Portfolio
Design Is... | Antithesis
Categories: Editorial, Print, Publishing, UI/UX, Audience Participation
Tools used: InDesign, Illustrator, Physical Tools
Date: December 2024
Antithesis was a 3 part project working in tandem to explore 1 essential question over 3 different formats. The idea that encompasses the following projects and projects that I’ve done in the past is that Design consists of parts of a whole. Every individual has a unique perspective to offer and by using design as a tool to unite these different perspectives, we could redefine design.
Hence, my essential question: ​
How could participation of multiple individuals reframe the way design is created and propagated?
I started off antithesis by distributing a questionnaire that asked people to respond to the prompt “Design is…”, along with their field of work/study. This allowed me to reflect on how similar or different responses can be depending on the environment one is exposed to.
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I collected the participants' answers, which were then indexed into a single-serving site.
View the responses here: https://mahamsoomro1.wixsite.com/design-is
The second part of antithesis involved creating picket signs, and my picket signs are a physical manifestation of its digital counterpart: the single serving site. With these signs, I’m protesting the traditional definitions of design or the Design Canon. Every perspective is important to reflect the fluidity and diversity design bring with it which is why, it is integral that these signs are held by different people in different settings.
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When these 5 picket signs are read individually, they don’t make much sense. You can still read some of the responses overlaid on top but only when put together can you get the whole picture.
The last piece of this project was to create a tabletop representative of the essential question. Connection played a pivotal role in exploring how different perspectives can reframe the way design is propagated. With my tabletop, I distilled the concept of connection to its simplest forms which was dots and lines.​ The dots represent individuals. The lines represent the connections we form. This tabletop is transient, changing, always in motion.
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By pushing the boundaries of what a tabletop could represent, I made it into a living, breathing work: made alive by the participation of individuals. This exercise of trust allowed participants to think more meaningfully about the connections we make and this tabletop is a result of those connections come to life.
I’m confident that if I’d repeated this experiment a thousand different times, I’d have received a thousand different results.
