Freakout @ Hopescotch

On September 9th, 2016, I gave a talk at Hopscotch Design festival in Raleigh on the topic of Designing for Hope and Action; here are selected images from that talk annotated for anyone who wants to take a deeper dive.

Side-by-side photos: a small white dog, and the cut end of a banana whose markings look like the same dog's face.
Side-by-side photos: a brass door lock shaped like a duck's bill, and a platypus with a nearly identical face.
A tan leather handbag hanging on a hook, its buckles and opening forming a startled face.

Friends everywhere.

eBay listing titled 'Virgin Mary In Grilled Cheese NOT A HOAX! LOOK & SEE!', showing a toasted sandwich with a face-like scorch mark.

This grilled cheese sandwich sold for $28,000. This really happened.

Cover of Action Comics #1 (1938): Superman lifts a green car over his head while terrified bystanders flee.

Where it all began, mostly.

Illustration of early humans working together to build shelters from branches and stones.

Keep those eyes open.

A white corrugated-metal building with a red door and planters along the sidewalk, on a sunny day.

An open and shared workspace of community-minded people and business. I'm proud to work here.

Cover of Billy Joel's single 'We Didn't Start the Fire,' designed as a newspaper front page listing historical events.

History teachers still love this song.

Marshall McLuhan in front of TV screens reading 'The medium is the message,' beside the cover of his book 'The Medium is the Massage.'

A first step for understanding media. TLDR; the format of the content delivery changes the content itself, and us…

Front page of The New York Morning News, Friday, February 7, 1845.

Newspapers used to print multiple editions per day. Can't do that anymore.

Aerial view of Niagara Falls, with water pouring over the falls into the river gorge below.

Big and beautiful.

Edward R. Murrow seated in a CBS television studio in the 1950s.

Truth to power and See It Now

Two breaking-news alerts on a phone lock screen: a reported high school shooting in Alpine, Texas, and Ryan Lochte's swimming ban.

Consider whether or not this is helpful, but if you want it, here it is.

Still from the 1980s anti-drug ad showing an egg frying in a pan, captioned 'Partnership for a Drug-Free America.'

80's kids know this silly Regan-era bit, but I'll say this: it was catchy as a slogan.

Wikipedia article on the serial position effect, with a U-shaped graph showing people remember the first and last items in a list best.

Recency bias.

Wikipedia article on negativity bias: negative experiences affect us more strongly than equally intense positive ones.

Negativity bias.

Travelers crouching on an airport floor during a false alarm, under the New York Times headline 'Shooting Scares Show a Nation Quick to Fear the Worst.'

It wasn't just Raleigh; people scared as hell from…nothing.

Shoppers with their hands on their heads being led out by police, under the headline 'Experts: Crabtree Valley Mall panic fueled by fear of terror attacks.'

Here in town, officials couldn't find evidence of any emergency, other than injuries caused by the stampede.

Newscaster Howard Beale, arms raised mid-rant, in the 1976 film Network.

"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore."

Two open hands offering a red pill and a blue pill, from The Matrix.

This is from The Matrix, but don't re-watch that. Instead, read Oliver Burkeman.

Bar chart of worldwide battle deaths per 100,000 people: above 20 in the 1940s, falling to near zero by the 2000s.

Stephen Pinker explains this image. TLDR; violence is down everywhere.

Bar chart: people living in extreme poverty fell from 1.93 billion in 1990 to a projected 836 million in 2015.
Bar chart: deaths of children under five fell from 90 to 43 per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2015.

"People have never lived longer, better, safer, or richer lives than they do now."

Infographic, 'The War on Death': since 1990, deaths from tuberculosis and maternal and infant causes are down about 50%, measles 71%, and AIDS 24% since 2005; life expectancy rose from 47 years in 1950 to 70 in 2011.

There is no better time to be alive than now, anywhere in the world.

Table of Americans killed each year by cause, with arrows on Islamic jihadist terrorists (9) and lawnmowers (69); being shot by another American tops the list at 11,737.

A War on Lawnmowers? Are we prosecuting these guys yet?

Line chart, 2000–2013: US firearm deaths stay around 30,000 a year, while US citizens killed by terrorism stay near zero.

What we're spending to protect us on one versus the other is insane too…it's a 1000x mismatch.

Cartoon skyline of Orbit City from The Jetsons: saucer-topped towers on tall stilts against a starry sky.

"Their boy Elroy…"

The original Star Trek crew laughing together on the bridge of the Enterprise.

If you've never seen any of them, start with these 10 on Netflix. Energy and charm turns trash throwaway culture into a pop phenom, and a force for advancement.

Tim Berners-Lee beside a CERN computer showing an early World Wide Web page.

Sir Tim is just…the best. He could have kept it for himself, he could have owned it, but he didn't. He set us free.

19th-century engraving of two men smashing a mechanical loom with a hammer and a bar.

These are luddites, scared English textile workers. They smashed machines for good reasons.

Thank-you slide, 'thx to:', listing the ten friends named below.

Thanks to these friends for helping me think about these ideas, and for helping me feel more hopeful when I needed it.

Follow these smart people!

Tina Haver Currin
Grayson Haver Currin
Niki Litts
Sarah Mason
David Millsaps
Marie Schacht
Kate Thompson
Kathryn Thompson
Marnie Thompson
Ben Watson