DESIGN FOR CHANGE::Graduation Speech::May 2007
We need to keep pursuing the causes for which many of us have already begun. For example, some of our classmates used their creativity to develop and design an identity package for a volunteer trip to New Orleans. Simple gestures for a big cause can make the difference in catching someone’s eye, interest and effort.
Sometimes it’s as simple as designing a flyer for a concert promoting AIDS awareness. The act of taking on these projects and inviting your own friends to become involved makes a difference.
And then there are the subtler ways to build community, without the brand-name causes. For example, Haley’s potholders – each with a different piece of a recipe printed on it – create the reason to come together to cook a meal with friends. Nicole’s postcard about global warming folds up as a fan. It’s simple and won’t change the whole world, but it may have an impact on the one person you send it to.
Every good speech has a good quote. Here’s mine. It was written by Katherine McCoy, a designer and design professor, in an essay titled “Good Citizenship – Design as a Social and Political Force.”
McCoy wrote, “Too often [design graduates] and their work emerge as charming mannequins, voiceless mouthpieces for the messages of ventriloquist clients. Let us instead give designers their voices so they may participate and contribute more fully in the world.”
That’s quite a challenge – the kind you can spend a career answering. We certainly haven’t begun to answer that challenge yet. But at least we know what the challenge is, and we sort of know how to go about rising to it.
And it only took four years to learn that!
So now the work begins. Thank you teachers for helping us prepare. Thank you parents for supporting and guiding us to this point. Thank you classmates for teaching each other and sharing our lives.
Let’s go find our voices.
