Barry Streek
The beaded Aids-awareness logo, such as those worn by President Thabo Mbeki and other members of his Cabinet, is a “powerful, powerful” instrument of good design, according to United States Professor Dick Buchanan.
“This is so important as a design project. It may be one of the most important I have seen in recent years,” he said.
The beaded logos were crafted by rural women working within the Rural Crafts and HIV/Aids Awareness project in KwaZulu- Natal.
Buchanan, the head of the school of design at the Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, said: “On the face of it we say it is a craft project. We are going to teach you how to use beaded objects. Well, they know how to do that.
“What is it about? Well, they want to educate about Aids, but it is a very sophisticated use of information design embedded in the cultural processes of the people, adjusted to their circumstances.”
The original Aids-awareness logo came from communities in San Francisco, but “that’s not the significance”, said Buchanan. “Think about the logo of a corporation. You’ve got this big shell. What the hell is a shell? It’s just an image.
“But if you do it really right with a logo, it touches the cultural values of an organisation. Boy, that’s what has happened here. The discussion of what this means has gone much deeper with these women, whose own lives have been affected by it. So, you’re using the native craft to communicate a sophisticated message of awareness and weaving it into the community most affected – the mothers and the women.
“The next stage of this project now is how these women will spread the learning around the community, learning how to make it, learning the meaning of it and the stories around this.”
The logo should promote more awareness and more caution.
“To me, this is more than just having a message board, as marketing would do. This is woven in so that you are not passive when you get this. You are actually active. You are induced to think more about it and make your own judgement about it.
“This is the new interaction design. I never seen a project so deeply interactive and it’s not high-tech. It is a leading-edge design project.”
Buchanan, who was wearing one of the beaded logos, partly as a tribute to a close friend who died recently of Aids, said he would be analysing the concept with his colleagues and students on his return to the US.
He delivered a paper last week at the Design Education Forum’s conference, Reshaping South Africa by Design, at the Cape Technikon in Cape Town.
Buchanan, who also had two meetings with senior officials in the South African Revenue Service about the possible redesign of the South African tax system, which he believes should be more people- oriented, said human-centred design should have far greater priority in South African education.