Designism 3.0 was the third installment of the annual event hosted by the Art Directors Club in New York City on October 2, 2008. The event series was conceived by Brian Collins, the brand-building mastermind formerly of Ogilvy BIG and now COLLINS, as a forum to highlight and address design for social action. It's worth noting that Collins was the architect behind the We Can Solve It brand for Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection.
Last year's event caused a small tremor in the design community as Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff called into question the intentions and validity of many of the participating designers' claims. His perspective, at the same time brutal and refreshing, was that everyone uses design as a disruptive force (including advertisers), so the real way to be disruptive is to not design.
What this third installment lacked in controversy it made up for with verification and opportunity. Verification that the design community is not only deeply interested in the idea of design for social change, but also that a number of designers are turning this interest into action in various innovative ways. Designism 3.0 was, in short, about results.
Allan Chochinov, a founder of the design super-site Core77 began by jokingly stating he was "a fan of Designism when it was in beta." Chochinov was billed as delivering a manifesto for designism. Injected with humor, he offered up five things Designism designers must do:
- Use the word "consequence"
- Acknowledge privlege
- Te...
