Fire engine red. If you can picture this, you’ve been exposed, at some point in your life, to a fire engine. Now, imagine you hadn’t. The shape of each person’s reality is determined by her individual experiences. This perspective determines what we do and don’t do, what is familiar or frightening, and how we engage with the world around us. Modern designers are expert in empathy; the danger of empathy alone is its dissolution of difference. Appropriately designed products, services, and policies come from acknowledging the unique and distinctive realities of others. Lauren will be sharing stories and frameworks on how she has reconciled these complexities of seeing in a variety of projects—from designing financial services for the rural poor in Myanmar to building strategies for corporate collaboration in Australia.

2. A designer
I AM

3. All design has social impact.

7. All design has social impact.positive

8. All design has social impact.negative

9. Humans live (and designers
make) from a good place,
informed by our own
realities.

10. EMPATHY
…infers that we should have
a feeling…

14. I contest that we must have
an understanding.

15. … because designers are expert
perceivers & translators.
FRAMEWORKS

16. VALUES
(Historical, Religious,
Cultural, Familial)
EXPOSURE
(Policy, Infrastructure, Other
“Invisible” Entities)
EXPRESSIONINFLUENCE
AWARENESS
(Place, Community, Popular
Culture, Media)

18. Every conversation changes the shape
of each party’s reality.

19. Break My Own Reality1.

20. WHAT’S SOMETHING THAT YOU’VE TAKEN
FOR GRANTED?

21. …there was a particular tribe which was able to see the planet
Venus in full daylight, something which to me would be
utterly impossible and incredible. I put the question to
professional astronomers; they told me, of course, that
we don’t but, nevertheless, when we know the amount of light
emitted by the planet Venus in full daylight, it was not
absolutely inconceivable that some people could. Later on I
looked into old treatises on navigation belonging to our own
civilization and it seems that sailors of old were perfectly able
to see the planet in full daylight. Probably we could still do so
if we had a trained eye.”
“
- CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS
MYTH & MEANING

23. UNEMPLOYMENT

24. UNEMPLOYMENT
Saudi Arabia has a youth*
rate of
~30%
*Youth = aged 15-24

27. Learn Everything2.

28. 1. ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDIES
2. FICTION, BY A LOCAL AUTHOR
3. ECONOMIC WHITEPAPERS (YEAH, THE LONG ONES)
Read:

33. Look at Language3.

34. Wer zweimal mit derselben pennt
gehört schon zum establishment.”
“
“Conservative”

35. “The Internet”

36. “‫ي‬ّ‫و‬‫”ج‬

38. Make Models, Often4.

39. Thanks, Craig Mod.

43. Make the Smallest Thing
Possible, really well.
5.

44. The proportion of a solution needs to balance
with its problem: we don't need a battery-
powered pooper scooper to pick up dog poop,
and we don't need a car that gets 17 MPG to,
well, we don't need that car, period. We have to
start balancing our ability to be clever with our
ability to be smart. They're two different things.”
“
- ALLAN CHOCHINOV

46. More tools, less stuff.

48. WHEN IS THE LAST TIME YOU
APPLIED FOR SOMETHING?

51. The best design is
facilitative.

52. the beautiful,
inspirational things:
THE STORY
Logistics,
overhead,
meetings,
socialising,
translating,
iterating,
pivoting,making,
you know,
THE WORK

53. Know when to say “No.”6.

54. Making money from a problem
gives people every incentive to
deny that a problem exists.”
“
- JOHN MAST-FINN

55. CAN : SHOULD

56. All money comes from an
interest.
COMMERCIAL AIDE

58. I am more skeptical when the
work is not commercial.

60. Project your impact7.

61. IMAGINE THE REALITIES YOUR WORK
WILL INFLUENCE, OR CREATE.
ARE THEY BEAUTIFUL?
ARE THEY FRIGHTENING?

62. Figure out which realities you
want to shape, and how you
want to shape yours.

63. Thanks.
@serota
holler@laurenserota.com
@studio_d_rad
lauren@studiodradiodurans.com