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newsletter quarterly bulletin of the International Council of Design |
December 2024 | |||||||||||||
01
International Design Day 2025 theme announcementOptimism feels unfamiliar—an outlandish way to be thinking right now. How dare we be optimistic in this time of ecological crisis, war, greed and looming garbage? Wouldn’t pessimism and doomed-thinking be a more ethical and sustainable approach to all the looming stuff? The thing is, having an optimistic mindset has been proven to fuel positive outcomes. Optimism helps in human longevity, it creates a sense of wonder and re-enchantment with the world, and it stimulates a capacity to carry out concrete actions for change. As such, we hope to provoke something daring: what if designers embraced Outlandish Optimism (OO) as a speculative, wily attitude and radical design method? |
02
Books on designThe authors of the book Discursive Design: Critical, Speculative, and Alternative Things (MIT Press 2018) Bruce M. Tharp and Stephanie M. Tharp theorise the practice of design by developing a discourse-through-design: “to take an anthropological gaze and seek an understanding of its artefacts beyond basic form and utility.” In their framing, “discursive” is a genus, and a home, for various species of design like speculative and critical design. Focused less on how things are designed, and more on why things get designed, renowned designers and artists worldwide weigh in on this discursive conversation not without disagreements, underlining how design is sometimes about being a provocation to think differently. Bruce M. Tharp was a keynote speaker at the TASA-ICoD Evolving Design Education Curriculum meeting in Qingdao this October.
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03
AI and ethics"Your Friend and their memories are attached to the physical device," says the design team of the upcoming Friend AI necklace companion, which will be supported by iOS devices in 2025. Apparently, all memories stored by this always-listening friend are deletable with a click. Not unlike many machine learning apps designed to be responsive to data sets that accumulate knowledge particular to each user, designers are banking on a human need for a consistent, if not accountability-free relationship. Is an AI 'friend' really capable of understanding the nuances of your emotional life or will Friend be just superficial but also no-fuss?
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04
ICoD Executive Board 2024-2026We are pleased to announce that our Members have elected a new Executive Board for the 2024-2026 term. The General Assembly of our Members gathered for the 30th time in our history on 19 October in Qingdao (China), hosted by Member Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University. They have elected the Executive Board made up of three members of the current ICoD Board and two new members. The Board is composed of representatives from four countries, representing Educational, Professional and Promotional Members. The Executive Board of the International Council of Design serves a term of two years. |
05
Code of ConductWe are thrilled to announce ICoD Code of Conduct for professional designers has been translated into Portuguese! The Editorial Team was composed of Emanuel Barbosa, professor of design at ESAD - College of Arts and Design (Porto), with whom we co-created an ICoD Regional Meeting in Matsosinhos (Portgual) in 2019; and João Lemos and Margarida Azevedo (PhD, designers and design educators for more that 30 years); as well as Tiago Machado, PhD, and Professor in Persuasive Design at the University of Lisbon. The Portuguese translation of the Code is the seventh translation, and a very exciting addition to our roster.
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06
ICoD AwardsOn 18 October 2024 in Qingdao (China) on the occasion of the 30th General Assembly of our Members hosted by Member Tsinghua University, the 2024 President's Award, 2024 ICoD Achievement Awards, and 2024 ICoD Education Awards were presented.
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07
New MemberICoD is pleased to welcome the College of Design and Innovation (D&I) at Tongji University (China), a college focused on smart, sustainable design for industrial transformation and future living and serving at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The motto of D&I is: “to learn and create, for a meaningful life and a better world”. D&I has developed a 3-dimensional, T-shaped educational framework, based on the prevailing undergraduate-master’s- doctoral degree system, to better explore possible approaches to cultivating design innovation talent. |
08
TASA-ICoD Conference recapThe TASA-ICoD International conference on Evolving Design Education Conference 2024 Qingdao (China) was a collaboration between the International Council of Design and Tsinghua University to address the need for design education curriculum reform and enhance interaction between Chinese and international designers and design educators. It was co-directed by Prof. Chao Zhao and David Grossman and gathered Members for a series of roundtable discussions on the TASA-ICoD International Design Education Laboratory Summer Session outcomes with a focus on current challenges faced by Chinese design education curriculum. |
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09
Sustainable design“Design as we know it is doomed,” states Sarah Housley of Dezeen. The good news is, designers have a choice: “to radically reorient, or continue to be complicit in the triple planetary crisis.” A key approach will be teaching students to develop skills of transition and transformation. This means decentering the creation of new stuff, and focusing on methodologies of redesign and reuse, solving the challenges of circular systems, and taking on methodologies of subtraction and maintenance (as an example, the concept of “smart subtraction” will even impact the colours we choose—or unchoose—for our designs!) In a larger sense, radical reorientation is about expanding design knowledge to include the mindset of an ethnographer, historian or archivist, and the eco-anxiety of “doomed design” that haunts not just future students, but designers working now, suggests taking the exciting pathway of lifelong learning collectively, and across many generations to come ... |
10
Secretariat holiday breakPlease note that the ICoD Secretariat will be closed for holidays from 20 December 2024 to 06 January 2025. Wishing all Members and the design community peace and good health during this period. Looking forward to collaborating with you again in 2025! |
11
AI and designA warning label on social media, not unlike those placed on tobacco products, could be a meaningful design intervention, according to Fast Company. The problem is, social media sites, and their algorithms, are infinitely more complex than simple product packaging. This article shows what a surgeon’s general warning actually looks like when applied to social platforms — badges that facilitate newness and avoid repetition, but most of all, ways of interrupting users from moments of mindless scrolling. The warnings are designed to promote down time not doom scrolling, with no fine print, and using the classic globe graphic of nuclear war symbols. It seems playful and friendly in its design approach, but will it be enough? |
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The International Council of Design |
ICoD Secretariat: Phone: +1 514 875 7545 Email: info@theicod.org theicod.org |
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