Further Reading/ Watchcing/ Listening/ Browsing
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie warned us of the dangers of a singular narrative, and we wouldn’t want you to make ethical decisions based on just what you saw here. To drive the conversation along multiple tangents, we have compiled a diverse list of resources, available freely on the internet, to drive the conversation on ethics in and beyond design practice.
BOOKS
Design Struggles
Intersecting Histories, Pedagogies, and Perspectives Valiz, 2021
Design Struggles critically assesses the ways in which the design field is involved in creating, perpetuating, promoting and reinforcing injustice and inequality in social, political, economic, cultural and ecological systems. This book shows how this entanglement arose from Eurocentric and neoliberal thinking. The voices and practices represented here propose to question and disrupt the discipline of design from within, by problematizing the very notions of design. They aim to do so by generating new, anti-racist, post-capitalist, queer-feminist, environmentally conscious and community-based ideas on how to transform design.
Design Justice
Sasha Costanza-Chock
MIT Press, 2020
An exploration of how design might be led by marginalized communities, dismantle structural inequality, and advance collective liberation and ecological survival.
What is the relationship between design, power, and social justice? “Design justice” is an approach to design that is led by marginalized communities and that aims expilcitly to challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities. It has emerged from a growing community of designers in various fields who work closely with social movements and community-based organizations around the world.
Decolonizing Reader
Ramon Tejada (Ed.) + Collaborators, Ongoing Document
This reader is an attempt to gather materials to begin the process of puncturing and making design narratives inclusive. It is about reading, engaging and learning with others and from others.
It is far from complete, actually, it will never be finished. We have so much to read and consider to expand design.
ALSO SEE: OUR EXTENDED READING LIST︎︎︎
PEOPLE & BLOGS
MIKE MONTEIRO ︎︎︎
Designer
Mike Monteiro is the co-founder and design director of Mule Design. He prefers that designers have strong spines. Mike writes and speaks frequently about the craft, ethics, and business of design.
TED HUNT ︎︎︎
Speculative Designer / Academic
Ted Hunt is an independent critical designer living and working in London who designs for the complex and troubled people we are rather than the easily satisfied users and consumers we are supposed to be.
Designer / Academic
Lesley Ann Noel teaches design thinking courses for the Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship. She is the creator of the critical alphabet︎︎︎ a reflective tool to evaluate the social impact of design.
ARTICLES
DO YOU WANT TYPOGRAPHY OR DO YOU WANT THE TRUTH ︎︎︎
Erik Carter for The Gradient
Eric Carter shares a sardonic yet piercing critique of the current state of design, social media, design heroes, and design activism.
BEING GOOD︎︎︎
Lucienne Roberts for EYE Magazine
Lucienne Roberts talks about ethics with various practitioners, bringing in a diverse collection of reflections on the moral, cultural, and material implications of our practice.
