Designing for Social Change : Strategies for Community-Based Graphic Design

Some call it design for the greater good. Others call it social design. Whatever you call it, it's clear that an altruistic impulse is on the rise in the design community. The latest addition to our Design Briefs series, Designing for Social Change, is a compact, hands-on primer for graphic designers who want to use their unique problem-solving skills to help others. Author Andrew Shea presents ten proven strategies for working effectively with community organizations. These strategies can frame the design challenge and create a checklist to keep a project on track. Twenty case studies illustrate how design professionals and students approach unique challenges when working on a social agenda.

This essential guide provides design educators with a valuable teaching resource and professionals with a set of tools to use in their practice. A chapter on grassroots funding solutions can aid designers as they take on their own projects.

Andrew Shea is a graphic designer and writer. He has taught graphic design at Maryland Institute College of Art, Fordham University, and Parsons The New School for Design, and his writing has appeared on Design Observer, Designer's Review
of Books, and Core77.