S.O.D (Social Oriented Design)

Whilst away in Oslo I had the opportunity to become part of a group called S.O.D, it's a group that designs for social oriented issues and exhibits it all wherever they are able to. The group was set up a couple of years ago by Yann the graphic design tutor at Westerdals, he figured that social issues are something that affects us all and is something that needs to be addressed more and what better way to do so than through the use of design. Although the group began small, they're always expanding hence how I was able to become a part of it.

"Based on the fact that I truly believe that most of our daily related problems are due to stress, lack of interest regarding the others and selfishness I decided to see what we, graphic designers and creative people in general, could do to light up people's everyday.

Our goal is to find effective and cost free solutions to solve social related problems (these problems can be big or small)" - Yann

In recent years they've been able to exhibit their work both local and worldwide with exhibitions at Grafill in Oslo but also a place over in New York.

S.O.D at Grafill

Each year they aim to address and express, through design, a social issue that some of us or maybe all of us. Their most recent issue was loneliness which I believe is definitely an issue in our "connected" society.

Umer Ahmed's piece on loneliness

The meetings for the group are generally every few months so luckily I had the chance to be a part of one whilst in Oslo. There was roughly 15 people there on the night and we sat and discussed potential topics on which we could create work around for the next exhibition hoping to be held during the summer. A few topics included that of: 

Fear of the Unknown
"Fear of the unknown and a generally small amount of knowledge is common in today’s society, and often the very reason people choose to avoid (and hate on) others with different backgrounds, beliefs, cultures, sexualities, etc. Those who feel the need to shout the loudest are often the most ignorant (and maybe afraid ones), and they try to compensate using BIG WORDS." - Fredrik

Dehumanized
"According to many studies Economical Materialism is associated with anxiety, depression and broken relationships. In hope for better self-esteem people tend to fill the emptiness with possessions, likes and jealousy. I tend to investigate further why we get sucked into this void that is Economical Materialism, how it affects us psychologically (self-esteem) and how brands brainwash us through marketing and visual communication." - Umer

The Human Standards Manual

"We want to look into the expectations society puts on the individual: from the obvious pressures like body image, to the more bizarre specific issues like what kind of job you have. The goal is to shine a light on how these expectations affect us, and how absurd it is that we are so hung up on them. We were originally thinking about making a book and a website, but we realise this might be too big of a task for the amount of time we have. We might start off making the website, then begin creating a book afterwards if we have time for it. Maybe even make another product entirely." - Nico & Ben

These are only a few of many ideas that have been shared at the moment, but soon we aim to narrow it down to one and expand from there, creating pieces of work that best represents our views on the topic and how we could shed light on something so important.