designersunite

THE FIRST SOCIAL

Pick up an HB, open up your diaries, and scribble down Designers Unite on Thursday 5 March Thursday March 12 at, oh, let's say 7.30pm.

It's the first Designers Unite Social. It's all very informal. Just a chance to get together and catch up, and chat about what we want to do next.

Not sure where we'll meet - somewhere in the centre of town - once we've confirmed where we'll drop you a line. (Any suggestions gratefully received.)

FACEBOOK

Love it or loathe it, Facebook has become the main networking hub for anyone regularly getting busy on a computer.

So we've set up a Designers Unite page on there. It'll suck down anything we post on here, so it's an easy way to keep an eye on what's going on. All you have to do is click on the 'Become a Fan' link.

(If Facebook doesn't do it for you though, remember that you can still subscribe to the RSS feed for this site, or fill in the box on the left for email updates.)

SPREAD THE WORD

As a result of the first email that Melanie sent out to all the alumni about Designers Unite, so far 35 or so people have signed up, which is fantastic. 

But we reckon there's still a few more ex-summerschool folk out there who may not have heard about what we're doing - particularly as we're relying on an email contact list that may well be slightly out of date.

So, it'd be great if you could spread the word. Just drop an email to all the alumni you're still in touch with, give them the link to this site, and maybe a gentle nudge to join up. 

The more the merrier...

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Great to see so many familiar faces at the RSA meeting last night.

For those who couldn't make it, the discussion centred on the future of the summer school.

Tim O'Brien, Alistair Hall, Chris Wise and Ed McCann all spoke about previous summer schools; and Emily Campbell, the RSA's new Director of Design, asked us to consider the future, particularly how the school might fit into the RSA's Design and Society programme, which is explained below:

"Contemporary society needs to be more resourceful; its citizens more engaged, self-reliant and collective in their striving. Just as professionalisation and bureaucracy have reduced our resources of common competence, so our consumption has diminished the earth's resources. As citizens we are less resourceful than ever with fewer resources of energy andnatural material at our disposal.

The particular resourcefulness of designers - their readiness to improvise and prototype, their bravery in the face of disorder and complexity, their holistic and people-centred approach to defining problems - has a critical role to play today in making society itself more resourceful.

The RSA has vigorously supported design since it emerged as a professional discipline in the early 20th century. Design & Society continues to recognise the formal judgement traditionally associated with design, and to celebrate design’s essential optimism with respect to progress and change. We now urge designers to demonstrate how the insights and processes of design can increase the resourcefulness of people and communities.

Design & Society responds to three urgent challenges in particular. How can the benefits of design be extended beyond the world's wealthy to everyone? How should we design so that we can all consume less? How can design help people navigate an increasingly complex world? Design and Society is developing as a programme of design research, public engagement projects, lectures and debates, public competitions and student awards conceived in close collaboration with the RSA’s other Project teams and with the RSA Fellowship."

If you came along and have any further thoughts, or couldn't make it but would like to let us know what you think, just drop us a line.

SHARP THINKING

One of the principal ideas behind setting up this site is to harness the collective creative power of the alumni, and then to apply it to pressing social and environmental issues, in the form of the Designers Unite Projects. 

We're proposing that we run one or two of these projects each year.

And we'd like you to come up with the first one.

It can be anything you want really, but should be a new project, rather than one you're already working on in a professional capacity.

Just as an example, how about this: the UK has a deplorable track record for recycling batteries. We reckon something should be done about that. And we think the alumni could come up with some brilliantly creative and effective solutions to the problem.

But we want to hear your ideas. Just drop us a line with the basic issue, and a synopsis of how you think the alumni can help. Don't give us too much detail just yet - a couple of paragraphs should do it.

Once we've got all the proposals in, we'll feed them back via this site, and give you all the chance to vote on them. The most popular one will go forward.

Where it goes from there is entirely up to you. We'll help out as much as we can by posting information and requests on here.

So get thinking. The deadline for the first set of proposals is Friday 30 January. 

UPDATE - The deadline has been extended to Thursday 5 March. 

Email them to us here.

SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE

Chris Wise and the RSA Design team would like to invite you to the RSA on the evening of 15 January for a drink and a discussion of the future of the RDI Summer School. 

This event follows the Royal Designers for Industry Extraordinary General Meeting in the afternoon, so a number of RDIs are likely to be present. 

The RSA’s new Director of Design, Emily Campbell, will make a short presentation about the RSA’s Design plans to set the context for the discussion, from the RSA’s perspective. We hope as many of you as possible will be able to make it. 

Please let Melanie Andrews know if you plan to attend.