chicken, egg

30 January, 2012 -
Design Thinking -
Tags : cause, effect, essence
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Visual communication is one of a few canaries in the coal mine of social change, but I’ve never been one to believe that it brings about social change. But having watched the Arab Spring and Occupy protests spring up around the planet, I begin to wonder how cut-and-dried that thought is.

We see ideas spring up as a result to broad circumstance, which are then visually interpreted ad hoc. That initial communication is done both with and without design—as some designers, naturally curious about new ideas, are involved in the movements.

But then, it turns into a chicken-or-the-egg conversation.

Does design only give a concrete way to see at a pre-formed idea, or is it also the inverse: that design helps to form the structure of the idea, because now it can be seen?