In outlining 10 strategies for community engagement, and breathing life into them with two concise case studies apiece, the book inspires and teaches in equal measure.
Each case illustrates the design process from beginning to end, from the design challenge to the engagement and design strategy to outcomes and lessons learned. While clear and striking images of designed booklets, posters and signs abound, photos of communities interacting with and using these products is given priority. As such, this reads as a handbook for action that appeals specifically to graphic designers seeking to engage communities through their work. However, the strategies are broadly applicable to any designer looking to fully inform his or her product with a well-conceived and context-sensitive process.
Their project was designed to critique the unsustainable nature of such planning by designing a series of public murals throughout the city. Through a process of open-sourcing ideas as a team, they created a portfolio of intervention options: typographic water murals on concrete walls, data projects, fading messages written on sidewalks in ice cubes. With an arsenal of carefully considered, collaborative design interventions throughout the city, Moving Design was able to get many residents, including then-mayor Richard Daley, to speak openly about the possibility of reversing the flow of the river for more sustainable urban water management.