Dialogues of Transformation: Robyn Kacperski Discusses Designing with Integrity

Robyn Kacperski is the founder and owner of Little Ghost, an award-winning creative agency that aims to do more with design, more for their clients and more good for the world.

When Robyn was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021, her entire approach to strategic design had to shift. The transient nature of disability in multiple sclerosis opened her eyes to the lack of accessible spaces and products in the world. Now, Little Ghost channels that insight into every project, ensuring their designs are not just beautiful but accessible to everyone. They lead with a strong focus on inclusivity and functionality in their work, because they believe design should empower, not exclude.

Shay Harder: How do you advocate for  ethical design practices with a client or an organization where it might not be their top priority?

Robyn Kacperski: What we do is plant our flag and say, "This is who we work with - we work with sustainable companies, ethical business." I find that companies that don't care don't reach out. So, that's the first thing: niche down and put a statement out there and saying, this is who I work with, these are my values. It'll attract more people who have that alignment. I think another important thing is having a phone call with them, meeting with them before you ever agree to work with them. Being able to ask those tough questions  to get a gauge on their personality, what it's like to work with them, what they value, before you decide to ever put a proposal together or a quote is really important in vetting those clients and filtering through. Another thing we do is have very clear language in our agreement that we will not be asked to or perform any designs, strategies or work with businesses that are into greenwashing or resource extraction, child labour, or any of those bad things. It's very clear that if they're asking for any of that type of work, we won't be doing it.

But things do happen where those ethical questions come up, or a client may  not like the idea of an accessible design solution. They want something that's a bit more inaccessible but a beautiful solution. You have to be ready to walk away. Being able to say no just because someone pays you has really carried me through. And there's lots of power in saying no.

S: At any point in your career, have you ever worked on something that ended up having an unintended negative consequence? Maybe a situation where you thought you were making a good decision, and it turns out that it wasn't a good decision?

R: I've been fortunate enough to not have had a ton of outwardly bad or evil projects that have come across my desk. I remember a gentleman looking for lots of work. He had a really healthy budget, but he was in oil sands, and he was promising that they would be producing solar power in the future, but they were not there yet. I turned that down on the basis that we don't work with oil extraction.

Another example is when I was working at agencies. You don't have a lot of choice in the clients. I do have one specific example of an unintended design consequence, but it's a bit more funny. We were tasked with designing a train wrap for the SkyTrain in Vancouver. We had all these dishes with their names that we wanted to show. They're all stylized names spread out across the train. And of course, we're from Winnipeg, so we've never designed a train before because we don't have them here. The wrap went up, and we realized a little too late that when the doors slid open, some of the words accidentally turn into a rude saying when split. We don't know if anyone else noticed, but once we notice it, that is part of the integrity; it's up to you to fix it and make it right.

S: I know that accessibility and inclusive design is something that you really integrate into your process. How do you define inclusive design, and what steps do you take to ensure designs are accessible to users with diverse abilities?

R:

Beyond the end user, I think inclusion really extends to the people who are going to be using your work or interacting with it.

S: I know that you've had your own experiences with accessibility in your personal life. How have those experiences with accessibility shaped the way that you approach things or adapt to things in your practice?

R:

My design business is completely centred around my experience with accessibility with disability. I live with multiple sclerosis (MS). And for folks who don't know, this is an unpredictable autoimmune disease that affects the central nerves of nervous system. So for many people with MS, it can cause symptoms like muscle weakness or chronic fatigue, and vision loss. And those symptoms can sometimes show up super suddenly.

I actually lost my vision overnight and was declared legally blind. I lost my driver's license, and I had to give up every project and every source of income that I had built. So pretty instantly my days shifted from designing and running my business to learning braille, trying to navigate the world with a cane and relearning daily tasks like cooking and cleaning. Even simple things like working a debit machine or reading an email or scrolling social media became difficult or sometimes nearly impossible to do. Around this time, I was still focused on doing what I wanted to do, running a business. So how do I keep that going?

I had to choose between shutting my business down and getting a real job, or (what I did choose) incorporate and give myself disability benefits and drug coverage so that I could keep doing what I love. Going blind really forced me to see my role as a designer differently. I realized that design is not just using your eyes and your hands to make something. It's about how you think and how you solve problems. That gave me a shift and gave me the permission to step back from doing everything myself and to put my energy into elevating my agency. Instead, I decided to hire my talented friends in design and strategy copywriting to help me with the execution of the work. And in hindsight, I think it's the best thing that's ever happened to my business. It made me build better systems and run a business that's designed around my abilities at the time, so when my symptoms flare up, the work doesn't have to stop. I've also included a lot more accessibility in the guidelines we create, in the types of grants we're building, in making sure that we're designing for everybody.

S: What extent do you go through in gathering the information to use when you're making inclusive decisions?

R: It depends on the client and, of course, the engagement and scope that we've signed on for.. But a good example is we just wrapped up a project with a Chilean travel company and we did lots of months of extensive online research. Still before we even started the brand strategy and design, we actually flew down to Chile, spent a week there and went on a few of their experiences, kind of in the shoes of a guest, interacted with some of their hosts and asked them questions about their experience, like what type of branding do they wish they had to identify them, or how do they see their story being told? That's like one kind of experience, a more immersive experience that we do.

However, on a regular basis, many of our brands would include digital interviews or surveys with a large group, followed by specific conversations with different folks within that target audience to have a genuine conversation and really dig into some of the points we're trying to address or have questions about. And this is part of a kind of immersion phase before we ever start building any kind of foundational strategy or visuals, or any kind of activation.

S: How do you approach discussing the need for discovery with clients within the process? Ensuring you have face-to-face experiences or going out to meet the people who make up the audience and have those interactions?

R: It's every brand, every visual identity; the logo, colours, photography, and graphics must be underpinned by a brand strategy. That's the foundation. We always do that first. I no longer pitch that we can design just a logo or create a visual identity system without a brand strategy. And we can't  develop a brand strategy without research, audits, interviews and surveys. That is a must-have. And what I've seen is that clients who are in that space are more than happy to have that included in the project, and they really see the value. If it's the right type of client, that brand strategy is going to make the project, and the outcome, so much better. That's the feedback that I've gotten with the clients that I've and my team have been able to go visit and partake in an immersive research experience that were able to bring back more insights and more of the feeling and capturing the feeling of being there, of doing the thing, of whatever that may be in a more accurate and authentic way and really stepping into the shoes because there's only so much you can do from looking online and reading research papers. A lot of that really has to be seen in person and kind of put through that lens. I think the way I've built it is it's not really a choice for the client.

S: What role do you believe designers have in shaping a more ethical and sustainable future for the work that we put out and society as a whole?

R: Designers may not realize it, but they have a lot of power in this world. As designers, we have the ability to shape how ideas become reality and how people experience them. I think that comes with a lot of responsibility, and maybe we don't realize it all the time, but think about the stock photos we choose for a design or the people we choose to interview as part of a strategy. There's lots of opportunity for us to drive that in a direction that is more ethical, more sustainable, more inclusive. Another part of that responsibility is understanding supply chains.

It could be the environmental cost of the materials that we choose, the people impacted by the production, or the waste it leaves behind. And just like saying no to a client, I think we as designers have a choice. We can ignore those impacts, or we can ask better questions, we can dig deeper, and we can make more conscious recommendations. It comes back to a research-based approach. Even if someone says, I just need a business card, instead of saying yes, you can ask the question, Do you need a business card? Is it going to be recyclable? Is it better if it's a compostable card? Is a business card actually going to serve you? Never just taking in a request at face value. Every small choice that we make as designers can shift everything for the better. It's really good to just slow down, ask, Why? We can slowly use our skills to nudge things in the right direction.

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