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Róisín Jordan 

BA [Hons] Visual Communication Design

Hey, I’m Róisín, a designer from Galway. I am currently finishing my Viscom degree in IADT and working freelance with clients based in both Dublin and London. I have been fortunate enough to intern with Dynamo Design as a junior designer and Boys and Girls as an Art Director. I have a strong interest in art-direction and I’m passionate about using provocative, bold design methods to translate sometimes difficult social issues to the public sphere. I was awarded second prize in 2020 for my redesign of IAMECO, an eco-friendly laptop company. My ethical and environmental interests are also reflected in my thesis title: Built In Obsolescence: A Designer’s Moral Dilemma.

Intelligent Intimacy is a brand that believes fact-based, holistic, and inclusive sex education is a basic human right for young people in Ireland. The website aims to spark intrigue and curiosity and stimulate discussion to help young people question the shameful attitudes Irish society perpetuates around sex education. It also helps to point young people towards resources to deal with modern challenges around sex education that are considered taboo– information on consent, online porn, and language on how to talk about these topics that we have been taught never to talk about. Intelligent Intimacy also promotes advocacy for Irish student’s rights to more comprehensive and suitable sex education.
The visual language for Intelligent Intimacy is based on the ITC fonts and art direction of Herb Lubalin and the editorial style of Ralph Ginsburg, who published a quarterly magazine containing articles and photo essays on love and sex in the early 1960s. Eros, as it was called, self-descriptively ‘broke taboos, rattled some nerves and made a few enemies’, ultimately leading Ginsburg to be sentenced to five years in prison. The bold, cheeky, and visual language takes inspiration from the ground-breaking attitudes of Eros and channels a humorous and engaging tone of voice to translate the potentially difficult subject matter into the public sphere.
The main objective of Intelligent Intimacy is to have young people be aware that there is more to sex education than just the simple biology currently taught in schools. I aimed to inform young people on the topics that are left out of conventional Irish sex education. I also wanted to try and reduce the taboo around talking about sex and the various issues around it, in the hope that young people can have safer, more informed and more comfortable experiences exploring intimacy for the first time, free of shame or stigma.
My core design problem was communicating both the human-ness, empathetic and essential aspect of this subject matter. Making the subject feel manageable and not intimidating was my main goal, as this information is usually communicated in sterile, clinical environments. Alongside this, my goal was to capture the empathy that is at the centre of this project.
Through research and my own personal experience, I found that a lot of consent classes take place at university– but the current evidence and research present that young people of all genders and sexualities are coming into college already having experienced sexual violence or will experience it in their first year. It’s clear that young people are experiencing this abuse online and in-person– this was my motivation to create an updateable, freely accessible resource on the contemporary, modern challenges for Irish young people of all ages. The Irish schools model and resources for young people at the moment only provide information on the abstinence model– this perpetuates shame, blame, and silence, all components of rape culture.
My research around the topic of Irish sex education showed that formal school experiences do not currently prepare most young people well for managing the sexual decision-making scenarios likely to arise during their adolescence and onwards. It also showed that our youth are exposed to unacceptable sexual harassment and unwanted sexual activity.
Intelligent Intimacy’s sentiment is simple- getting it on is more than just getting it in. Sex education needs to be holistic, normalised, and not reduced down to biology. The dimensions of sexuality include emotional, mental, spiritual, social, biochemical, economic, political, institutional, energetical, and physical aspects. Intelligent Intimacy promotes that through education and awareness, Irish society can be a safer, happier place for young people to grow up in.
Intelligent Intimacy– Because Getting It On Is More Than Just Getting It In

Education around sex and relationships has always been heavily stigmatised in Ireland, due to the Catholic history of the country and typically conservative family values. Young people are not set up with the skills needed to have healthy relationships around intimacy and sex, especially in the age of the internet, because even now this is not something we are willing to talk about in Irish society.

Fact-based, holistic, and inclusive sex education that addresses this is one tangible way that we have the power to build a better society in Ireland. A society that actively works against shaming young people for their decisions around sex, and instead, supports them in the challenges they encounter as they navigate their intimate lives.

Intelligent Intimacy advocates for church-free, shame-free, and stigma-free sex education. Along with stimulating dialogue and encouraging advocacy on this important subject, Intelligent Intimacy provides modern sex-ed resources for young people in Ireland.


Built In Obsolescence: A Designer’s Moral Dilemma

My thesis explores the way in which designers have, by default in our market society come to be designing for profit instead of people and the perception of distance between citizen and consumer that allow for lies and manipulation to seem ethical. In the technology industry especially, there remains a large gap between the brand messaging and the reality of the consequences of the design decisions of the product.

Built in obsolescence is a strategic design feature built-into our iPhones and MacBooks that creates e-waste, unsafe environmental implications for vulnerable communities, and poses serious health risks but despite these implications, it is still included to simply generate profits. In my thesis, I argue that designers are morally and ethically responsible for considering the full lifecycle of their product and should be required to take responsibility for the societal implications of built-in obsolescence.

Visual Communication Design
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