Readings 10.12.11

Power and Poverty:
Americans are selfish. Individually and theoretically, everyone can be generous and would give everything we have to benefit others. Like what the article says, we need to stop focusing on war and start focusing on providing resources for 3rd world countries to make them better.  Citizens assume what we give to the government goes towards the help but the US gives the least out of all the other major countries. So I think that we need to change ourselves before we can help/change others. We should stop giving to the government and look towards more independent organizations whom we know will direct the money to the right country. Women and girls should also be educated. If they were more knowledgeable, then we have a starting point to change something. To me, it also seems like we are putting females at fault. Why can't we educate males as well? Why does it have to evolve around the women and make it their responsibilities? I'm sure it's no one's choice to get raped or depend on the man the survive so both sexes should be educated.

Human Dignity and Human Rights:

• "Form and content" - not the rejection of function, but a recognition that unless designers grasp the significant content of the products they create, their work will come to little consequence or may even lead to harm in our complex world. 
• Design is fundamentally grounded in human dignity and human rights. 
• Human-centered design.

Even though we design for users, we should also think about morals and ethics of our culture and create something that is human-centered. The Holocaust was a good example of human-centered design although it was a bad thing. Our designs should keep human rights and dignity in mind and it should reflect what we believe and how it could affect the public. The article was quite straightforward in terms of what everything meant.

Icon Manifestos:
This reading was so confusing. I think the manifesto that made the most sense to me was Sagmeister's and Thackara. Actually, I think it made more sense the more I kept reading. At first I wasn't sure what everything was about but then it registered that it was each designer's philosophy about life and design. I think it would've helped if sections weren't cut off as well. Overall, this was a good wrap up of all of our readings in the semester so far. Designers should be open, stop complaining and start doing, and we should aim to change the world with design as best as we can. We need to be humans and design for humans. We need to be caring and understanding. We need to live life and do what we love and love what we do. -insert general life lessons-.