Graphic design is stuck, caught in capitalism’s chokehold. This project is a collective rethinking, a way to question that condition through an exploration of open-ended design practices. How can we draft alternative futures in the present? What’s left in the margins?

Graphic design is stuck. When researching critical graphic design and whether or not it may offer solutions to – or rather ways to deal with – the discipline’s forced alliance with global capitalism and consumerism, the feeling that arises is best described as a bitterness. The chokehold that capitalism has on graphic design feels for many to be inescapable and disillusioning, hopelessness often prevailing over optimism. This participatory design project seeks to counter that hopelessness by implementing an open, unknowing approach. It is an exercise in collective rethinking and shared authorship, going beyond the traditional binaries of individual/collective, pessimism/optimism, utopian/dystopian, inside/outside of capitalism. Rather than proposing perfect solutions, it poses open-ended questions: how can we draft alternative futures in the present? Can we find room for critical footnotes? What’s left in the margins?