DESIGN+
WHERE DO YOU STAND?
Cover design: Giulia Gianesini Text Credits: This publication contains exerts of texts from articles from AIGA Eye on Design. The Links Between Creativity and Depression And how the design industry can tackle mental health Words by Emily Gosling We Need to Talk About How We Talk About Creativity and Mental Health Words by Emily Gosling “Hard Work, Attention to Detail,” and Paralyzing Fear: the Ups + Downs of Designing with Anxiety Words by Emily Gosling Typography as a Radical Act in an Industry Ever-dominated by White Men Tré Seals founded Vocal Type to tell the untold stories in typography Words by Silas Munro “Bright, simple, luminous, positive despite everything,” the Iconic Importance of the Rainbow Flag Words by Rob Alderson Four Black Creatives on the Importance of Building and Cultivating Community The creative technology industry has a diversity problem. How to solve it? Words by Liz Stinson Sex Sells, But How Is Design Selling It to Women? Cleaner branding, Dolly Dolphin dildos, the latest in sex-tech + designer condoms: here’s how the sex industry markets to women Words by Madeleine Morley Can We Redesign the Way We Talk About Abortion? Meet the Women Behind 5 Very Powerful Design-led Projects “There’s an intellectual resistance to beauty and good design sometimes—a notion that if something is flashy, there is a lack of seriousness behind it. I object to that.” Words by Madeleine Morley “Decolonizing Means Many Things to Many People”— Four Practitioners Discuss Decolonizing Design Making for mom, unlearning the god complex, and taking heed from Black Panther Words by Anoushka Khandwala Why are Political Campaign Identities Generally So Forgettable? “The vast majority of campaign branding is incredibly boring” Words by Lilly Smith The Secret, Subversive + Revolutionary Language of the East African Kanga Graphic designer and educator Ziddi Msangi explores the boldly patterned textiles and their role as communication system. Words by Margaret Andersen What Does #MeToo Gain by Winning “Brand of the Year?” Do we risk over-simplifying complex social + political movements, or do awards like these keep the activist spirit alive? Words by Billie Muraben MGMT.’s Hypothetical, Typographical Hack on Gendered Pronouns When an iOS glitch inspires an exploration into how type represents gender and why Words by Angela Riechers
During the spring term 2020 our first year students from BA Graphic Design and BA Illustration & Animation at The School of Art, Architecture and Design where asked to respond to a series of articles around design and ethics. They thereby got to think about what is important to them and what they want to chose to communicate with the world around them. These are their responses. Where do you stand?
GIULIA GIANESINI BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
“MAYBE I SHOULD TRY SOMETHING A LITTLE LESS INTIMIDATING” A sense of playfulness and fun can make users more comfortable not only with sexual consumption, but with sexuality. Off the back of this idea, in the early ’90s German sex company Fun Factory created a host of animal companions to accompany the Rampant Rabbit in the drawers of bedside tables. With names like Dolly Dolphin, Dinky Digger, and tail-coat clad Paddy Penguin,
Fun Factory spearheaded a “playful” tone in the new world of designer sex toys as made possible by the sex boutique. To make sex consumption more accessible to a female demographic, there are multiple sex products designed with the pretense that they’re not a sex product at all— whether that’s a smiling, animal-shaped vibrator or the interface of a hook-up app.
ANDRADA ION BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
ANXIET Y
“[Anxiety] simultaneouly motivates you to become better, and tells you that you’re not good enough.“
MARIA ACHANOVA BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
What
does real freedom
to choose look like, even (or
especially) in the states and countries
where legislation is decidedly pro-choice?
And how can graphic design help communicate
a more accurate narrative? As the anti-choice
movement gains traction, the positive effects that
abortion has on millions of lives can get lost, so we spoke with the people behind five projects and platforms where graphic design and visual communication is contributing to the portrayal of abortion as a normal medical procedure and basic human right.
VICTORIA ACHOLA-WACHA BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
The words of the 1960s painter Emma Amos still ring true in today’s design culture: “For me, a black woman artist, to walk into the studio is a political act.” In the long history of type design, designers of color have historically had limited access to the tools and knowledge necessary to create typography.
In that sense, Vocal Type’s fonts and platform are a radical act—not just because they’re different, but because their excellence transcends their historical minority voice.
This form of technological discrimination has had the effect of limiting the groups of people reflected in—and represented by— the typography we see in the world.
The words of the 1960s painter Emma Amos still ring true today in today’s design culture: “For me, a black woman artist, to walk into the studio is a political act.”
IKRA CHAUDHRY BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
Manage your Mental Health at work
Avoid working long hours. Lots of deadlines can lead to longer hours, but try to avoid this where possible because it will only leave you mentally and physically drained. Take a break. Actually take your lunch break and use other regular breaks to step away and get some fresh air, if possible. Regardless of how much you have left to do, it’s really important to get away from work and clear your mind. Don’t check your emails, don’t take any calls that aren’t absolutely necessary, and absorb yourself in a podcast or a book and relax. A break should be a break. %/410A81 <8-E @591 "8-: ?;91@45:3 2A: @; 0; 2;> C41: E;A 31@ E;A> :1D@ 0-E ;Ŋ -B5:3 ?;91@45:3 @; 8;;7 2;>C->0 @; /-: 9-71 - .53 05Ŋ1>1:/1 )41@41> 5@p? - visit to a museum, a walk through your local park, or a trip to the cinema, try and put something in your diary that’ll help you achieve a good work-life balance. Be assertive. It doesn’t matter how busy your work gets. Say “no” if you can’t take on the extra demands that are being asked of you. Exercise helps use the hormones the body produces under stress, relaxes muscles, strengthens the heart, improves blood circulation, and releases endorphins. Cycle or walk to work if you can. Visit your local park.Sign up (and show up) to a :1C ŋ@:1?? /8-?? 8571 E;3- ,A9.- ;> ?<5::5:3
TAHMID CHOWDHURY BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
HONOR DARRELL BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
TANITHA DESPORTE BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
#ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO TOOTOO #ME#ME TOO #ME #ME T OO #ME T OO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME T OO #ME T OO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO #ME TOO The School of Visual Art’s Masters in Branding Program announces its
“Brand of the Year:
the #MeToo movement, founded by Tarana Burke in 2006 (last year the honor went to the “pussyhat”). The press release regarding the announcement states that “#MeToo, which began as a grassroots movement, has now circled the globe to unite people behind one cry and cause. This is the highest calling of branding: to bring people together for the benefit of humanity.”
ADITI DHIMAN BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
JAGODA JANECKA BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
MARIA MYSHENKOVA BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
DAVIDE PROVASI BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
“Someone shared something on social media a few months ago and the upshot was that there’s a disproportionately high number of people with mental health issues in the creative industry, and it’s a problem we should be addressing.” Robert Ballard says that having prominent, successful creative people with mental health issues that manifest in ways that are clearly unpleasant—and a society that allows them to be so—is a crucial yet diminishing thing for other people who are suffering. The problem with that, I offer, is that we end up romanticizing the idea of the “tortured genius” in a way that could undermine the seriousness of such conditions. For the most part, we see the work; not the struggle. Isn’t that just as dangerous? “I think people are going to have problems anyway,” Ballard says. “If they’re going to have some sort of lineage they can identify with, or people who maybe stand in opposition to normality or a normal daily routine but have still found a way to ‘be,’ then it allows them the opportunity to express themselves. It’s good for people to look and see those people as role models, in a sense.” Perhaps he has a point. The creative industry very often prides itself on valuing difference, but how often does that manifest itself in supporting and valuing those whose minds work in different ways sometimes in ways that can be difficult or challenging? Mental health, after all, isn’t just about fragility: it can make us not just tricky to be around, but at times rather vile. People often talk about the times they’ve been too anxious to work, or so depressed they’ve spent a week in bed; yet few admit to the times that being unwell has led to them being violent, or promiscuous, or unkind to those around them as well as themselves.
Mental illness can make us selfish, unpleasant, smelly, and nasty people.
STACEY-ANN REYES-PILE BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
MYLES STEADFORD BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
ELLIOT WILLIAMSON BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
NAHID AHAMED BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
Anxiety—true anxiety—is one such condition. It’s a double-edged sword: at times the self-criticism inherent with anxiety can encourage rigorous thinking. But that sort of detailed self-reflection can easily tip over into a state of perfectionism in which actually doing something can prove impossible. Like its frequent bedfellow depression, anxiety can strangle both a creative impulse and a person on a fundamental level.“Feeling stressed can negatively impact your ability to generate ideas and be creative, which can be additionalstressor,” says Emma Mamo, head of workplace wellbeing at UK mental health charity Mind. Furthercomplicating matters, employees working in the creative industries, like those in many other sectors, often don’tfeel comfortable talking about mental health and stress. Of the workers Mind polled who had taken off work dueto stress, just 5% told their employer they were too stressed to work. The remaining 95% gave another reason fortheir absence to avoid telling their employers the truth.
PENNY BURTON BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
MARGHERITA CADONI BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
OSCAR COTTLE BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
AMANDA-JANE ELDRIDGE BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
GRACE GIBBONS BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
“People’s real abortion stories are starting to seep into every layer of culture. Once that happens, we’ll start to see legislation that actually reflects our needs and values and lives.” Through an accessible and very recognizable campaign, the Shout Your Abortion movement in the United States is challenging the fact that so many women feel unable to openly discuss their personal abortion stories. As a decentralized network of individuals talking about abortion in their own terms, SYA is committed to changing current cultural norms by communicating that abortion is common, necessary, and supported by the majority of Americans. “We must clear the smoke and end the lies—replace disinformation with truth,” reads a statement on the movement’s website, which recently won the 2017 People’s Voice Webby in the Activist category.
JOSE GONZALEZ-ARIAS BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
Sanint : In this context [of Colombia], it’s almost impossible to put a line between what is colonized and what isn’t. When I work with people in the countryside, sometimes it’s difficult to recognize the difference between their original [agricultural] practices, and those that were imposed by someone else.
JEKATERINA JEGOROVA BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
THANYALUCK LEKPET BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
RUT MARTORELL BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
IMAAN RAFIQ BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
MIA TOMMASOLI BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
LUCJA WOLOWSKA BA ILLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
MARIA ACHANOVA VICTORIA ACHOLA-WACHA NAHID AHAMED PENNY BURTON MARGHERITA CADONI IKRA CHAUDHRY TAHMI CHOWDHURY OSCAR COTTLE HONOR DARRELL TANITHA DESPORTE ADITI DHIMAN AMANDA-JANE ELDRIDGE JOSE GONZALEZ-ARIAS GRACE GIBBONS GIULIA GIANESIN MARIA ACHANOVA ANDRADA ION JAGODA JANECKA JEKATERINA JEGOROVA THANYALUCK LEKPET RUT MARTORELL MARIA MYSHENKOVA DAVIDE PROVASI IMAAN RAFIQ STACEY-ANN REYES-PILE MYLES STEADFORD MIA TOMMASOLI ELLIOT WILLIAMSON LUCJA WOLOWSKA