Updates from October

This month some of us even managed to meet up at Pelican House in London. We did some IRL workshopping, planned upcoming projects and spent some social time together.

Platform

Platform is an initiative that has a rich 40 year history of organising in the climate justice movement. We’ve been working in collaboration with them for the past year to design a new website and identity that celebrates their work and reflects their vibrant energy. We believe this project shows the best of what Common Knowledge can do.

Their new site is intended as a tool for radical change, providing inspiration and hope, as well as sharing practical learnings and methodologies. It showcases their work, history and creative approach to organising.

Read the case study

Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung New York

Since the start of this year, we have been collaborating with Ilyanna Kerr on the art direction and design for the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung’s New York office. We’ve evolved their visual identity, created templates and guidelines to make it easier for their staff to apply this to social media posts, and created custom designs for different events and campaigns.

The most recent of these projects was a series of two visualisations explaining Illicit Financial Flows and outlining why we need Global Debt Justice if we are to address the climate crisis. These are part of their series looking at key concepts and processes that influence the work of the United Nations around the Financing for Development process.

Read more about it

The Architecture Lobby

We helped The Architecture Lobby , a grassroots organisation of architectural workers, to update their website and digital infrastructure.

We started by interviewing a range of organisers and members to help shape the scope of the project. From there, we modernised their content management system to make the website more accessible to their membership base. We evolved their visual identity and redesigned their website to introduce more structure, make it easier to find out what each of the working groups and chapters were up to, and show people how to get involved.

Read the case study

Reflections on running a peer feedback process

As the co-op has matured, we've tried to create support structures that help each member grow. This includes making space for regular feedback. Last month we initiated a more formal peer feedback process within the co-op.

Here's what we learned.

Where do we go after Twitter?

Arby shares some thoughts on the alternatives, and laments the loss of digital “third places” — common spaces that are neither home nor work.

Some of our thoughts

Team updates

We’re really excited to have Arby Hisenaj join the co-op as a prospective member. We’ve already been working together on a freelance basis since the start of the year, so happy to have him join as an employee and start to get involved in more of our internal processes.

We’ve also been working much more regularly with our friends Joaquim de Souza (freelance developer) and Maciej Baron (from Good Praxis co-op). It’s been wonderful to have a few new voices in the mix.

In other news, Jamie Young finished their year-long design placement and has gone back to finish their final year of graphic design studies at Kingston. It was so great to have them as part of the team and we can’t wait to see what they do after graduation.

Other links

Jan recently did a presentation on sociocracy at a Workers Coop event in Glasgow. The full presentation is available here . We’d love to do more of these workshops, so if you’re curious about sociocracy then get in touch.

As a proudly Luddite co-op, we loved the episode of Tech Won’t Save Us about the real history of the Luddites with Brian Merchant. He’s just released a new book, Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech , which we cannot wait to read.

Gemma has been enjoying the first month of Mobilizing Hearts and Minds , a free course led by Max Haiven and Sarah Stein Lubrano on the arts and infrastructures of persuasion.

We loved this super interesting video on the tyranny of the clock, and the myth that capitalism has reduced work time and effort.

Interesting article by Novara on Cooperation Hull, an initiative that seeks to connect existing initiatives to help create a climate-resilient local community in Hull.

Geeks for Social Change interviewed members of their collective to reflect and collectively shape their future direction. Read the report .