profile

Design Changemakers Digest

Get insights on how you can design for positive change and opportunities to engage in collective learning and co-design of liberatory futures at Design Changemakers.

Get our weekly digest

A visual divided into two sections. The left section features the title Resistance & Changemaking through Design, with a byline that says Unconventional Gathering and a description that says mobilize into action for liberatory futures. A person holding a

Persevering against oppression in third places

Looking at the current state of the world and the latest headlines may paint a grim picture of our future. It can feel easier to give in to the oppressive status quo to lift the weight off our shoulders. But the world needs your changemaking spirit. This week's digest is focused on how to keep on fighting the anti-oppression fight in "third places." No time to read the whole digest? I'll leave you with one takeaway — join me in the first Design Changemakers 'unconventional' gathering,...
READ POST
A gathering place for changemakers to actively learn and co-design liberatory and equitable futures.

The Design Changemakers Digest is Back

After a 7-month personal hiatus, I am back with the latest Design Changemakers Digest! Where have I been? As I've mentioned in previous digests, I was dealing with some health issues at the start of the year. Healing is a journey that takes time and space. Stepping away from this digest and the learning platform I built last year was a way to honor my healing. I've spent that time... Serving as convener of a co-design experiment that has now turned now into a co-Design collective (more on...
READ POST
Co-Design Experiment. Open Invitation. Let's build a free, open-source library on design for positive change.

Eager to practice design for change? Join our co-design experiment

I often hear that it's difficult to move from good intentions to concrete actions when it comes to designing for positive change. And that there's no room for inclusion, accessibility or equity when you don't have resources or budget. After last week's digest, a spark of inspiration came unexpectedly to solve for these challenges ⚡️ I thought to myself... What if we could build a free community-powered library to help people move from good intentions to concrete actions? What if we could...
READ POST
index finger and thumb coming together like a snap to form a tiny heart

Design, equity and self-care

It'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 POST
Practicing discernment in design for positive change

To design for social change, we need more than just "best practices"

In 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 POST
A compass with pointing to the letter "D." Two other directions exist ("A" and "E")

How reflexivity opens doors to more equitable outcomes in design

In 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 POST

How tools can aid or hinder us in designing for social change

Time 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 POST

Design Changemakers is officially live!

After 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...
READ POST
Octavia Butler with a slight smile

Harnessing our changemaking power to design a more just world

If you're reading this digest, it's likely that you aspire to use design for good. But sometimes it can feel like we don't have the power to fight oppression when it's so big and overwhelming. This is how I have felt in the past few weeks. Big changes in my personal life — moving apartments all on my own — had thrown me off course. In the midst of that, violence erupted in Israel and Gaza. As an equity-centered practitioner, I felt the pressure to do something. But what could I possibly do? I...
READ POST