Neuroqueering design practice

The useful part

I was discovering a world where fellow neurodivergent thinkers and authors pushed boundaries, revealing a space of possibility beyond the dominant narratives. That rather prolonged period of personal discovery later coincided with a rapid shift in my role toward design leadership. I found myself seeking guidance not solely as a craft expert, but as a not-so-experienced mentor and coach.

How it works

• At times, it was hard for me to connect this personal state of being (a queer, autistic person just trying to figure it out) with my work as a new design leader (a manager and coach really trying to figure...
• Recently, I've found even more reinforcement and inspiration in the critical work exploring neurodiversity and queerness.
• Such work reaffirms and reshapes how we think of our bodyminds, and has plenty to offer to our design practice too.
• Fresh into this new reality, I felt a lot of insecurity in my own aptitude to be the design leader I wanted to be, and still need to be.
• That insecurity manifested itself both as an internal force and as a response to the general state of anxiety amongst designers of the mid-2020s.

Details worth keeping

A look into design as a craft through the lens of neuroqueering. Illustration by Kristina Gushcheva-Keippilä I remember reading Robert Chapman's Empire of Normality at a strange threshold: in my mid-twenties, a few years into design as a profession, still in a pandemic haze, and on the precipice of what felt like great change. I still think about this piece by Sara Wachter-Boettcher every day.