Track: Professional
Team: reframing studio
Brief A: In charge of your body
About No Minor Thing
What can designers do to help combat sexual exploitation of children? That is the question posed by WDCD in collaboration with the Dutch Public Prosecutions Service (OM) and the Ministry of Justice & Security in an invitation-only design challenge.
In No Minor Thing: The What Design Can Do Challenge to Combat Sexual Exploitation of Children, selected design teams had the opportunity to come up with new ways of tackling this issue. Read more on the results of the project and approach of Reframing Studio.
About Sapp’g
A ‘juicy’ bridging platform to familiarize kids with more serious sex-education sites, Sapp’g! functions as an online ‘sex’ collector for kids with their first phone, with a refreshing collection from all the good sex sites, ranging from funny peer platforms to serious sex education sites.
With this constantly updated, easy-to-share collection of all the new juicy stuff about sexy topics, from the juicy funny sides towards the sticky serious sides of sex, kids can ‘teach’ each other about the diversity of sex on an equal footing.
Read more on this project on the No minor thing platform >
What was it like to participate in No Minor Thing?
‘It was exciting and new for us to openly share our concept development with other design studios. The effect of the relaxed mutual dialogues and information exchange was that new insights emerged and we sharpened each other’s concepts.’
‘ The design study helps determine the ‘question underlying the question’ when it comes to social issues. In addition, the solution-oriented tendency of designers leads the way toward innovative solutions.’
While working on this project, what has caught you by surprise the most?
‘We were surprised to see how rigid and politicised the viewpoints about this complex topic are and that the classic power game about sexual education and standards is perhaps a problem where children are victimised even more in an accelerating world.
What role do you attribute to design when it comes to this type of social issue?
‘Firstly, the design study helps determine the ‘question underlying the question’ when it comes to social issues. In addition, the solution-oriented tendency of designers leads the way toward innovative solutions. Finally, various assumptions and possibilities can be tested in a new context by deploying and testing prototypes in the real world. The “license to operate” from OM and WDCD provides the space necessary to actually go ahead and try groundbreaking things.’
Do you intend to continue the project once the challenge is over?
‘Several parties involved in online sexual education are interested in our concept for sex-meme-challenges for children. We can test the concept together with them in their guest classes in school and hope to continue its development toward deployment online.’