops and live events to help you...
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