{"id":17296,"date":"2011-07-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-14T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yfiledev.uit.yorku.ca\/2011\/07\/14\/design-class-collaborates-with-centre-for-human-rights-on-social-issues\/"},"modified":"2025-04-02T08:45:48","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T12:45:48","slug":"design-class-collaborates-with-centre-for-human-rights-on-social-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/yfile\/2011\/07\/14\/design-class-collaborates-with-centre-for-human-rights-on-social-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Design class collaborates with Centre for Human Rights on social issues"},"content":{"rendered":"
York Professor Jan Hadlaw teaches a design course with a twist \u2013\u00a0it has\u00a0a social conscience. The course \u2013 Design for Public Awareness \u2013 encourages students to think critically, to research and assess social issues, then use what they\u2019ve learned in their practice after graduation.<\/p>\n
She gives the example of what goes into designing the graphics for a delivery truck. \u201cPerhaps the first instinct is to design something colourful and eye-catching,\u201d says Hadlaw. \u201cBut it\u2019s important to consider if the graphics you design could distract other drivers and possibly cause an accident. Design students need to learn how to think very fully about what they\u2019ve been asked to design and how they choose to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
So when the opportunity came along for the students to collaborate with York\u2019s Centre for Human Rights, it seemed like a perfect fit. It was decided that the students would research social issues and design posters that the Centre for Human Rights could then use in upcoming campaigns.<\/p>\n
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| Above: A gallery showing some of the students from the Design for Public Awareness course and their work<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n \u201cThe opportunity to work collaboratively and engage with community members gives students a whole new perspective on the work they do,\u201d says Hadlaw. Last year, her class teamed up with the ¿ì²¥ÊÓÆµ-TD Community Engagement Centre (CEC) and worked with groups in the Jane-Finch neighbourhood on a series of design projects. It was at the display of the work created by the community members and design students at the CEC\u2019s annual general meeting that No\u00ebl Badiou, director of the Centre for Human Rights, first became familiar with the work Hadlaw did with her class.<\/p>\n \u201cSo often design is in the service of corporations and consumerism,\u201d says Hadlaw, based in the Department of Design in the Faculty of Fine Arts. \u201cThis class focuses on social communication instead of corporate communication. Our audience is not the consumer, it\u2019s the citizen. It requires a bit of a shift in thinking.\u201d Hadlaw asks her students to recognize the difference between \u201chow audiences are spoken to as consumers, and how they are spoken to as citizens,\u201d noting \u201chow we choose to represent things matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
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