Design Against Design: Cause and consequence of a dissent graphic practice

Join us to celebrate the Montreal/Tiohtià:ke launch of assistant professor Kevin Yuen Kit Lo’s new book Design Against Design: Cause and consequence of a dissent graphic practice. Kevin will present the book, discuss the thinking and process behind the work, and join one of the interviewees, Chadi Marouf (Katasoho, PAJU) in conversation. The event will also provide an opportunity for informal discussion between designers, students, and members of local social justice organizations.

About the Book:

Design Against Design argues for the urgent necessity of critical engagement and political resistance through graphic practice. It draws on insights from the practice of LOKI, a small graphic design studio committed to working with social movements towards radical political change. With conversational interviews, personal and critical essays, and a wide-ranging selection of graphic works, this book unravels the real-world relationships, motivations and contradictions involved in a socially engaged design practice.
Both a passionate indictment of the discipline of graphic design, and a utopian love letter to its radical potential, Kevin Yuen Kit Lo’s collection of almost confessional, candid essays challenge the status quo of design writing. demands that we think more intimately about the politics of visual culture under contemporary capitalism and, importantly, how we can act against it.

About the Speakers:

Kevin Yuen Kit Lo is Assistant Professor of Communication Design and Visual Culture in the Department of Design and Computation Arts. He works at the intersections of graphic design, cultural production, and social change with a research focus on publication practices and social movements. His research is invested in exploring the tensions between material and relational studies of design as a means of fostering greater social and political autonomy.

Kevin founded the graphic design studio LOKI in 2014, working alongside community organizations, non-profits, cultural and educational institutions, unions, artists, researchers and activist groups, as part of broader movements for social change. The studio has worked on campaigns to stop racial profiling, designed protest graphics for anti-racist and anti-colonial social justice movements, created online platforms for critical journalism and supported the cultural production of marginalized writers and artists through the design of publications, exhibitions, and collaborative works.

Kevin holds an MA in Typographic Design from the London College of Printing (UAL). Prior to founding LOKI, he worked in interactive design, advertising and fashion. He is a member of the Memefest network and the Justseeds artist co-operative.

Chadi Marouf studied Computer Science in Jordan and Design Art at Concordia University. He co-founded Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights and is a co-owner of KataSoho Design and Printing, a print shop specialising in high end quality printing and book binding, particularly for small publishers and social movement organisations. As a Palestinian activist, Chadi played a key role in organizing the uprising against Benjamin Netanyahu's appearance at Concordia University in 2002. He continues to advocate for the liberation of Palestine as the co-president of Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU). Over the years, Chadi has designed numerous posters and flyers one might find in the streets of Montreal on the Metro, on light poles or in the general public space landscape.