Design Against Design

A conversational, impassioned treatise on the realities of a socially engaged design practice

Packed with conversational interviews, personal and critical essays, and a wide-ranging collection of graphic works, Design against Design examines the realities and relations that constitute a socially engaged design practice. Canadian designer Kevin Yuen Kit Lo (born 1978) offers candid, almost confessional, insights that challenge the status quo of design writing, demanding that we think more critically about the politics of visual culture under contemporary capitalism, and importantly, how we can act against it.

The collection is organized around four key themes: Critique presents a political economic analysis of graphic design in relation to capitalism and considers practical ways to resist it; Practice looks critically at how designers work toward (and sometimes against) social change; Materiality focuses on the craft of graphic design; and Autonomy considers the emotional and relational aspects of graphic design.