‘Fortunately, we are beginning to see a great deal of adaptation of human-centered methods into political and societal problems, and the expansion of design tools is growing from the private and NGO sector wider to the realm of bigger organizations involving policymakers,’ Turkish designer and researcher Ipek Altunmaral writes in an extensive report she made on designer’s contributions to the refugee challenge.
‘This report intends to explore how designers can take part in the refugee challenge and how they can use their skills to contribute to finding innovative solutions,’ Altunmaral says about her intentions in her article that was published on Designorate. She studied in England and now lives and works in London, where she set out her design consultancy company Crayon Club Limited and founded Design for Good to explore ways how design could help contribute creating and measuring social and environmental change.
Design for refugees
With reference to the What Design Can Do Refugee Challenge and other idea generating platforms, Altunmaral discovers and analyses the potential of the creative professions to ease and enhance the lives of migrant refugees. She concludes that many small contributions from different backgrounds can change the picture as a whole.
‘Acknowledging each person in the community can actually contribute to the challenge with their own different and unique critical mindsets. This strategy seems like it will bring change to how we will tackle political problems from now on. Instead of seeing the problem as a large picture and trying to solve it as a large organization, it seems more effective to endorse self-initiated projects and seek resolution in smaller steps.’
In the eyes of Altunmaral, the refugee crisis even may proof to be a test case for the approach of other societal issues. ‘Migration,’ she writes, ‘is one of the biggest challenges currently facing European society. If the new approach of incubating solutions through public participation succeeds, it means we have achieved beneficial progress. This could lead us to attain tools and practices to solve even more complicated problems such as terrorism, radicalism, and racism in society.’
Top image: Design Impactful matrix. ( Credits: Design for Good)