Ilyas WattersProduct Design - Social Design
A Product designer with a focus on social design. I use my design to allow storytelling to flourish through equitable forms of language. My design process is built through care making sure to engage stakeholders and facilitate space for change.
- Work
- About
Across the span of my projects I have aimed to build a diverse portfolio covering a wide range of stakeholders. In my work my common theme is tackling communication barriers by providing accessible and understandable language alternatives built through equitable understanding to allow better co-analysis and facilitate space for care.
Project Title:
Capture Us
Year: 2026
Synopsis:
Capture Us is a ritual toolkit for romantic partners that looks at strengthening communication by allowing the jump between feeling and conversing more accessible and meaningful. It follows a 4 stepped ritual of: Journalling - Capturing - Conversing - Documenting.
Communication is one of the main factors that goes into making or breaking relationships Capture us addresses this point to allow accessible communication to individuals or couples who may struggle to initiate conversation.
Designed to encourage Co-facilitation through low pressure domestic ritual, Capture Us isn’t solutionary nor does it demand conversation, rather it offers a way to access and document what is already there in a way that avoids communication breakdown before it begins.
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Project Title: Speak Your City
Year: 2025
Synopsis:
Speak your city is an adaptable city language that allows human and non human neighbours to communicate to allow the betterment of public civic life. Speak your city facilitates design as a preventative force to fight back against the spread of misinformation. Aimed to create civic equity through giving non human neighbours a way to communicate. Changing public life to encourage the public to rethink their actions and create a better quality of life for both human and non human.
The project used speculative design to look at media trends and a downwards spiral of false information. looking at how you could promote better living with your city and allow in real time localised data to be shown in real time in an understandable and tangible way to the general public. Allowing them to subconsciously rethink their actions to provide better living for all forms of life living in the city.
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Year: 2025
Synopsis:
A Classroom system based on trade to allow children with behavioural dificulties to better reintegrate back into the classroom facilitating space for care and providing an non-judgemental system built of shared responsibility and non spoken communication.
Letting children with behavioural difficulties to find their place in the classroom in their own time whilst still promoting equitable reward for all students. Trade up understands the struggle these children might have and acts accordingly, purposefully staying more open ended to allow the teacher to take control when needed.
Re-entering a trade and barter system back into the classroom and allowing students to find their independance whilst still promoting suitable education and allowing the teacher to maintain structure of the classroom.
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Whilst currently finishing my final year in product design at Glasgow School of art I believe design at its core is about creating social connection. As a designer i am fascinated by the way our culture, experiences and stories shape our connection to others, our environment and ourselves. My practice lies between social design, designing for communication and interactive story telling. With my design I intend to push societal norms, using design as a facilitator compared to a solutionary tool i make sure to connect to stakeholders, applying various research methods and engaging through co-design sessions. Using insights from these to create projects that feel alive, intentional and nurture empathy. Allowing individuals to better experience the world around them by reshaping how we interact with products, systems and narratives.
Having almost graduated i am looking for work, excited for any and all opportunities and ready to learn new skills aswell as utilize those ive already learned.
Contact me at : Email: iwatters.design@outlook.com