Design Practices in an Age of Autocracy / Webinar Recap
- Jennifer Caddick
- May 13
- 3 min read
Thank you for joining the last webinar in our Navigating Chaos series. We hope you learned something and have a few new ideas about how to better incorporate design practices into your organization’s communications.
We covered a lot of ground in our conversation! Watch the event recording to dig into these topics and to learn what works— and doesn’t—when thinking about how to use design in your organization.
Key Takeaways from Our Conversation
Design as a powerful communication tool for social change. Design can be or be part of a radical act that communicates values, builds solidarity, and drives collective action. The example of the 1968 Memphis garbage workers’ strike demonstrated how simple, powerful design can become iconic and influential in advocacy work.
Design should be treated as a long-term investment. Rather than viewing design as a quick fix or last-minute addition, organizations should approach design as a strategic, long-term investment. Design investments deliver significant returns, whether for businesses (in revenue) or advocacy organizations (in stakeholder engagement).
Resource: The Business Value of Design
“Design thinking” is more than just graphic design; it’s creative problem-solving. Design Thinking can be applied across an organization, such as operations and program development. Good, collaborative design helps organizations think creatively about longer-term needs and solutions and connect more effectively with their audiences and stakeholders.
Resource: 7 Tips for Better Creative Collaboration
Resource: The Double Diamond
Seek partners, not vendors, for design work. Organizations should look for design partners who can challenge, support, and collaborate rather than simply vendors who deliver goods. This partnership approach builds trust and leads to better long-term results. The best design partners are long-term and deliver big-picture results.
Discovery is the foundation of successful design projects. Beginning with a thorough discovery phase is critical to a successful project. Separating discovery as a distinct, paid engagement can help ensure the right problems are being addressed before implementation begins. Early discovery creates clarity, fosters collaboration, prevents surprises, and makes the implementation phase significantly smoother. The discovery phase can also serve as a way to test a partnership before committing to a larger project.
Traditional RFPs often undermine design success. The traditional RFP (request for proposals) process wastes precious time and resources while setting projects up for failure. RFPs include prescriptive specifications, which can significantly limit creative problem solving. Conversations with a few select designers or design firms are the best place to start when exploring a project partnership. For organizations that must do RFPs, it is helpful to reframe them as "requests for information" that focus on goals, problem-solving approaches, and working styles rather than prescriptive specifications.
Visual design builds solidarity and community in movements. Beyond functional considerations, visual design creates emotional cohesion and helps people identify with movements. Design can help people feel part of something bigger (i.e., "these are my people”). Design systems—especially those related to accessibility and visual identity—can themselves be forms of advocacy that help build community and signal shared values.
Authentic advocacy is an extension of core values. The most effective advocacy work happens when it's a natural expression or extension of an organization's established values rather than a separate initiative. This integration makes advocacy efforts more credible and less likely to be perceived as "greenwashing" or opportunistic.
Accessibility is both a moral imperative and a form of resistance. Making digital content accessible to everyone (including the roughly 15% of people who face access barriers) can be described as a "radical act." Despite the fact that the web has been around for 30 years, most websites still have accessibility issues. Creating accessible experiences doesn't require sacrificing good design and is increasingly becoming a regulatory requirement.
Resource: Make-It-Accessible
Resource: Web AIM
Keep In Touch
Here’s how to connect with our speakers.
Andrew Boardman's Dear Designer on Substack
Connect with Tim Frick on LinkedIn
Connect with Nicole Hunter on LinkedIn
Buoy 231 Consulting
Connect with Jennifer Caddick on LinkedIn