Occupy Design Launched By London Protest Movement

Tomorrow, kicks off launch weekend for Occupy Design, an event organized by Occupy London, featuring a series of talks and workshops discussing what the movement’s new design group hopes to achieve. Convening in London’s The Rag Factory Ltd, the program was in part conceived because of the lack of interest from UK art colleges towards the discontent felt by many students. Though the design community has expressed much interest in the Occupy movement, Jonathan Barnbrook, celebrated graphic designer and typographer, and one of the event’s organizers explained to Creative Review:

We do feel the art schools are not addressing the feeling of discontent properly [due to] the amount of red tape and the restraints put on teachers because students need to get ‘value for money’ and have a guaranteed degree. There are also some ridiculous things going on at the moment which show that much of design and advertising is simply pretending it’s business as usual. For instance: D&AD setting a brief for students to rebrand the City of London, to make it look cool when these people are responsible for the mess we are in and the huge cuts in education. We should be teaching students that anything is possible, not that they will have to suppress their instincts about what they believe because that is the ‘pro’ way of doing things. A lot of people feel disconnected from what they are asked to do at work or college and want to try and make a difference.

This weekend’s newly formed design collective will host talks, strategy sessions and hands-on workshops ranging from topics like ‘How could Design support Occupy? How could Occupy transform Design?’ and ‘Design as Manipulation. Design as Emancipation’ as well as the poster workshop, This Space is Not For Hire. As evidenced by the Occupied Times of London, the collective spirit is alive and well in the creative community and they are organizing to inform, offering an alternative perspective for students and any working designers to participate in the debate and action that will launch Occupy Design UK.

Occupy Design