Design 21: Social Design Network

the empathy method has just been launched. This is my current project, which involves design, art, and theory within a socially conscious mindset. It's expected to be a space of vast collaboration and participation, so please comment and pass it on!

I was browsing through Core77 magazine, and found the London Design Festival 2008 image gallery, which I think had many fantastic examples of innovative, engaging and effective design. I especially enjoyed Designersblock, at the Piazza in Covent Garden, with three floors of industrial, communication, fashion, audio and visual design.

One of my favorites was an italian designer duo that would show you how to make gnocchi. The project in itself was in a way, socially engaged, because it would allow the participant to socialise with others. There were numerous examples of effective design as well.

I encourage those who couldn't attend to browse through the gallery. There are several great examples of good design, with a social conscience, like for example, the korean designers exhibition, in Designersblock.

I begin an engagement with a community which has, in few moments, inspired me enough to write this entry. This is also an opportunity to crack the egg, to submerge from a four-month hiatus in which I've been too afraid to write, to talk, to even think, although I have to admit that the latter one has been the one I've been less afraid of.

In beginning a process of recognition of valuable time wasted, or, from another less self-tortured perspective, from a most deserved break after the completion of a degree sought out with "blood, sweat and tears", I find myself to be idle, to be in a state of non-responsiveness to my own practice. In more simple words, I haven't conceived or even participated in a design project recently. Should I be worried of getting "rusty"? Should I keep on being paralyzed until the opportunity comes? Should I get out of this closet-room and engage in whatever task comes handy? I'm inclining towards the latter.

Even so, I have to admit that my last project was thought out to be a "failure". I was probably the only one who thought this. And why would that be? Because I forgot about the importance of the process within the work. I didn't listen to the work. I didn't understand if it was an art project or design project, I had these categories straight in my head (and backed up by my education and my professional experience) but in these past couple of months I've started to doubt so much. I'm hoping it's "Cezanne's d...