AIGA would like to invite you to the forty-eighth AIGA Experience Design London meeting, where they will be taking up the debate started by Hilary winning designer of the year.

Does design have a role in implementing social policy and addressing political challenges? From recycling and obesity to voting and citizenship, from education and healthcare to crime and punishment, initiatives are underway.

In the US the AIGA has lead the development of the Design for Democracy campaign, which is now extending its remit beyond re-designing the US voting system. In the UK the Design Council established its RED unit to 'challenge accepted thinking on economic and social issues through design innovation'. It worked with leading UK thinktank ippr on the 'Touching the State' project, which asked: Can design enhance the experience of state-citizen encounters?, and, most recently, RED director Hilary Cottam won the Design Museum's Designer of the Year award for her team's work on the Kingsdale School project.

Do design methods and ways of thinking offer new approaches to social and political questions or is this naive hubris? Are designers' user-centric models what are needed for an increasingly complex society, or are designers just the latest creatives to be flattered by New Labour's embrace? Please come and join the debate.

When: Monday 11 July, 6:30 for 7 PM (until 9:00 PM)
Where: The Design Council, 34 Bow Street, London WC2E 7DL

Panel debate: Design and Social Policy
-- This will be a very informal event. Panelists will be invited to present their perspectives, and we will quickly open out the debate to the floor. The panelists will be:
- Richard Eisermann, Director - Design & Innovation, Design Council
- James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation, De Montfort University
- Ben Rogers, Associate Director/Head of the Democracy team, ippr

Full biographies, and notes from the last event, can be found here

RSVP: Mail AIGA to reserve a place. Note this is an independant event and is not organised by the Design Council.

CATEGORY: EVENTS