MEDIATED TEXT

Who broke the humanitarian design?

This project is based on Cedric G. Johnson’s “The Urban Precariat, Neoliberalization, and the Soft Power of Humanitarian Design” article in which he criticizes humanitarian design for becoming the new imperialism. I tried to place the broken pieces of humanitarian design on the table and come up with questions that could help us, designers, put back the pieces together. This poster is meant to be a part of a poster series that would be posted on the walls of a design program. Each poster would define a design approach the program focuses on and humanitarian design would be one of them.

Process

Project Brief

Compose a text-based response to a text that you have read for Critical Histories. Combine the original text and your response into a finished whole so that a person can read all texts, leaving with a clear idea of the argument that you have made. Your final piece can use any medium — web browser, social media, paper, stone, light, etc. The selection of format, form, genre, technology, and context should be intentional, related to the overall concept of the piece. DO NOT GET CARRIED AWAY WITH DESIGN COMPONENTS BEYOND TEXT. This is first and foremost a text-design project.

Tools

illustrator, inDesign

Instructor

Jennifer Schanen Rider