A Year of Joyful Growth

For Optimistic Design, 2024 has been about shaping the future while staying true to our values—in the current climate, equity-centered design is more important than ever. As we reflect on our work this year, we’re thinking of some of our favorite takeaways.

It was exciting to launch the Optimistic Design brand
Several of our partners told us how much our new name fit our work and our practice. As an equity-centered design practice led by women and people of color, we’re so glad our new identity is resonating with those who share our values.

Designing with, rather than for, end users and beneficiaries
Co-design has always been a key part of our practice, and we worked with lived experts—students, teachers, and families— a lot this year. A highlight of this journey was our Modernizing Math project, a collaboration with KnowledgeWorks and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We worked with lived experts to imagine math education in 10 to 15 years, developing a report and toolkit that educators and technologists could use to design liberatory math futures. Not only was it meaningful, but it was also fun: imagine letting students loose on designing math the way they’d want to see it, and dreaming up how emerging technology can be used in a way that is exciting to them. There’s nothing more fun than math, tech, and design!

Equity-centered design is an end-to-end process
This year, we worked on projects that not only focused on design research and strategy, but also designing digital experiences with partners such as Camelback Ventures, Renaissance Learning, and Humanitae Advisors, as well as supporting edtech partners in UX design and testing through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Through it all, we’ve continued to refine how we talk about and practice equitable co-design, advancing conversations in a field that often overlooks this critical perspective.

Looking Forward
As we step into 2025, we do so with hope and a grounded sense of purpose. The road ahead will bring new challenges, but we are ready to navigate them with the same commitment to equity, joy, and thoughtful design that has guided us so far. To our team, partners, and clients: thank you for trusting us, challenging us, and growing with us. Together, we look forward to continuing this journey, one step at a time.

At Optimistic Design, as individual designers, we arrived at the organization with our own versions of Equity-Centered Design mindsets, processes, and tools. We continue to learn and develop the practice within our organization. Many of our approaches are heavily influenced by our individual, lived experiences as designers with intersecting marginalized identities as well as racial and social justice movements, abolition, systems thinking, social work, disability activism, etc. We look to practitioners like Antionette Carroll, Liz Jackson, and Sasha Constanza-Chock who continue to integrate traditional design education and practices. We have valued and learned from the work of Design Justice Network and the Equity Design Collaborative.

Want to learn more about our Equity-Centered Design work? Contact us.