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DESIGNING WITH CONSCIOUS AND EQUITABLE INTENTION. designed by Chase Monmany
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ARTD 451, Ethics of a Designer in a Global Economy, was supervised by Professor Lisa Mercer, a designer, educator, researcher, and codeveloper of Racism Untaught. Throughout the design process, research and findings were made through collaboration, crediting Abby Kippling, Victoria Collins, Hannah Fredricks.
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Prompt
Design Goal
Final Designs
Context
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Contents
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Define
Ideate
Prototype
Impact
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Prompt In 2017, Pepsi released a commerical, staring Kendall Jenner, that aimed to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding through its product. Though intentions may appear harmless, Pepsi failed to acknowledge the pain points, real experiences, and backgrounds of people who are involved in the Black Lives Matter Movement.
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D E SI G N G OA L How might design be used to inform in order to produce healthy conversations in the media with emerging designers?
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INTRODUCING CONSCIOUS A web-based community designed to encourage emerging designers to support one another by sharing experiences.
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Final Designs
Mission Statement of Conscious
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Designers and artists will get to pledge themselves to conscious, making them commit to inclusive, equitable, and responsible design
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Final Designs
After pledging to Conscious, designers will get to see each other’s work and provide feedback.
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Designers and artists will get to share their own work
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Mission Statement of Conscious
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PRO MPT
DE S IG N PR OBLE M
During the first weeks of the semester, we spent time understanding ourselves and who we were as a person. We did various personality tests that would help us build future teams. Once teams were created, we were given a prompt/artifact regarding social issues and would spend the rest of the semester trying to uncover underlying issues.
In 2017, Pepsi released a commerical, staring Kendall Jenner, that aimed to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding through its product. Though intentions may appear harmless, Pepsi failed to acknowledge the pain points, real experiences, and backgrounds of people who are involved in the Black Lives Matter Movement.
RE F L ECT I ON
IMPACT
As designers, it is always important to reflect on the design decisions we made and the overall experience. Throughout the semester, I enjoyed working with my team as well as the cause we were fighting for.
With the final designs finished, we measured the impact our designs had regarding our design goal. Some areas of impact we left include: pledge, focus groups, entry and exit surveys, continuous education, innovation brief, mission statement, and listening sessions.
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Journey Map CONT EXT
DE FIN E
To understand the underlying issues concerning the Pepsi commerical, we dedicated time finding all the possible pain points or sensitivities Pepsi may have triggered. We looked into elements of racism, like white supremacy, policing, and microinvalidations, as well as measuring different levels of oppression.
Once we found and understood all the elements of racism or socioeconomic issues in the Pepsi commerical, we defined our research goal to solve our design problem. During this stage, we formulated a plan that would drive our research and help us achieve our design goal of educating emerging designers on inclusive and equitable design.
PROTOTYPE
IDE ATE
Out of the four deliverables, I took on creating a Manifesto website. As a UX designer, I have experience working on both mobile and web design. Thus, a manifesto website would play to my strengths. In the prototyping phase, I iterated through low-fidelity designs and trasformed them to mediumfidelity. Finalized on a mid-fidelity design, I then created a style guide that would be used to bring my final product to life.
After we recognized common trends in our research, we had a better understanding on what our possible deliverables could be. Defining at least three similarities in each others research, we synthesized them through quadrant mapping and card sortting. Eventually, we conisdered a website, coloring book, zine, and newsletter as final deliverables.
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LEVELS OF OPPRESSION DEFINITIONS
B E L I E FS Personal beliefs, ideas, and feelings that perpetuate problematic values.
AGE NT I C ACT I ON What problematic beliefs translate into problematic behavior?
INST I TUT I ON A L Structural design problems that results from agentic oppressive behavior.
CU LTUR AL Systems of norms, values, beliefs, and trusted systems of acquiring truth that preserve, protect, and/or maintain oppression.
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Context
Pepsi portrays that only famous people or white people can bring peace, humanity, or solve problems.
Pepsi shows a power group handing over the Pepsi to an officer. If the ad is about BLM and police brutality, what would’ve happened if it wasn’t Kendall?
Power groups, like white and caucasian people, are the only group that has the power to influence change.
Governing bodies and certain politics still fight against underrepresented groups but support existing power groups. White supremacy and old beliefs are fighting against new beliefs and real change.
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CONTEXT CARDS After watching the Pepsi commercial, starring Kendall Jenner, we selected context cards based on whether or not specifc socioeconomic sensitivities were found in the video.
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Context
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LITERATURE REVIEW To educate ourselves, we looked at secondary research ranging from news articles, scholarly literature, social media, and other creative platforms.
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Define CHASE Underrepresented groups, like Asian, Black or Latino, are groups that face social consequences because of the current perception of race. From Melvin Oliver, he reinforces the idea that “race in itself means nothing” and that “the markers of race – skin color, hair texture, the things that we identify as the racial markers – mean nothing unless there are given social meaning and public policy and private actions that act upon those kinds of characteristics.” Essentially, Oliver’s view reflects the words that Gravlee has argued for about race having no biological foundation and that race is a way people perceive reality. Because of race, those who don’t exemplify physical traits or “markers” of the caucasian race will suffer unavoidable social consequences. Essentially, what makes race are the laws and practices that affect life changes and opportunities based on those differences” because underrepresented groups, like Black people, face issues that caucasian people would not normally face, like policing. Institutional Racism is defined as racial discrimination that derives from individuals carrying out the dictates of a prejudiced institution or society. Throughout the Pepsi commercial, Pepsi tries to advocate or be an ally for the Black Lives Matter Movement. However, the company failed to be a real ally as its intent didn’t match how it wanted to impact. The Black Lives Matter Movement is all about shedding light on police brutality and racism among Black
People, but Pepsi fails to communicate this message when they decided to use Kendall Jenner as the person to “end” police brutality. The commercial continues to show that institutional racism still exists because Black people are not seen as the ones making change and performative allyship is shown by Pepsi. Black people, who make up, roughly, 13% of the United States population, account for 27% of those fatally shot by the police (Bunn, 2022). With the emergence of events, like George Floyd’s death, police brutality has been heightened and seen as a great institutional and social issue in the United States. Many leaders and companies have attempted to stand with the Black Lives Matter Movement, but only reach surface-level advocacy. The idea of performative allyship is seen by many organizations and companies, like Pepsi, and it only hurt the movement in the long run. If companies and governing bodies support BLM, they should have more considerate and substantial messages they want to get across. Through performative allyship, Black peoples’ experiences are being misrepresented even though the severity of the situation is at an all-time high. If institutions of power continue to act this way, there will be only superficial change. Racial inequalities, like health care differences, exist because of how the world perceives race as a biological foundation. Neoliberalism, politics D EC 202 2 | R AC IS M U NTAUGHT
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that believe in a free-market and rely on “identity and cultural politics,” is an ideology that widens the racial inequalities that already exist and harms minority groups. Effects of neoliberalism include racial inequalities in wealth concentration, migration, and the income gap. An example of neoliberalism would be the 85 richest people in the world having as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest. Likewise, the 3.5 billion poorest people present as black, brown, or indigenous people. Essentially, neoliberalism is the cause of the increased poverty and income gap we see today among minority groups. Until neoliberalism fades and race becomes more of a social structure that affects how we interpret, perceive, and look at society versus a biological foundation, racial inequalities will still be severe in the US.
ABBY In Pepsi’s 2017 Super Bowl commercial, the relationship between the black community and the police is greatly misrepresented. In the advertisement, officers look on to the crowd protesting, where several black people are present, with distaste; however, they do not act violently towards them. This is far from our reality, where it was found by studies from 2 million emergency calls that white officers dispatched to Black communities discharge their guns five times more than black officers do for similar calls in the same neighborhoods (What the Data Say About Police Brutality and Racial Bias — and Which Reforms Might Work, 2021). The discriminative violence that white police officers enact against black 22
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people and within black neighborhoods is a fact that is left out of a commercial where it seems the producers wanted to show off Pepsi’s great contribution to social justice. By acting like this reality does not exist, Pepsi trivializes the entire movement. This commercial also reveals Hollywood’s glamorization of protests. In reality, we’ve seen police in full riot gear using rubber bullets and tear gas bombs. During the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd, police were seen driving at protesters in SUVs, yanking masks of of individuals to pepper spray them in the face, and repeatedly firing rubber bullets into crowds (Gabbat, 2022). This completely contrasts the protests we are shown in Pepsi’s commercial. The protesters move freely and joyfully, some are even captured dancing, making the protest seem more like a celebration than a serious response to police brutality. No one wears a mask to hide their identity, in fact Kendall Jenner’s identity is shown off as the main character of the advertisement. Several individuals in the commercial hold peace signs intentionally painted in the color of Pepsi’s logo. This break from reality reveals just how out of touch corporations such as Pepsi are, as well as Hollywood production. The fact that this commercial was greenlit from every step of its production to its creation shows a lack of people of color in the corporate levels of Pepsi. The fact that the commercial was intentionally aired on the anniversary of MLK Jrs. assasination is just another example of Pepsi’s ignorance. When the commercial came out, there was immediately major outrage on
the internet and within a day, the commercial was taken down and Pepsi issued an apology. The disparity between public opinion and corporate approval shows just how lacking executive boards are of black people. Though there have been corporate initiatives to increase diversity in the workforce, these endeavors have not perforated the highest levels of corporations. According to a USA TODAY analysis, out of the 279 top executives listed at the 50 biggest companies in the S&P 100, only five are Black, and two of those five have retired (Schrotenboer, 2021). The executive level for many mega companies is still extremely exclusive, and extremely white.
VICTORIA Large corporations use white savior to try to exemplify peace when the initial issue is against another race. In doing this, it is showing that peace cannot be made by a different race other than white. By companies exemplifying white savior, it leads to stereotypes that no other race will have the same privileges or power. In the instagram post by nowhitesaviors, posted September 2nd, 2022, it discusses how we are all just humans and want different goals, desires, and have different beliefs which is okay to have. In today’s society large corporations have not been giving equal representation for those who are trying to make a change in the world. Commercials with white savior complex are doing a lot more harm than good. People like to make fun of other cultures stereotypes and this largely has to do with Eurocentric views. In this Tik Tok posted by Nazeem Hussain he is
interviewing people on stereotypes as people of that race or ethnicity are performing the stereotype. This is making the stereotyping process worse because it is causing people to think that stereotypes are real. By giving stereotypes a platform, even if it is for comedic purposes, it still puts the idea of them in peoples’ heads. The idea of stereotyping is an aspect of life that people should not have to go through and people, even if it is their own race’s stereotype, should not be making a spectacle of it. Exemplifying how a race may do something specific puts the next generations of that race into a category that they are going to be that way. In 1992 the Oprah Winfrey show had Jane Elliot on to talk about prejudiced views on people. Jane Elliot is a person who is trying to knock down prejudiced views by exposing others to them. In the Tik Tok posted by @ ollie_bubs, it is a video of Jane Elliot being prejudiced against white women. She is exemplifying that this is what happens to other races and ethnicities everyday. With the video of Jane Elliot trying to promote anti prejudice views, you can tell that many people are not a fan of her due to the amount of views that the Tik Tok received. This video only received 166 likes, which is next to nothing for a big platform like Tik Tok. This video compared to the other Tik Tok by Nazeem Hussain making fun of stereotypes got 605.2K likes. Social media is not helping the problem of getting rid of Eurocentric views, but promoting them. Women of color and non-white women have been experiencing hate for their body type and how they look.
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Mass spread Eurocentric views due to television, movies, commercials, social media, ect have put a negative effect on how these women see themselves. There was little to no representation for them before the last decade. There was only 3.7% of leads/ co-leads within the last decade for women of color. With this low of a statistic, eurocentric views have not been changed to see all beauty in all people. Women of color endure more prejudice for their bodies from white people. Without equal representation in our medias today, people are going to continue to get torn down for aspects of themselves that they can not change, nor should they be ashamed of.
HANNAH In Pepsi’s 2017 Super Bowl commercial, the relationship between the black community and the police is greatly misrepresented. In the advertisement, officers look on to the crowd protesting, where several black people are present, with distaste; however, they do not act violently towards them. This is far from our reality, where it was found by studies from 2 million emergency calls that white officers dispatched to Black communities discharge their guns five times more than black officers do for similar calls in the same neighborhoods (What the Data Say About Police Brutality and Racial Bias — and Which Reforms Might Work, 2021). The discriminative violence that white police officers enact against black people and within black neighborhoods is a fact that is left out of a commercial where it seems the producers wanted to show off Pepsi’s great contribution to social justice. By acting like this reality 24
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does not exist, Pepsi trivializes the entire movement. This commercial also reveals Hollywood’s glamorization of protests. In reality, we’ve seen police in full riot gear using rubber bullets and tear gas bombs. During the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd, police were seen driving at protesters in SUVs, yanking masks of of individuals to pepper spray them in the face, and repeatedly firing rubber bullets into crowds (Gabbat, 2022). This completely contrasts the protests we are shown in Pepsi’s commercial. The protesters move freely and joyfully, some are even captured dancing, making the protest seem more like a celebration than a serious response to police brutality. No one wears a mask to hide their identity, in fact Kendall Jenner’s identity is shown off as the main character of the advertisement. Several individuals in the commercial hold peace signs intentionally painted in the color of Pepsi’s logo. This break from reality reveals just how out of touch corporations such as Pepsi are, as well as Hollywood production. This commercial also reveals how companies will fake social awareness and activism to relate to the public. According to Harvard Research Review, “Research has shown that companies with effective Corporate Social Responsibility Programs are more profitable than those that aren’t” (Murphy, 2021). Companies know that they can profit off of social justice; however many do this without making any actual difference. They will sell virtue to progressives, while actively working against these movements through the people they choose to support, such as politicians against LGBTQ+ rights, or who
they choose to keep in places of power (We’re Entering the Age Of Corporate Social Justice, 2021). Their actions become very performative. An example of this is “Blackout Tuesday,” which started on June 2, 2022. Protesters online would post a black square in order to highlight voices in the black community and many businesses, such as Apple, Nordstrom, and more, participated. However; rather than making space for black voices to be heard, they were drowned out, and the posting of a black square became a preformative act for companies to show their “solidarity” (We’re Entering the Age Of Corporate Social Justice, 2021). The fact that this commercial was greenlit from every step of its production to its creation shows a lack of people of color in the corporate levels of Pepsi. The fact that the commercial was intentionally aired on the anniversary of MLK Jrs. assasination is just another example of Pepsi’s ignorance. When the commercial came out, there was immediately major outrage on the internet and within a day, the commercial was taken down and Pepsi issued an apology. The disparity between public opinion and corporate approval shows just how lacking executive boards are of black people. Though there have been corporate initiatives to increase diversity in the workforce, these endeavors have not perforated the highest levels of corporations. According to a USA TODAY analysis, out of the 279 top executives listed at the 50 biggest companies in the S&P 100, only five are Black, and two of those five have retired (Schrotenboer, 2021). The executive level for many mega companies is still extremely exclusive, and extremely white.
CONCLUSION Pepsi’s “Live for Now,” commercial reveals social and racial issues going much deeper than the advertisement originally intended. After the public’s immediate outrage in reaction to the ad, Pepsi issued an apology stating, “Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace, and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize. We are pulling the content and halting any further rollout. We apologize for putting Kendall Jenner in this position” (citation). In theme with Pepsi’s political ignorance, no apology is given to the protesters the commercial infantilizes or the movements, intentionally represented, that are trivialized.
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RESEARCH PROPOSAL After synthesizing secondary resources regarding our prompt, we formulated a research plan that would support our design goal in an efficient and meaningful way.
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Define CHASE
ABBY
Journey Maps
Hero’s Journey
Plotting the path users take within certain experiences.
A narrative arc format that validates ideas and provides opportunities for audience to identify with the struggles of the hero and the journey.
Benchmark Analysis
Emancipatory Research
A measure of your baseline to help track how well your design and functionality affect the user experience.
Research thats main objective is for emancipation and social justice, to correct the power imbalance in design research.
VICTORIA
HANNAH
Experience Simulation
Competitive Analysis
Engaging people in simulated experiences to understand what matters to them.
Understanding what already exists that might compare or be similar to your work (i.e. competitors).
Focus Groups
Guided Interviews
A group of people assembled to participate in a guided discussion about a particular topic to provide feedback on their attitudes, opinions, and/or beliefs.
One-on-one conversations where you guide the user through a set of predefined questions, in addition to follow up questions to clarify any points.
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Journey Map
Bechmark Analysis 28
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Benchmark Analysis
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Hero’s Journey
Empancipatory Research 30
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Experience Simulation
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Competitive Analysis
Competitive Analysis 32
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Competitive Analysis
Guided Interviews D EC 202 2 | R AC IS M U NTAUGHT
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Guided Interviews
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THEMES Following our research plan, we were able to learn and understand more about our design goal as well as finding common themes in our research.
Companies create ad campaigns for social causes which can fall short if action is not taken towards solving the problem and if the company focuses only on profit.
There are many points in the design process which should be open for reflection and healthy discussion.
Designers, social media users, and people know when a company is not being authetnic and true when fighting for a necessary cause.
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IDEATE Among many possible deliverables, we chose designing a website, newsletter, coloring book, and zine. Though each are different mediums, they all target the same design goal.
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Ideate
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QUADRANT MAP To help evaluate our ideas, we used a quadrant map with the x-axis considering intent to impact, and the y-axis measuring oppressive thought to anti-oppressive action.
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Ideate OPPRESSIVE THOUGHT
INTENT
IMPACT
ANTI-OPPRESSIVE ACTION
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LOW-MID FIDELITY When designing my final deliverable, I went through multiple iterations and layouts that could bring my design to light and achieve our design goal.
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Prototype
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Prototype
HERO
PLEDGE
DEFINITION 1
SUPPORT
DEFINITION 2
SHARE YOUR WORK
MISSION
FOOTER
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STYLE GUIDE After finalizing on a direction from my mid-fidelity designs, a style guide was made to make the final product more compelling, eye-catching, and meaningful.
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Prototype TYPOGRAPHY Montserrat Bold Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz 1 2 34567890!@#$%^&*()+The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Montserrat Regular Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz 1 2 3 4 5 67890!@#$%^&*()+The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
COLOR PALETTE
#F6511D
#FFB400
#00A6ED
#FAFAFA
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IMPACT Once a high-fidelity prototype was created, it was important that we measured what design impact we had left on emerging designers in the community.
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CHASE
ABBY
Pledge
Entry and Exit Surveys
A commitment by a person or organization by a solemn promise or undertaking.
An evaluation used to collect data to ensure an efficient and unbiased sampling method.
Focus Groups
Continuous Education
A group of people assembled to participate in a guided discussion about a particular topic to provide feedback on their attitudes, opinions, and/or beliefs.
Information for learning opportunities provided for adults after they have left the formal education system.
VICTORIA
HANNAH
Continuous Education
Mission Statement
Information for learning opportunities provided for adults after they have left the formal education system.
a short formal summary of the values of a company, organization, or individual.
Innovation Brief
Listening Sessions
Making the vision for change offerings understandable for all stakeholders.
Similar to a focus group, this is a type of facilitated discussion with a group of people aimed at collecting information about their experience and/ or experimential knowledge.
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REFLECTION As a digital product designer, this was different than what I am normally used to. Though the final product and prompt was out of the norm, the design process was similar to how I work in my career. Not only did I follow a familiar design process, but I also applied this design process to a cause that could have leave a strong social impact for the community. By leaving a strong social impact, hopefully emerging designers can learn and understand to be inclusive and open-minded designers. Some things that I wish I could have done differently include: choosing an additional font to be the body copy, possibly creating a logo for the manifesto website, and exploring a different aesthetic for the website.
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