One of the two electronic billboards used in the project. Image: Duarte Carrilho da Graça

Context:
Type ‘London’ ‘Social’ ‘Policy’ into a news search these days and you are likely to find articles on the rising cost of living, increasing multimillion-pound apartments continuing to sell to the mega-rich, and the bedroom tax which has increased taxation of some of the poorest of London’s residents. It is not uncommon to read headlines such as “ The reconfiguration of London is akin to social cleansing”. At the same time people continue to relocate to the city, more infact than those leaving. London is Changing is one project which explores the role design can play in understanding this context.

The project brought together two aspects of Rebecca Ross’ practice; firstly an opportunity she was afforded to access 2 digital billboards in central London, compensation for work Rebecca completed for the billboard company. And secondly her separate involvement in public consultation on urban planning in London, a process she reflected was frustratingly “un-public facing”. She explains, “…I was pursuing the possibilities of this medium at the same time that I was exploring existing forms of public conversation about the future London and then two and two came together.”

One of the two electronic billboards used in the project. Image: Duarte Carrilho da Graça

The intention of the project was to use design to engage with the public on changes that were taking place in London, and in the rhetoric that surrounds these changes. Rebecca explains:

Recent changes to the welfare state here are (deliberately) pouring fuel on the fire of a class war. Unjust policies are being authored and implemented by a wealthy elite conservative government. These policies have a more severe impact on the poorest members of society… but they also impact the middle class… It gets especially divisive when bones are tossed to those of us who are more middle class, such as through policies such as help to buy… to keep the chattering class as allies and from being too outspoken. It is difficult for most people to see the aggregate picture of what is going on. Our fates are all connected though and this is all too often under-emphasised or even hidden. I am not an expert on economics or policy but what I pay close attention to is how easy it is in the contemporary climate for policies that benefit the few at the expense of the many to be either packaged as something else or buried in over-complicated rhetoric. I think design has a large part to play in engaging with this condition.

Main page londonischanging.org

Process:
The project consisted of a web platform through which contributors who were either relocating from, or to London, wrote why they moved and how they felt about it. Messages were then selected by the team whose aim was to gather a range of opinions. In late February and March of 2015 two electronic billboards in Central London began featuring the selected quotes.

Web form: londonischanging.org

The billboards and the web platform were paired down and functional to the point where there was little else but the voice of the writer. This aesthetic meant that each voice was presented equally, as opposed to the ‘loudest’ being heard. The billboards we electronic, meaning they scrolled through multiple messages in space of a minute and could be changed from one day to the next. As different opinions went up they appeared to answer on another — a public dialogue of sorts.

The medium:
The billboard medium is not neutral. It is at the same time ‘public’ — its success depending largely on its visibility in the public domain — and yet monopolised by, and largely synonymous with, commercial interests. Their monumental presence on public space is unmatched by posters or traditional print media communication and these new electronic billboards are more dynamic than ever before, scrolling through multiple messages over time. In the case of London is Changing this meant the texts were seen for about 15 seconds of every minute, placed between conventional advertising campaigns from corporations like Cadbury’s and Facebook. The minimalism of the LIC billboards cut through the slick noise of the conventional corporate advertising, meaning that as well as the being part of the project dialogue they might also viewed in the context of public advertising itself. Imagine, for example, a text like, “What creativity can there be when only money can buy your next opportunity?” followed by a Britain is Good for Business campaign.

One of the two electronic billboards used in the project. Image: Duarte Carrilho da Graça

Participation:
5000 people contributed towards LIC, the greatest number of which were people leaving the city, feeling ‘priced out’ and unable to live with increasing living costs. However, as Rebecca has pointed out, London’s population is actually increasing, not decreasing. One aspect of this is the way in which the project relied on local networks to gather contributors. People leaving a city are more likely to be accessing these networks than new movers or lower paid economic migrants. Reflecting on the context of the projects and the role design plays in engaging with this complexity, Rebecca suggested that another time she would reconsider the medium, for example by ‘situating something in bus shelters next as this could be more heterogeneously accessible in a city such as London.’

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Neither complexity nor over simplification alone moves people towards informed understanding multifaceted issues. What design can do is to engage us and show us a way in, helping us to navigate through an issue, presented from different angles, in order to form become more informed. London is Changing stands as an example of how design can engage with and begin to communicate the conflicts and contradictions that form a fuller picture of what is going on.

Back in March 2014, a Indian-American teen claimed, to great media fanfare, that the US government could save ink and therefore resources and money by switching typefaces. What seemed a rather clever suggestion on the surface was quickly shot down by the type design community, and though we can commend a 14 year old boy for having his ideas and heart in the right place, the professionals, it turns out, had a point. It also turned out that this was neither the first time anyone had thought about typefaces and ink consumption, nor was this the first time someone had meticulously studied the differences between typefaces with respect to this issue.

The responses and critique however were largely aimed at shooting down the idea and touched less on what we as designers are doing about the huge amount of resources that go into the industry we are all part of. Was this a missed opportunity for a wider conversation about our role in this?

Image: Studio Roosegaarde

We were fortunate recently to be at Kyoorius Design Yatra where Daan Roosegaarde, of Studio Roosegaarde, gave a stirring presentation of his work. Of all the work he showed, it was the Smog Free Project that has really lingered in my thoughts, and moved me beyond awe to think about its relation to my own field. What, I wondered, would be our equivalent in visual communication terms? This giant air purifier, installable in parks and other public spaces, cleans 30,000 m³ of air per hour. It uses ‘no more electricity than a waterboiler’ and is powered by green wind energy. The intention, he explained, was not to provide a solution to our dirty air, but to stir the conversation. Change by example. Not waiting for governments to move on this, but rather acting with the intention of becoming a small part, even a trigger perhaps, for the wider change that needs to happen. As a recent article in The Guardian put it:

Roosegaarde has far-reaching ambitions for the tower, which is part of his Smog-Free Project. ‘It’s not only intended to be a local solution that creates clean parks or playgrounds,’ he explains. ‘It’s also a sensory experience of a clean future, a place where people can experience clean air.’ He hopes to bring together governments, NGOs, the clean tech industry and ordinary citizens.
‘We can work together to make whole cities smog-free,’ he says. ‘We can wait — or we can participate.’

This made me think of another project, somewhat more familiar in medium, which I think is ‘participating’ and pushing this conversation further.

Ryman Eco is an ‘unfinished font’, or as I like to think, a font which finishes itself. It is a font which uses ink-spread — the bleeding of ink on the page which occurs with common ink jet printing — to create a full form. Meaning the characters don’t need to be a solid, filled forms, and therefore use 33% less ink.

Image: Dan Rhatigan, Ryman Eco

Dan Rhatigan, Type Director at Monotype and the designer behind Ryman Eco, explains his expectations of the project:

…Ryman Eco is an experiment, and like all good experiments you collect data, revisit the hypothesis. My idea for Ryman Eco is that we will be able to revisit it periodically over time and improve it and refine it and really get it better and better and better…

I don’t expect using 33% less ink to save the world directly, but I expect it to be one step in a bigger conversation about how we can save things, I expect it to be one gesture that triggers you to think about what else you can do to make an impact.

The examples of Roosegaarde and Rhatigan suggest that the the answers we’re looking for might not come from easy fixes that make for good media stories. The people that will be at the forefront of this conversation and this change, will be people with the dedication and perseverance to understand complex scenarios and attempt informed interventions, at their level. Some, like Roosegaarde and Rhatigan, will stir this conversation with provocations which are extraordinary examples of what design can do, whether it is fine engineering or craft or thinking with hope and ingenuity around today’s problems. Solutions that make people sit up and ask, like the audience member at the end of Roosegaarde’s talk, ‘but shouldn’t we be getting to the root of the air problem.’ Yes, exactly!

This is not to suggest that we can’t or shouldn’t play our part—quite the opposite—more voices are needed. Many of the answers, as we already know, are actually simple. The point now is, who is participating in the conversation?

One Less Cartridge, by Andy Lockley

The capitol X has one of the most complicated structures, just in figuring out how you get all these lines to interact in the middle, this net of parts that leave all these spaces in the middle free for the ink to go.—Dan Rhatigan

This post was first published on Codesign blog.

Walk [Your City] began as Walk [Raleigh] in 2012, when designer and urban planner Matt Tomasulo posted several signs around his hometown that listed nearby landmarks and the distances to them in ‘Minutes-by-foot’. This experiment in ‘guerrilla way-finding’ was an immediate success and the signs were mentioned on blogs, local and national media, and eventually endorsed by the city’s council.

The project’s premise is simple: The more people that walk through an urban space, the richer, safer, and friendlier it will be. Walking is good for the space, the people, and the environment. The Walk [Your City] signs force you to pay attention not only to areas of interest around you, but also emphasise their proximity, incentivising people to walk.

Built on the success of the initial experiment, and a successfully funded kickstarted campaign, Walk [Raleigh] has now grown into Walk [Your City], an website that allows people to create their own signs, which can be customised for cities around the world (The only limitation is the availability of Google Maps data for the city). Once created, a sign can be ordered from the Walk [Your City] website for a nominal fee.

A Walk [Your City] sign is exceedingly simple, and contains the following pieces of information:
• The Minutes by Foot measurement from the location of the sign, to the destination.
• The name of the destination (colour-coded to indicate whether it is a public/open space, commercial establishment, civic landmark, etc.)
• An arrow indicating the direction to the destination and
• A QR Code, that links to detailed walking directions on Google Maps

Since the launch of the online platform in March 2013, over 3,000 signs have been created and deployed in cities as far flung as London and Sao Paulo, with a majority of them being across the United States. The site currently supports sign creation in French, Portuguese, and Spanish, apart from English, with support for new languages planned soon.

For more information on Walk [Your City], visit the Facebook page or read about them in Wired.

Images from Walk [Your City]