The Relational Designer: Who You Are Matters as Much as Your Craft

Designers are working on increasingly complex, ethically demanding projects. Every project is a crash course in something. In someone. We weave our practice between intelligent systems, trauma-informed practice, the social sciences, psychology, education and…well, just about anything. We’re in a loop of double-ended interpretation – one that holds a duty of care both to the people whose stories we carry and to the audiences we ask to learn from them.

So, why are our most well-worn frameworks still painting us as neutral observers in the design process? Design thinking and human-centred frameworks may have been useful in outwardly explaining design processes, but do they help us understand the relationships that are essential to today’s design practice, and how we move through the work as actual humans?

In this talk, Wahlin and Goodrich offer a perspective on relational practice, drawing on over 20 years of design practice across social justice, human rights and trauma-informed practice both at Portable and for international non-profits. They share why self reflection isn’t indulgent – it’s essential for understanding who you are as a designer, and who you might become.