Dyslexia is synonymous with creativity. An estimated quarter of students at the Royal College of Art are dyslexic – a pattern repeated in the wider creative community, which boasts double the number of dyslexics than in any other sector. It poses a problem for designers in particular since briefs from clients are often text-based and require a written response. Corporate Edge met this complex challenge for its own industry with a set of communication strategies to answer the question: “How do you take a dry, prescriptive written brief and transform it into a process that assists dyslexic designers to explore, analyse and capture their ideas at every stage of design development and then play them back to the client?” They wanted a solution that did not stigmatise and realised that they needed a set of tools that were based on shapes, colours and images. “We realised that by experiencing information rather than by listening or reading, a longer-lasting impression is created.”
The team designed a four-part communications toolkit to help dyslexic people in the creative industries take briefs, capture ideas, arrive at solutions and communicate them to their clients. The design team named it STIK because “it prods you into action, gets you working, stops you getting stuck and ultimately helps things stick in the memory.”
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Dyslexia, communication difficulties, creative process, learning strategies, toolkit
Design a mainstream product, service environment, print, online or other communications which deliberately includes the needs and aspirations of currently excluded groups of people or create a design with young disabled people specifically in mind, focussed on mainstreaming their everyday lives.
