Week 4 wrap-up: Design and Community

This week we asked the question, “What does it mean to be a graphic designer who works outside of a commercial context?”

We looked at work and ideas from Rural Studio and Project M. We Skyped in Maria and Jack from the Epicenter to talk about doing design work with a community. We read the First Things First manifestos from 1964 and 2000, and some of you wrote your own design manifestos. We went to visit the Studio H exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Craft and received an excellent tour from curator Namita Wiggers. (Thanks Namita!)

All in all, I think we had an excellent week!

As I said at the beginning of the week, I don’t intend to bash advertising or commercial work. Those things are a very powerful part of our culture and a large part of what we do as designers. The intention of this week’s topic was simply to expose us all to new ideas about what it means to be a graphic designer. Did you learn about new models of working? Do you look at your own creative practice in a different light?

The topic of community will come up a lot as we move into our next two weeks on design and cities and design and good. Thanks for a great week, everyone!

Photo above from Project M project Plot 63.