Abstract
This paper presents a chronological account of design’s response to the Covid-19 crisis as it unfolded globally. From January to May 2020, we documented over 500 design interventions that have been created by individuals, networks, amateurs, professionals, and public and private organizations and institutions. This international response witnessed the rapid design and development of products, networks and systems such as facemasks, hospitals, infographics, respirators, sanitizers, and virtual communities all created in an effort to save us. In response to the Covid-19 virus the problems that the world faced were highly complex, interdependent, and could not be addressed by conventional means. As such, this paper presents over 500 design-led responses that illustrate comprehensively that when pressed we can find new ways of designing. In short, this work outlines what we might think of as a new model for designing. This new model does not describe a new condition to come after what we currently call design. Rather, what we witness here is the revival of the practice of design – from handmaiden of Capital to one of Care – which is expressed in a new critical attitude for looking at the design world, probing its practice, its theoretical position and its product.
Highlights
In a book we, the authors, have just published, A Design History of the Covid-19 Crisis (Rodgers et al, 2020), we have catalogued the designed interventions to the Covid-19 crisis and we prove definitively that design does care (Rodgers et al, 2017; Rodgers et al, 2019)
We look at all of this care and caring from the point of view of design and, by the sheer volume of design interventions we have documented, illustrate that design is good in a crisis
What we witness in this work is what we might think of as a new model for designing
Summary
The authors, have just published, A Design History of the Covid-19 Crisis (Rodgers et al, 2020), we have catalogued the designed interventions to the Covid-19 crisis and we prove definitively that design does care (Rodgers et al, 2017; Rodgers et al, 2019) We have documented this event as it evolved every day from the 1st of January 2020 to 31st May 2020 inclusive. Design became extremely valuable when it stopped concentrating on those things and started to care about peoples’ lives.
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