Social Design: Using mapping and visual storytelling for community engagement

This paper explores the emerging practice of social design as an engagement with local communities working for social change.  Social design is a practice where community relations and interactions are of critical importance, across a range of stakeholder interests that can include individuals, groups and institutions. The community context for social design is often carried out in collaboration with local councils within a regulatory framework that can be positive and well-meaning, but also restrictive and constraining. Often the ‘brief’ given for the project is defined with expected outcomes that are not necessarily in the best interests of the local community group, and may actually not meet their needs or expectations. In some cases, the ‘brief’ is open to interpretation, and the success of the project assessed on factors that may not be of great significance to the community group themselves. Within such projects, the role of the designer as a leader, or collaborator, is not always clear – with competing priorities and perspectives often the designer can misinterpret or impose their own values or beliefs onto a community context. Similarly, the designer’s approach to the social context and the community group may be at odds with the organizational context, creating confusion and mixed messages. This paper explores the above issues through reference to two case studies in Western Sydney. Firstly, a social design project for suburban community gardens; and secondly, a social design project for creating community usage of a local park. In each of these case studies, the complexities and interplay of organizational relations, community interactions and the role of the designer, are discussed as significant and complex forces that can shift and influence the direction of the project. The paper highlights ways in which the visual designer can contribute meaningfully to these kinds of social design projects through visualizations that can work as forms of mapping and visual storytelling of human and non-human elements. These approaches are shown to enhance and engage with community debate and discussion, towards positive and creative communication that help build social cohesion.