Does Design Inform Social Policy?

AIGA London's last event was about design and social policy, - a pannel debate with Richard Eisermann, Director – Design & Innovation, Design Council, James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation, De Montfort University, and Ben Rogers, Associate Director/Head of the Democracy team, ippr, chaired by Nico Macdonald, chair of AIGA London.

It was a very inspiring discussion to me as I have never thought of that design could have a role in implementing social policies and political challenges; design methods and way of thinking may offer a new approach to social and political questions. In the US, AIGA's project has had led to re-designing the voting system, but it's impossible in China at the moment. This idea probably is very innovative to Chinese designers and it's still in debate of if it's just naive hubris even in Britain. However, I agree that designers need to think about what are needed in a increasingly compex sociaty. And in terms of China, perhaps the first thing to do is to participate in the e-government compaign that the Chinese government is currently promoting for the digital Olympics!

The event was very successful and well organised in my mind, though David Wilcox may not agree with me ( see his post: Even meetings about design need a designer about the event), at least it inspired David, Ann Light, Kathryn Best and me to do a design salon together. It will certainly be another very intersting place for designers! We will also have a discussion at next year's HCI conference which will be held in Queen Mary University, - also the venue provider for the Salon. I will update information about the Salon here.

Louise Ferguson's reflection on the Design and Social Policy discussion, ‘Who designs if not designers?’ and Ann Light's report can also give you the full story of the AIGA London event.