Last night I attended Practivism, a series of design lectures, presented by Graphic Design of Canada. The three speakers Antionette Carroll, Parker McLean, and Sam Holleran focused their presentations on the future of design, social design, and its role in creating inclusivity to the wider community.
The most inspiring presentation, for me, was Antoinette Carroll who spoke about the role of design in social enterprise and using immersive creative challenges to educate, convene, and support civically-minded community members to design better cities through human rights and equity lenses. It really resonated with me as she spoke about creativity as a process that everyone understands and can connect with, it is a great way of breaking down barriers and bridging the divide between diverse people. She talked greatly around the idea of Failure as a way to succeed and the importance of recognizing others failures as an opportunity to grow and succeed both in the design world and in the communities that we engage with every day.
Design should work to facilitate and grow people, to create conversation, and help make us better.
Parker McLean and Sam Holleran also had very interesting perspectives on what human centric design is. Parker really focused on the future of online design and crafting human-centered design systems that are intuitive to the user. While Sam had the lens of urban design and how it brings communities together.
I was really interested by this idea that our cities and communal spaces should be designed to help facilitate conversations and to help break down cultural barriers. The key takeaway from the night was that the future of all types of design lies in the understanding of people and human connections, and that failure can be and should be an integral part of the design process, allowing ones self to play, explore, learn and ultimately grow.
http://www.practivism.ca/