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Communication Design Playing a Role in Social Innovation

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Perspectives on Design II

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Design and Innovation ((SSDI,volume 16))

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Abstract

Design for social innovation aims at solving community problems by recombining available resources, creating new social relationships, and strengthening stakeholder networks. Social innovation presents itself as one of the most promising proposals for responding to systemic problems that manifest themselves both at a global and local level, and the use of design methodologies, tools, and skills enables social innovation to become more resilient and sustainable. Communication design is a particularly relevant area in this context, as it meets the needs for visibility, visual materialization, creation of future scenarios, dissemination, and replication. Through an in-depth case study of three social innovation initiatives, we collected evidence regarding different roles that design is called upon, although they are not exclusive to communication design. Some of the main roles relate to triggering the initiatives themselves as well as the social debate that sustains them, facilitating processes of ideation and co-creation, mediating actors and prototyping products, services or events.

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Acknowledgements

This work is funded by Programa de Bolsas de Doutoramento through Universidade de Lisboa and Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculdade de Arquitetura, Centro de Investigação em Arquitetura, Urbanismo e Design, Universidade de Lisboa, Rua Sá Nogueira, Polo Universitário, Alto da Ajuda, 1349-055, Lisboa, Portugal

    Ana Melo & Marco Neves

Authors
  1. Ana Melo
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  2. Marco Neves
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Correspondence to Ana Melo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Escola Superior de Artes Aplicadas, Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco, Castelo Branco, Portugal

    Daniel Raposo

  2. Escola Superior de Artes Aplicadas, Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco, Castelo Branco, Portugal

    João Neves

  3. Escola Superior de Artes Aplicadas, Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco, Castelo Branco, Portugal

    José Silva

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Melo, A., Neves, M. (2022). Communication Design Playing a Role in Social Innovation. In: Raposo, D., Neves, J., Silva, J. (eds) Perspectives on Design II. Springer Series in Design and Innovation , vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79879-6_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79879-6_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-79878-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-79879-6

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