Your Role in the Community as a Social Designer
Community is at the heart of social design. The best social designers understand that the most prevalent social issues society faces are issues that can be solved within the community. Here is a guide detailing the role you play within your community as a social designer as well as the specific qualities you need for success.
Photo by Mike Erskine on Unsplash
Social Designers are Community Activists.
Social Designers are artists and designers using their skills to create positive social impact. They are technically skilled in an art medium and have extensive design skills. They know how to create visual art raising awareness for social causes, and they know how to design efficient ways to communicate these complex issues in a way that is understood.
Social Designers understand two principles: ideas come from the bottom, not the top, and questions are more important than answers. This is not a field for those who prefer to work by themselves. They instead seek to be active members within their communities, asking the important questions with ambiguous answers, and using design to clarify and communicate these answers. Social Designers are creative directors of community engagement. They seek to use their work to discuss important social issues. They let the art do the talking.
Social Designers are Conversation-Starters.
Social Design goes deeper than performance art or activism. As a field, social design sits at the intersection of art, design, and politics. Social Designers must be politically-educated. We don’t create work with the purpose of creating an echo chamber around social issues. Social Designers instead seek to reframe these issues within a framework designed to evoke a solution. Design reframes the issue and art makes the new perception sticky.
The first step is to understand the social issue at hand. Most Social Designers have a specific set of issues they are passionate about and choose to advocate for. Once you understand the social issue, you gather different perspectives from within the community. This comes from networking with nonprofits, affected community members, government leaders, and other activists within the community.
Consider these perspectives and discover what the underlying fundamental issue is within the community. Then use design to communicate these issues effectively, and use art to evoke the emotions. Social Designers are conversation starters because they use their skills to introduce new narratives of common social problems with the intent of starting a dialogue for change.
Photo by Kylan Stephon Hayes at Powered by Verity
Practically speaking, Social Designers are visual communicators.
Social Designers are visual communicators with a highly specialized skillset. Practically speaking, here is what a Social Designer’s work encapsulates on a day-to-day basis:
Creating infographics educating communities about specific social issues
Creating artwork for a nonprofit highlighting a specific social cause to help boost fundraising
Consulting with a nonprofit leader on how to communicate a complex social issue to students in a way that is easily understood
Organizing a political forum within your local community and facilitating the process
Creative Directing an art exhibit within your community about a social cause
Partnering with a nonprofit to create a marketing campaign to boost fundraising
Designing flyers promoting a government leader’s plan to solve a social issues
Social Designers play a very diverse role, but community is always at the heart.
Consider yourself the creative director of community engagement and collaboration. As you continue to network and build experience, you may choose to narrow your focus to a specific role. Some Social Designers prefer to play the role of graphic designer. Others prefer to play the role of artist, creative director, curator, consultant, and more. Social Design is a newly emergent field with many opportunities for artists and designers to not just be creatives, but changemakers. When words fail and politics divides, social designers know how to build bridges and let the art do the talking.
Social Design is the Future
Here at the Powered by Verity School of Social Design, we look forward to leading education on this emering field. We are excited to turn creators into changemakers. Let’s let the art do the talking.
