Co-Creation

Our approach to co-creation is built on a commitment to:

Creative capacity building

We are deeply invested in redistributing power through creative design processes. We believe that self-representation and self-determination are paramount to capacity building and empowerment.

Re-imagining expertise

We seek to challenge and complicate the distinction between “designer” and “non-designer” by acknowledging the genius and wisdom that our participants already have. For us, design is all about re-imagination and creating new possibilities, and people with lived experience navigating and surviving systems of oppression and colonization already do this every day.

Meaningful support

We ultimately want to help people be their best selves. Whether it’s leveraging co-creative projects into paid employment opportunities for marginalized folks, or providing references and enthusiastic encouragement beyond the life of the project, we are dedicated to providing caring supporting to our co-creators where it matters most. We meet people where they’re at and seek to name and celebrate their skills and their inherent value in the world.

All co-creation projects

Branding, Co-creation

Send the Right Message

We worked with a youth design team to develop a website and campaign that encourages straight and cisgender high school youth to challenge everyday instances of homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia.

Co-creation, Copywriting

Un(Knotted): Co-creating safer spaces

In the fall of 2016, a group of students across disciplines at OCAD University participated in a workshop series focused on building a nuanced understanding of social justice, anti-oppression, consent culture and bystander intervention to resist and reimagine sexual violence in the OCAD community.

Branding, Co-creation

Supporting Our Youth (SOY)

This nine-month co-creative process brought a team of LGBTQ youth together to collaboratively rebrand SOY.

Co-creation, Facilitation

My MSG Creative Workshop

We worked with the peer youth leaders at the My MSG program to develop a calendar of affirming messages about themselves and each other. The group learned about composition, typography, image creation, and creating a design brief, culminating in this fifteen-month calendar filled with love.