The design of social independent magazines. Multiple translations for a new design sensitivity

We are living in an epoch in which critical reflection on the meaning of the human condition is impelling. Equally urgent is the creation of artefacts and experiences that can heighten awareness concerning collective challenges within everyday contexts and processes of social and economic life (Julier 2019, p.336). As the research commissioned by the Arts and Humanities Research Council about Social Design Futures declared: Society currently faces extensive large-scale complex challenges, which social design is suited to addressing. The challenges of climate change, migration, ageing populations, chronic disease, wealth disparities, and pressures on public sector finances, require smarter and more agile responses to how problems and opportunities are identified and framed, and how new solutions are generated, explored, prototyped, resourced and realised. (Armstrong et al. 2014, p.20). In this paper, we would like to assert that the sector of independent editorial design for the social can positively contribute to information sharing, reinforcing knowledge and debate, reframing issues, building a memory of good practices, and supporting the importance of social design in different contexts, both civic and academic. More specifically, the paper intends to: – Reveal the characteristics and potentialities of social independent magazines as cultural attractors and cultural activators. – Describe how they can be conceived and interpreted. – Reflect on the design process through multiple translation practices (beyond the interlinguistic translation). – Consider the ethical dimension of translation and its implications on education through three projects developed at the Design School of Politecnico di Milano, MA Course in Communication Design. We will refer to ongoing research regarding the relationship between design and translation, focusing our attention on the process of editorial translation. For this purpose, we will consider a series of contributions from the fields of social design and independent magazine design and, in particular, from theories in text, medium, and translation studies.