Designing Community
I was recently asked to speak about campaign management at a Stanford conference aimed at inspiring students to come up with new sustainable business ideas that instill lasting behavioral shifts.
I was asked to speak because during the summer leading up to Barack Obama’s election, I started an online poster collective that connected hundreds of designers and aggregated about 400 posters in support of Obama’s candidacy. Thanks to Taschen books, Spike Lee, and Steven Heller, the best 200 posters of our collection were compiled into a book, Design for Obama – Posters for Change: A Grassroots Anthology, which was released on the anniversary of Obama’s election and is now on sale at book stores around the world. The surprising success of the project illustrates what a group of passionate and talented people can achieve together and it was an amazing experience.
Design for Obama happened to be the right idea at the right time. The will, eagerness, energy and talent of the designers already existed, I simply housed the community by providing the ability to share their work. The sense of belonging and common purpose was exhilarating and propelled us all forward. I have experienced the same feeling of communal empowerment in creative energy twice before, and it was no accident that I found it again.
I went to a public, performing arts magnet high school in Los Angeles. It was there that I was first surrounded by passionate people not simply enjoying, but living for what they were doing. When I made the somewhat rash decision to pursue graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design (never having studied art previously), I found the same sense of belonging in a new art-form with a different group of people.
“Design for Obama happened to be the right idea at the right time”
Since graduating from RISD I have been looking for ways in which to manifest similar conditions and build new creative communities. The level of conversation in a community like this is not unintelligent, reactionary or fearful ; they are philanthropic, innovative and imaginary.
At the Stanford Conference I began to notice a common theme in the questions I was hearing and discussions I was having. Everyone was coming up with ideas to collectively solve social problems but everyone was stuck at the same barrier: how to engage a group of people in a more meaningful way than voting or sharing or buying, etc.
I sat there getting giddier and giddier. I had the answer to everyone’s question. I had seen the types of communities they strove to build and energy they wanted to cultivate. Creative engagement is the key. If you can construct, grow and mobilize a community that reinforces and awards some form of creative expression and/or active engagement, then you will have created a vehicle that will create new things, ideas and solutions.
Since graduating and publishing Design for Obama, I have started a design studio with Tino Chow called Big New Ideas. We have setup shop and are growing a talented team that is helping us design businesses, non-profits, campaigns and events for entrepreneurs, activists and crazy people. We are also working on a number of our own big new ideas, like this publication for one.
Stay tuned, I’ll be moving out to San Francisco this Spring and setting up the West Coast branch of Big New Ideas.
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