May book pick:

Ruined by Design: How Designers Destroyed the World, and What We Can Do to Fix It

written by Mike Monteiro

Special session: Join us with author Mike Monteiro for a live conversation about design, responsibility, and how we can do better.

🎥 This session will be recorded.

Grab your favorite drink and join us for an evening discussing how design became a political act — with the person who wrote the book.

This is a conversation, not a lecture. Come with your questions, your pushback, your real-world scenarios.
Mike is here to talk about the messy reality of making ethical decisions in design — so bring the tough stuff. We'll have time for open Q&A, and we encourage you to challenge ideas, share your own experiences, and dig into what responsible design actually looks like in practice.

About the book:

In a nutshell: The world is working exactly as designed. And it's not working very well. This book argues that every harmful thing we create is on us — and gives you the tools to do something about it.

Here's the full description if you want to dive deeper:

The world is working exactly as designed. And it's not working very well. Which means we need to do a better job of designing it.

Design has an amazing amount of power — the power to choose, the power to influence. But it also has a lot of blood on its hands. Every cigarette ad, every gun, every confusing ballot, every privacy breach that outs someone or helps a stalker find their victim — that's on us.

This book will make you see that design is a political act. What we choose to design, who we choose to work for, who we choose to work with, and the people we've excluded from these decisions — these are all political acts.

If you're a designer, this book might make you angry. It should make you angry. But it will also give you the tools you need to make better decisions: how to evaluate potential benefits and harm, how to present your concerns, how to build diverse teams who approach problems from multiple points of view, how to make a case using data and storytelling, and how to say NO in a way that makes people listen.

Most importantly, this book will fill you with the confidence to do the job the way you always wanted to do it. It will help you understand your responsibilities.

https://www.ruinedby.design/

About the author:
Mike Monteiro is a designer, writer, artist and co-founder (with Erika Hall) of Mule Design, an interactive design studio based in San Francisco. He's written four books: Design Is a Job, You're My Favorite Client, Ruined by Design, and The Collected Angers.

He's known for his direct, no-nonsense approach to both the craft and business of design. Mike writes and speaks frequently about design ethics, professional practice, and the responsibility designers have to the people affected by their work. In 2014, he received the Net award for Conference Talk of the Year for his talk "How Designers Destroyed the World."

He's an immigrant in the United States. He's not as smart as his wife, as courageous as his daughter, or as charming as his dog. He's pretty much given up on tech and is considering a future as a lighthouse keeper or record store owner — or maybe opening a record store in a lighthouse.

https://www.mikemonteiro.com/