By Ruben Pater, 2022

Resources:

1. https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street?topic=families&min=7117&active=5d4be976cf0b3a0f3f348a96 – Compares the incomes of families in the world without reducing them to statistics
2. China’s social credit system and Rongcheng’s social credit scoring system where every citizen has a base credit score of 1000 that can be influenced by their good or bad deeds. For e.g., spreading hateful information = -50 points and winning a national-level sports or cultural competition = 40 points. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/22/1063605/china-announced-a-new-social-credit-law-what-does-it-mean/
3. Brixton Pound – local currency. https://brixtonpound.org/

“The success of the Brixton Pound shows that communities can withstand global challenges through local action. Taking money into your own hands has never been a more attainable dream.” https://www.aatcomment.org.uk/news/the-brixton-pound-creating-a-currency/

“The facts are the Brixton Pound is the world’s first local currency in a major city. You can use it in about 200 independent Brixton businesses, and the whole idea is that it encourages repeat spending within the local area (as opposed to spending with chains and multinationals, where the money swiftly leaks to shareholders who have no interest in the local community).” “​​Money can only exist because we collectively believe in it.”

Local currencies helping in times of crises

4. Pay as you feel cafe in Brixton that uses Brixton Pounds
5. Biljmer Euro: Tracing money in a local economy http://theprotocity.com/money-traceability-local-economy-bijlmer-euro/
6. Florence Nightingale’s pie chart on the cause of death in the british army during the Crimean War and W.E.B. Du Bois’s City and Rural Populations data visualisations were ways in which “counter-narrative with the infographics created from census data, surveys, and other government data sources”
7. “Iconoclasistas is a design collective from Argentina that uses collective mapping as a method to critically question the oppressive and capitalist nature of mapping.” Pg. 124

From the book:

1. “The relation between war and money becomes evident in the designs that Jan van Toorn (1932-2020) proposed for the competition for the Dutch banknotes in 1986. He wanted to show money as a crucial element of society. The design for the 100-guilder note shows a nuclear power plant and weapons; fighters, missiles, tanks, armed vehicles. This was at a time when there were mass-scale protests in the Netherlands against nuclear weapons and many Dutch were outraged with the arms race of the cold war. Van Toorn explains that he knew the banknotes would not be chosen as the competitions’ winner, but that he took part in the competition for the sake of the experience. His banknotes are perhaps the only ones ever designed that connect money to the state’s military power.” Pg. 52
2. “Therefore, imagining a currency that reflects economic transactions as well as the social relations it represents, would have to coincide with an economic system that prioritizes social and human values over economic growth.” Pg. 53

9. “Digital technology made it possible to replace the authority and security provided by the designer as a scribe with binary information. The graphic designer no longer assigns trust or prevent counterfeiting in virtual currency forms, but has to manufacture positive associations in order to encourage spending.” Pg. 56
10. “When spending money, splitting bills, or managing finances becomes a competitive activity among friends and relatives in plain sights, this may further promote and celebrate money as a person’s most important quality. By doing so it can exclude or punish those who are poor or choose to live on small incomes. More importantly, alternative or non-monetary exchanges such as sharing, barter, or non-financial gifting, do not exist in these apps. Here, the role of the designer as a scribe is no longer to assign trust, but to create interfaces for websites and apps to keep users addicted to the application for as long as possible. Notifications, infinite scrolling, and limiting navigation are interface techniques borrowed from gambling, manipulating users into spending more time on the app than intended.” Pg. 64
11. On Local Currencies “The advantage of such a local economy is that any profits stay in the region, there is more contact and trade between people locally, and less costs and pollution due to transport of products.” Pg. 68
12. Alternate forms of currency: TimeBanks, barter networks, gift exchanges, community gardens, free give-away shops, sharing economies, etc. Paraphrased, Pg. 70
13. TimeBanking: “It is based on a simple concept: one hour of work is equivalent to one hour of someone else’s work, independent of what that work is. The currency derives its value from the resource that is scarce to all human beings, time. 
14. “The examples given here of small-scale economic experiments may seem far removed from what a graphic designer can do. But alternative currencies and the solidarity economy show that the agency of the designer goes far beyond those roles. Designers are economic actors, we earn money and spend money, we too are subjected to a system that tries hard to ignore the social relations behind money. By spending and earning money locally, by encouraging the use of alternative currencies or setting up barter networks, you can yourself begin by creating small alternative economies that strengthen social bonds instead of designing abstract forms to represent them.” Pg. 71
15. “Capitalism and other systems of power are ultimately vested in how we cooperate; they can only be overcome or changed if we cooperate; not only on the level of small experimental collectives or individual subcultures, but as a society.” – Max Haiven, researcher. Pg. 71

Designer as Engineer

16. Florence Nightingale’s pie chart on the cause of death in the british army during the Crimean War and W.E.B. Du Bois’s City and Rural Populations data visualisations were ways in which “counter-narrative with the infographics created from census data, surveys, and other government data sources” Pg. 106
17. An example of design having more consequences than just making it for the sake of doing the work. Form the book: “In the US risky mortgages had been sold using aggressive advertising, to people who could barely afford them. When the financial crisis of 2008 hit, 10 million people were evicted from their homes” Pg. 115 What about the designer that created the graphics that tempted people to buy those houses? How involved are they in the eventual fate that befell those people? Should a graphic designer think about such things or do their jobs while having faith that people will be reasonable enough to take stock of their situation realistically before making such a big commitment and not fall to the temptation that good advertising creates?

Designer as Brander

1. “When it comes to the branding of luxury goods, minimalist branding has been a strategy that caters to the tastes of the rich. Those who have money have the possibility of seeing fewer ads, especially as many free or cheap services have mandatory advertising.” Pg. 159
2. “The designers from Metahaveen write that abstaining from using logos is the way to attract the wealthiest of customers. They give the example of private banks in Geneva, where ‘the absence of a name on the front door of a private bank implies confidentiality.” Pg. 159
3. “The non-branding of military operations is something of a speciality for the US CIA, who have created shell companies since the 1950s to carry out secret operations. During the Vietnam war, they used aircraft from CIA shell companies with names like Air America, Continental Air Services, Inc., and Civil Air Transport. Using bland corporate names and unmarked civilian aircraft, they carried out anti-terrorism and espionage operations in plain sight. Public scrutiny of covert operations by governments has increased the use of mercenaries or ‘independent security contractors’ for military operations. These private armies employ indistinct names and branding to avoid unwanted attention.” Pg. 161
4. “The bible of city branding is The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida, in which he proposes that cities should focus on attracting creatives. In his view, creative people attract businesses, which in turn leads to economic growth. His work is the foundation for policies of gentrification and city branding since the 2000s.” Pg. 165
5. The banker’s role in shaping NYC as it is today. This shows that most professions have a way of impacting the world and everyone is required to be critical, not just designers. Between pg. 166-168
6. “What this example shows is that even the work of socially engaged designers with good intentions can be used to drive gentrification. Glaser’s successful city brand united people and made many New Yorkers proud, but it was also used to obfuscate the punishment of poort New Yorkers in favour of the wealthy.” Pg. 170 Caps Lock