Now, I may have railed against free pitching in the past, but that doesn’t mean I’m against all types of pro bono work.
We’ve been shortlisted for the DBA Helen Hamlyn Inclusive Design Challenge! Very exciting. I had the privilege of working with Stuart May at PDD, who designed a fabulous concept for the challenge back in 2004/2005.
We have to submit our final concept just after the Christmas holidays, so every spare minute in between now and then is spent doing fieldwork, generating concepts, visualising, and figuring out how to package it all. Matt Pattison at This Side of the Blue is a fellow traveller on our journey, which always adds extra richness to the physicality of the research and design experience.
We have used inclusive design for a number of clients in the past, from banks to mobile phone companies, and I have never seen a better tool for getting designers absolutely and emotionally immersed in a project. Business tends to get a bit cynical at times, but watching people conquer the world through sheer determination (or conversely, decide not to take the world on its own terms at all) breaks through even the most jaded of eyes.
If anybody has any great examples of transitional moments in life, please send them along!
