Design Can Do

Design Can do is an organization founded in 2012, to provide a social innovation tool using design methodologies in a workshop platform where professionals from various disciplines can contribute to the development of their society through design thinking. The project aims to change the false notion that design is an exclusive activity mainly applied to beautify and develop commercial goods. Design Can Do has hosted workshops in Seoul, Korea and in Cape Town, South Africa in 2012, to show that design methods can be applied to social problems and to facilitate locals of the area to take ownership of their society to come up with real solutions themselves. We wanted the methods used in the DCD workshops (also listed in the DCD workshop manual) to reflect 3 key points as a method of social innovation. One, that design can do so much. Design can emote, communicate, help, better, refine, connect, strengthen: the list is endless. Second was to show that these design processes can take all sorts of different form, framework and order to suit the challenge at hand. The last was to communicate that the this process can be used in all kinds of contexts to hold different types of content, be that the theme or location of the challenge or the people involved.