AGENZ - A Citizen Designer Collective
︎ 2023AGENZ is a diverse group of designers falling within Generation Z. Their digital platform is a dedicated space for the work of young designers, with a special focus on design students. This group doesn’t take on clients, but instead acts as a decentralized, collaborative publishing platform, that is always open to new contributors.
As an online and social media platform, this project expands on what it means to be a Citizen Designer. In addition to highlighting a designer’s unique sense of social responsibility, it frames design projects that address civic issues as acts of civic engagement.
What does it mean to have agency? AGENZ believes agency is the power individuals have to think for themselves and act in ways that shape their experiences, enviornments and futures.
Agency is central to civic engagement, and so the design projects submitted to AGENZ provide audience members with multiple ways to engage with the work. Sharing projects in this way gives the audience diverse opportunities to exercise their agency .
Below is an example of a dedicated page for a project submitted to AGENZ. Here you can see the look, listen, learn, and act sections of the project submission in action.
Interested in learning about the process of this project? It is first and foremost a design research project into how Gen Z designers can engage other mebers of their generation with civic issues. My research which includes case studies, a graffiti wall, and an Ideation Workshop, is documented below through process images and scans of my formal report.
Fun Fact: the name AGENZ was actually suggested by a student designer who attended the Ideation Workshop. What more of a testament to the co-design process could you ask for!
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