DesignShift: From Glorifying Simplicity to Holding Complexity
Join us for a 1.5-hour co-creation session to explore how we might shift our mindsets and methods—from glorifying simplicity to learning how to hold complexity.
We often say that good design is simple; that designers are skilled at simplifying the complex; that design is about solving complex problems. But what if the problems we face today—climate collapse, structural injustice, disconnection—can’t be simplified? What if trying to reduce them to something more digestible is part of the problem?
In this session, we will practice holding the complexity that lives within us and around us. We’ll explore what it means to be with tensions that don’t resolve, questions that don’t have clear answers, and truths that contradict each other. We’ll name the tensions we feel today and consider the shifts we want to make for a better tomorrow.
This session is for:
People who feel pulled in many directions
People who recognise that two conflicting things can both be true
People who are tired of neat "solutions" that don’t reflect real life
Designers, facilitators, community builders, educators, organisers, and anyone interested in change that begins with deeper attention
Good to know:
This is an interactive session. We’ll work in breakout groups and co-create using digital tools. It’s a space for exploring the topic together.
This is not a session about solving, it’s a session about noticing. About becoming more honest with ourselves and each other. About learning to design in ways that make room for the complexity of the world as it is. Rather than rushing to fix or clean up, we’ll slow down and sit with discomfort. We’ll make space for ambiguity.
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About DesignShifts
DesignShifts is a collaborative learning journey exploring a better future for and through design. Through theory, practice, and community we challenge the status quo, imagine better futures, and co-create the DesignShifts needed to aid the transition towards a better tomorrow. The goal is to move design from a tool that contributes to division, destruction, and isolation to a practice that unites, rebuilds, and reconnects us to our inner selves, each other, and nature.
Learn more: https://www.designshifts.org/