Moral Design — Journey Group

To design is to make decisions for others. Because it involves an exchange of power, however slight, design is best understood as a moral pursuit.

The democratization of process and proliferation of tools enable hundreds of small, local design decisions to have an immediate and outsized impact. When something works in one place, it can be quickly copied, tailored, and applied in other contexts.

Design is much more profound. Styling is very much emotional. Good design isn’t — it’s good forever. It’s part of our environment and culture.”

She is as skilled at place-making as she is at sketching. She deals in stories as often as schematics. She is honest about the limitations of her chosen craft. And, yet, she remains convinced that thoughtful, accountable, and inclusive design is our best path toward positive and durable change.

We must cultivate a sort of curiosity that isn’t afraid to be limited. Intimacy, but not blind devotion. Progress, but not hubris. Moral design conserves more than it disrupts. It is careful, not clever. It is cultural, not viral.

vernacular design, which I would define as functional design for ordinary people rooted in a local economy and culture.

Similarly, we might think of design method as a process for inquiry into the purposes, plans, and intentions behind what humans make and do.

Moral design is slower and smaller than the markets want it to be. It is more careful and plodding than the universities and the politicians want it to be. Sadly, we are not without case studies.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.