Jax Wechsler

Co-design and Power Talks and Resources

Codesign and power event flyer

Social Design Sydney hosted a powerful conversation about Co-Design and Power on August 11 with with 3 eminent Co-design practitioners, Dana Shen, Morgan Lee Cataldo and Kelly Ann McKercher.

The videos from the event can be found here.

Below are some resources about this very important topic!

If We Want Design to be a Tool for Liberation, We’ll Need More Than Good Intentions by Design Justice Network

Design practices too often support systems of oppression, but we can change that.

Many of us who work in design professions seek to balance a desire to contribute to the creation of a better world with the need to make a living in increasingly precarious times. As the current crises around COVID-19 and racial injustice unfold against a backdrop of ecological collapse, unchecked wealth inequality, and the politics of patriarchy, racism, ableism, and xenophobia, designers feel called to do their part. We want to contribute our skills to projects of positive social transformation. 

It’s not just right now—there’s a long history of designers attempting to use design as a force for good. Some of us adopt a “do no harm” policy against working on projects or with clients who are particularly problematic. Others contribute occasional pro-bono time to design for nonprofits or community-based organizations. By now, social impact design, inclusive design, participatory design, human-centered design, and co-design are familiar terms.

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A Social Designer’s Field Guide to Power Literacy by KENNISLAD

Are you ready to create a more socially just practice? Design researcher and facilitator Maya Goodwill created ‘A Social Designer’s Field Guide to Power Literacy’ in collaboration with Kennisland. The aim of the field guide is to help designers, researchers and facilitators develop power literacy. This includes building up your awareness of, sensitivity to and understanding of the impact of power and systemic oppression in participatory processes. The field guide will help you gain a holistic understanding of power, while examining the role you play in reproducing inequity – however unintentional – and what you can do to change this.

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Co-design in Aotearoa New Zealand: a snapshot of the
literature by Dr Simon Mark and Dr. Penny Hagen

Co-design refers to a philosophical approach and evolving set of methodologies for involving people in the design of the services, strategies, environments, policies, processes, – that impact them. This review gathers together readily available local scholarship and literature about co-design in Aotearoa New Zealand up to September 2019. This document is aimed at the practitioners as much as academics and is more a snapshot than a formal academic literature review.

Its aim is to:

• create a resource to support groups and individuals working in, or commissioning, co-design

• make visible for those practising or commissioning co-design in Aotearoa New Zealand the current landscape of formal scholarship and research in this space

• provide a benchmark of current research applying to, or about, co-design, highlighting areas for future scholarship and collaboration. As more literature is identified it can be added to this initial review. 

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Beyond Sticky Notes by Kelly Ann McKercher

Co-design is a transformative, community-centred design method which is much discussed – yet rarely practised authentically. Beyond Sticky Notes teaches you what co-design is and how to do it. Packed full of useful tips, clear diagrams, and practical frameworks, this book will help you lead collaborative design work, and genuinely share power.

A useful book for new and experienced practitioners alike, Beyond Sticky Notes is a definitive guide to the mindsets, methods, and social movements of co-design.

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Design Education’s Big Gap: Understanding the Role of Power by George Aye

Conventional design education believes that by training the mind and the hand, a designer can solve just about any problem. In many ways, this works beautifully. Designers leave their schooling prepared to work for commercial clients with business problems that need solving. But the design industry is changing, and a growing number of designers (graphic and communication, industrial, UX and UI, architects, urban planners, and service designers to name a few) are working on social issues with greater and greater complexity.

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Shifting the Powerplay in Co-design by Lauren Weinstein

Design’s collective responsibility and the possibilities to shift the power balance.

Social innovation is inescapably intertwined with power. However, in practice, power is not always or often discussed.

Recently, others have noticed this power unconsciousness too and have been offering provocations about the role of power in co-design: who holds itwhat dynamics are at play in co-production, and the lack of education about power in design curricula.

Acknowledging there is a lack of nuanced understanding of the role of power in co-design is an essential growth step for the sector. This acknowledgment also begs more questions: what does that awareness mean for our practice? How can we increase our understanding of the implications of power within co-design work? How might we design projects to take power into account and fundamentally shift power imbalances?

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