Sharina Mach - MADA NOW 2021 - Art, Design and Architecture

The focus of this research project was based on the curiosity of the word ‘care’ and a process of making sense questioning what role does it play within design practice. What does ‘care’ look like in different forms from visual to experiential? How might these elements help create ‘caring spaces’ within work cultures to make room for important conversations about fears, tensions and discomforts that young designers may experience along their journey within practice?

Through a series of experimental workshops, I embarked on a journey, learning and shifting towards a collaborative practice that questions how might we use design to bring people together to co-create cultures of care.

Love letter or Breakup Letter

To start off my research journey, I asked 17 designers to write a love or a breakup letter to their practice. These letters were carried through the entire research project and utilised in each workshop as participants learn to find new ways of seeing, relating and retelling stories about their relationship with design.

Capturing Conversations

Capturing Conversations was the first workshop to explore the theme of ‘relationships’ and how this connects to building a practice of care. The creation of this space allowed for meaningful dialogue to take place as participants were asked to share their love letters and stories behind what they wrote. These posters were created in the workshop to document the themes that had emerged from the discussions. The intent was that they were to be reused again to build on conversations as our journey of creating a new practice starts.

Love and Hate Tensions

This poster series is an insight into the conversations of designers sharing their ‘Love & Hate’ relationship with practice. The intention behind this workshop was to experiment with finding a new path of expression. Participants were invited to play between the visual and verbal language, using creative methods as a means to discover, reflect and learn about their ‘tensions’ (which are often invisible) and make them visible.

Can ‘care’ take form in typeface?

I pictured care as a typeface that is designed to be warm as these letters work together to maintain a lighthearted tone through its subtle rounded corners and accentuated counters. Its influences are derived from the vintage Italian posters created in the late sixties and elements of sign writing flair. Its humanist form is made with the intent to capture the concept of ‘voice’ — that can communicate, advocate and speak up for the conversations that go unheard.