One year of fighting for inclusivity in design: Design Can’s first birthday

A year ago today, the can opened. Calling for an end to inequity across the UK’s design industry, the Design Can campaign set out to overturn the historic prejudices and biases embedded in the sector; to lift the conscious and unconscious barriers put in place on the basis of race, gender, sexuality or disability; and to give decision makers the tools to drive change.

It’s been a heck of a year.

Led by its brilliant and driven steering committee*, with voluntary administrative and management support from Team Zetteler, as well as design and development from Not Flat 3, Design Can has grown from nothing to a significant industry voice and change-maker enabling toolkit in just 12 months. It has won coverage on prominent platforms including Forbes, Observer, AIGA and Creative Review; notched up an enthusiastic following on Instagram; and expanded the website to include hundreds of eye-opening resources – features, films, podcasts, events and more – to help inspire and equip anyone heeding the call.

But we’re not blowing any trumpets just yet. While Design Can has helped raise awareness and sparked some much-needed conversations, there’s a world of work still to do. The creative sector is still experiencing deep inequality. There’s still a web of institutional biases to unpick. And although the BLM movement has achieved incredible breakthroughs in increasing the public understanding of systemic racism, there are still a host of other ’isms entrenched in our industry – ageism, ableism, sexism and all their points of intersection and overlap. Designers and creatives weave the fabric of our cities; they choose which model is selected for an advertising campaign; they create the products that make our lives easier (or harder, if we don’t fit the supposedly ‘typical’ user profile); they set the tone of the wider national agenda. 

Design can do amazing things and momentum is growing for change – but the actions and choices of those within the sector, and those of you reading this right now, will determine whether we achieve it.

So, on its first birthday, Design Can is determined to build on the success of the first 12 months and achieve even more. In the last few weeks, the website has introduced two new resource categories: Donate, to help people find and fund the organisations best placed to make meaningful change within the creative industries; and Apply, to connect underrepresented creators with the bursaries, prizes, residencies, jobs and opportunities that can help sustain their practice and drive it forward.

Ultimately, however, Design Can will only be successful in its mission with the widespread support of the creative sector – and that means as many people as possible need to get behind it. If you haven’t got involved in the conversation yet, now’s the time. Suggest a resource to be added to the website – an article, podcasts, video, talk or other opportunity, anything that deserves wider attention. Follow on Instagram, and sign-up to the newsletter. Be the change if you can – here’s a detailed list of actions you can take here.

Design can do better. We all have the power to make sure it does. 

* The Design Can steering committee comprises:

Mac Collins, furniture and object designer/maker

Yinka Ilori, artist and designer

Meneesha Kellay, curator of festivals at V&A

Priya Khanchandani, head of curatorial at Design Museum

James Lee, consultant and member of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Advisory Group

Sarah Mann, head of programmes, growth and innovation at Design Council

Steph McLaren-Neckles, co-founder of Let’s Be Brief

Ansel Neckles, co-founder of Let’s Be Brief

Ella Ritchie, co-founder of Intoart

Sabine Zetteler, founder of Zetteler