“Design can change the world” - I think this is a stupid and unthoughtful expression. Of course design can change the world; it continually does, and always has done. When we look at the seemingly insignificant things we design- adverts, branding, new juice squeezers, we can see that they have a small pinprick pushing us towards something. All building up into a massive change- The iphone changed the world (the way we experience cities, our social life etc), but its just a phone! The problem here is not that design doesn’t make change it is that we continually design, and change the world for the worse – in a way that a certain group of people visualise the future.

I think a better phrase would be “Design continually changes the world- so make sure it’s good.”

-I found this little rant in a ‘sticky note’ somewhere in the depths of my HDD- I’m not sure when I wrote it but it seemed to make sense next to the poster.

(Poster by Connie Butler)