Month: March 2022

@uusityyli – A brand new design movement – for everyone, everywhere.

These days, things with cool Nordic sounding names are, apparently, at least as popular as stuff with other names so we used this science to come up with a name which means ‘new style’ in Finnish and is pronounced ‘ooo-see tee-lee’.

With that bit done we spent the next few minutes considering what we wanted to do with our new name and then a passer-by suggested we create a design movement which seeks to unite everyone by ensuring that as people design they try and incorporate the basics of inclusion, access and inclusive environments as much as possible. Essentially like embedding ‘doing the right thing’ as early as possible in each decision making stage so that whatever it is we are creating is already ‘humanfit’ or at least has the capability to improve in the general direction of the people who will use, be around or look at what we create.

Welcome to Uusi Tyyli.

What is striking about most design movements is that they involve a sector, style, political or religious movement that is narrow in focus. Uusi tyyli is different. It is a based on a belief that we are all decision makers in everything we do. These micro decisions make micro impacts on other people and our environment. They can be the difference between social inclusion and social exclusion, between having a shared identity or not.

Most people might not think twice about the everyday decisions they design for themselves and for others. But there are parallel worlds out there with intersections into our world. These are the worlds of the artist, the potter, the builder, the architect, the writer, the musician, the planner, the dancer, the cosmetician, the web designer, the marketeer, the programmer, the AI itself and the, well, the world of the professional designer. These are the people who are in control of whether we are included or excluded from their worlds, from their products and from their vision.

Uusi Tyyli is the new design movement which seeks to include creative inclusion in the craft and creativity of these professional designers – whatever they have in mind.

It is a movement with a fluid philosophy that is constantly shaped by the individual but founded on the principles of inclusion and access and promoting a diversity of ways for people to participate and engage with.

Uusi Tyyli was devised as a way to create subtle change in the art and design community by organising a movement they could adopt. A key part of creative inclusion is to maintain the energy of the moment – by including more types of people we get more energy to solve things and maintain a sense of excitement.

If the process is interesting then the result will be interesting. A goal constrains the imagination. The search for an objective becomes a trap. It is better to identify areas of focus.

Uusi Tyyli is not about training but about equipping people to think creatively about inclusion for themselves. To explore within the area of focus rather than set a goal. Untrained but willing they will be able to start developing new things within their own worlds.

Uusi Tyyli is about having fun and playing and experimenting like a child not having constraints applied like an adult. It isn’t about a rules-based order but about curiosity to improve not seek perfection – there isn’t a right or a wrong with Uusi Tyyli just an electrifying forward motion that provides the energy not the criticism to encourage creatives to think inclusively. 

What’s Involved?

Uusi Tyyli is about sharing the ideas whatever they are because it’s about finding the 1 great one from the 1000. It’s about applying the lessons of creativity to inclusion and diversity. It’s about giving a new area of focus to everyone. Creating a sandbox called inclusion for others to explore whilst drawing attention to all the cool bits to excite and amaze and stimulate as people go.

There is only one call to action with uusi Tyyli – that is if you choose to design inclusion into your work that you:

• Tell someone about it
• Say why you did what you did what you did
• Say how it change things for you?

It’s really going to be about the art of asking yourself questions. How, why, what questions that will set out the usability angle. It’s a delicate way of challenging the thought process of your design. It is ultimately about nothing being perfect in a non- ideal world but recognising that this is the world I want to see and help build.

It’s about simply being able to ask the question and then realising how people can be excluded.

CIEDA is going to begin working with a expert local delivery partner on an exciting new venture for an amazing area of Kenya called Kisumu County.

Project Wigwa is a pilot project for CIEDA Nexus which is the concept where CIEDA can create inclusive environments which in turn can learn and develop together. The Project will be focused on supporting the students, parents and economic community of a primary school in a part of Kisumu Town which is a deprived area of high-density housing situated near the shores of Lake Victoria.

The Project is being designed around communities within Kisumu County which has Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city, at its heart. Kisumu is a port city built up to a population of around 700,000 on the banks of Lake Victoria, was the first UN Millennium City in 2006 and is not far from the home village of Barack Obama’s father. Most of the people of Kisumu are trilingual being familiar with Kiswahili, English and Dholuo which is the local language of the Luo, one of Kenya’s largest ethnic groups.

Kisumu County is made up of 7 sub counties and forms one of the 47 counties of Kenya. It has a population of 1.15 million. Maseno University attracts students from all over Kenya for its IT department, there is also Great Lakes University and Kisumu Polytechnic alongside 706 primary schools, 173 public secondaries including Maseno School which is one of oldest secondary schools in the country. Private education is also popular.

The population of Kisumu County is known for generally high levels of IQ which is anecdotally linked to the consumption of fish. Tourism is also likely to become important due to the development of Kisumu International Airport.

CIEDA will be working with our delivery partner alongside providing providing strategic direction, project management. The Project brief is to work with and support a cohort of up to 200 pupils of a Standard (4-8) which is middle and upper primary. These students will then be put into 5 clusters of different age groups and a Leader asked to volunteer to lead the cluster.
CIEDA is an organisation that is designed to support the promotion of inclusive design principles around the world, support the new, global, generation of designers and decision makers of our world to embed the principles of inclusive design at different intersections in their education and working lives. We promote both Creative Inclusion which is about blending creativity and inclusion together and Regenerative Inclusion which promotes sustainable inclusion.
There are clearly defined participants and beneficiaries associated with Project Wigwa. The general beneficiaries will be children, women, the wider community who predominantly subsist on less than 5 USD a day.