Iconic Inequality

This bachelor’s thesis lays out the historical reasons, influences, and developments to shine light on the matter that design cannot be neutral but is always political, which shows how necessary it is for designers and design education to be aware of the societal influences of design, as well as on design. To get closer to a more just and equitable society, designers need to work responsibly and use their power responsibly. While there are many political and societal developments that make this fight for justice difficult and thus influence how design looks and acts, designers can be great agents of change and influence the narrative. One theory and school of design that shows how this can and is done is the feminist design theory. This design theory, together with design justice, gives designers a framework on how they can reshape their work processes and thus create more just designs. In this paper, the author distilled principles of feminist and just design and applied them to the design process of Iconic Inequality, a collaborative design workshop. The author gave a historical background to the developments of icons, shone light on the importance of more diverse and inclusive icons in everyday design, and applied the principle of collaboration and sharing power to their work by hosting a collaborative design workshop in which participants from civil society came together to assess, discuss, and reimagine icons.