Design against Design is a candid, politically charged collection that interrogates graphic design's entanglement with capitalism and asks what it would mean — in practice, not just theory — to work against it.
About This Book
Structured around four interlocking themes — Critique, Practice, Materiality, and Autonomy — this book refuses the comfortable distance of academic design writing. Through interviews, personal essays, critical texts, and a wide-ranging selection of graphic works, it maps the terrain of socially engaged design practice with uncommon candour. Where much design discourse gestures toward politics without consequences, this collection presses on the contradictions: how designers navigate social change within systems that resist it, how craft relates to ethics, and how the emotional labour of dissident practice is sustained. Essential reading for anyone working at the intersection of visual culture, political economy, and graphic design.
Key Features
- 240 pages of interviews, critical and personal essays, and graphic works spanning dissident design practice
- Contributors include Sarah Auches, Jenn Clamen, Sabine Friesinger, and Sandy Kaltenborn
- Published by Set Margins, ISBN 9789083318806
What You'll Discover
- A political-economic analysis of graphic design's relationship to capitalism, with practical frameworks for resistance
- How designers working toward social change negotiate — and sometimes collide with — the structures they operate within
- The role of craft and materiality in an ethically grounded graphic design practice
- The emotional and relational dimensions of design autonomy: what it costs and what it makes possible
About the Author
Kevin Yuen Kit Lo is a Canadian graphic designer born in 1978. His practice is oriented toward social engagement and political critique, and his writing challenges the conventions of mainstream design discourse by foregrounding the politics of visual culture under contemporary capitalism.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 240
- Dimensions: 22.2 x 15.9 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9789083318806
- Publisher: Set Margins
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Graphic designers, visual communication students, design educators, and practitioners interested in the politics of design, social change, and the ethics of visual culture.