we are a collective, not a team
friends, not colleagues
diverse, and work to remain so.
our boundaries are undefined
our identities mutually defined.

we work slowly,
we want to breathe.
we think and feel at the same time.

we do what we know and what we don’t
we open conversations and don’t always close them
and we continue to talk.
we learn, think, and design as we talk
between us, with others, with you.

we are political, not profitable.
we are participants,
in a design that is radical,
critical, meaningful,
a catalyst for social justice.

we listen, we do.

projektado is an international and transdisciplinary collective producing critical knowledge in and around the extended field of design.

contact us

if you want to have a chat, propose a project, submit a piece, or ask a question, feel free to reach us at:

projektadocollective@gmail.com
@projektado

if you want to get involved in the activities of our collective have a look here!

a record of our previous manifesto

this manifesto was written in 2020 and took close to 4 months to complete. although our manifesto has been changed in 2023, we believe that it is important to provide context on our origins and to support the idea of manifestos as dynamic and changing spaces, rather than dogmatic boundaries.

projektado is an international and transdisciplinary design collective that responds to the ways design is perceived, taught, practiced and consumed today. Increasingly adopted as a mechanism of capitalism and neoliberalism, design is often devised and presented as apolitical, positioning the role of the designer as a facilitator of oppression and discrimination. In reaction to the social, political and environmental detriment that is following this trajectory, we question the responsibilities of design, through the critical lens of a well-informed praxis. From specific to systemic, across scales and sectors, we revindicate the designer as a political, constructive and critical force, a catalyst for social justice.

We affirm that all design processes bear a responsibility towards our common future, and that for this reason designing must be enacted as an intellectual and not only a physical act. With designers being increasingly educated to become passive technicians, tools for the largest companies in the world, it is crucial for us to bring together the diverging fragments of this profession, to claim the interdependence of its theory and practice, and to advocate for an institutional and professional design education that is conscious of its extensive leverage on society’s behaviours, values and attitudes. This process of responsibilisation is necessary to contribute to the ongoing elucidation of how design can shape and affect the future of global, collective, living environments.

We as projektado establish ourselves as a radical, critical and constructive force. Through our collective action we aim to establish an open conversation, challenging the past, present and future of our discipline. We intend to create a movement that carries design away from being a profit tool and instead directs it towards a more responsible and accountable path. We contribute to a more democratic conception of our profession, one that is more ecologically and socially sustainable. A design of everyone and for everyone.