On Mindfulness
An exploration of the Climate Designers monthly theme through the lens of design
December’s theme was mindful giving; and if you’re like me, you didn’t automatically connect the dots between the theme and design, and that is one of the great things about writing these—there is no laid out plan, just time and interpretation. After giving it some thought, it became clear, to me at least, that mindful giving isn’t just compatible with design, but that it is an integral part of it. And that’s what I’d like to share with you all in this entry.
What does mindful giving have to do with design?* Perhaps more than you think. First, mindfulness is a common service that designers provide to clients; it elevates a design from just some procedure applied to materials or content and goes further to develop that concept to fully address a client’s needs. Designing without understanding the problems of our clients and their customers isn’t much more than just haphazardly applying a basic algorithm of trends and fashions to those problems and hoping that they’ll be fixed. Every designer needs to be a critical thinker, able to connect causes to their effects. Being mindful is just what we do; it’s not a byproduct of our process as much as it is the catalyst.
And secondly, how about giving? Design is about communication; we relay values, expectations of quality, and more with our work, and whether that work is UI, graphic design, or videography, the work is judged by clients and users on how well that message is conveyed. So, giving is a part of our practice as well. You could easily describe design work as the end result of a process of mindful giving that as accurately as possible relays information about a concept or product to a potential user of that product or concept. It can (and probably should) be just as much a part of the process as composition, color, emotion, legibility, or function.
Mindful giving and climate design
I probably don’t need to convince you of the reality of climate change; chances are that if you’re reading this, you’ve originally come to Climate Designers to find other designers who were climate-minded as well. What you might need though are some of the reasons why mindfulness is an important part of climate action, and to know that designers can offer tangible ways to give. Part of why mindfulness is important in climate action is that it allows us to be more effective. If we could just snap our fingers to make sure that sea turtles were never choked by plastic packaging, we would do it, but not everyone is equally interested in saving sea turtles. And that is fair and valid, and critically important. That is why the first step in mindful giving—as a designer or otherwise—is looking to localized problems. In a previous entry, I mentioned small actions; by working small we are necessarily working local. Perhaps air pollution is a motivating factor for people in the area; lead with that in your design and you’ll find that real and sustained engagement will be easier to achieve.
Being mindful givers can also help us alleviate climate guilt. Climate guilt can be devastating to our motivation and honestly, could be a Field Guide entry in itself, but for now we’ll describe it as that feeling that we get when we realize the enormity of the climate crisis and recognize how small we are in comparison. That guilt can stop us in our tracks with the feeling that we are too insignificant to make a change; businesses that depend on polluting to bring in profits capitalize on that guilt and encourage us to focus on our own emissions, knowing that we’ll burn out before we make a dent in the tons of CO2 floating in the atmosphere. By being mindful, working local, starting small, and encouraging community action, we break through that guilt as we make meaningful change happen. When local political action leads to the closing of a coal-burning power plant, or to the investment in renewable power, we gain hope where we had despair and our guilt transforms into motivation to keep going.
Mindful designers will look for how to contribute in ways that best catalyze their audiences to action; designing things like carbon calculators or other tools that point fingers away from the real sources of climate inaction will result in fractured groups of overwhelmed people looking to blame others to rid themselves of a guilt they shouldn’t have to carry. That responsibility to communicate falls on our shoulders as it also falls on the supervisors or clients that we work for; that is a reality that our industries can’t escape. And to be clear, mindful giving doesn’t have to be something that you do for free or for a discounted rate; it means being intentional with your time and effort. That’s important to remember—no one should be asking you to stretch yourself beyond your limit (emotionally, financially, etc) because that is when burnout occurs. We need each other doing the best that we can whenever we can, and so the more of us practicing mindfulness means doing more jointly with less effort individually.
So, call-to-action time
We can probably all think of ways to be mindful givers throughout the year, and especially to do so outside of design. And the climate crisis is big enough to need all of those opportunities, so please, give as you can, but I want to challenge us as we go into 2022 to think of things that we can do uniquely as designers to take on this crisis. What can you do/create/contribute to next year that can make you feel more empowered as a designer? What skills can you use to empower others in the communities around you? Are their organizations that could use your help? Climate Designers is a perfect place to organize and build momentum with many different people, all around the world. Head over to our Mighty Networks site to leave a comment with your ideas!
*This is a question I’ll be asking a lot in these entries, so anticipate seeing it often; examining the world analytically is also called being mindful. Look at many different subjects through your perspective, but don’t forget to see other peoples’ perspectives on many different subjects.
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Perspective is a gift and with each new perspective the Field Guides get better.
Whether you are a prospective writer/contributor, a commenter, or a reader: new experiences, new connections, and ways of seeing the world leave us richer than before.
This entry was written by
Matt McGillvray
Matt is a designer and illustrator living near Portland, Maine, and has been working for more than a decade doing branding, illustration, web design, print design, social media posts, and even a little SEO.
When not designing he’s usually reading, writing, or running. His current big writing project is a book about design and climate change. He is a chronic teller of puns and will not apologize for that.