In an era where many sectors—including the creative industry—are quietly retreating from the equity-driven commitments made in 2020, a powerful counter-narrative has emerged from Montreal. In Perspectives, a collaborative initiative by design studio Six Cinquième and cultural collective Never Was Average, challenges the design world to take an introspective look at its values, methods, and ultimate impact. This isn't just another diversity-focused project—it's a deep dive into what it truly means to practice inclusive design that reflects, respects, and uplifts the multitude of lived experiences that shape our societies.
Backed by the Bureau du Design de Montréal and the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, In Perspectives forms part of the city’s larger Quality Toolkit initiative. But where most initiatives lean into procedural uniformity, this project thrives on complexity. It refrains from issuing mandates or universal templates and instead focuses on dialogue, listening, and community-led insight. It encourages a reorientation of design from a top-down structure to a co-creative, responsive ecosystem centered on human experience.
Design Grounded in Lived Experience
What sets In Perspectives apart in a saturated landscape of design frameworks is its unwavering commitment to lived experience as its cornerstone. Rather than operating from abstract academic theories or prescriptive toolkits that flatten human nuance, this initiative roots itself in human truth. The project was built through a year-long process that prioritized conversations over conventions, and empathy over efficiency.
The creators—Six Cinquième and Never Was Average—facilitated a series of intentional workshops with BIPOC designers, community leaders, and underrepresented voices who are too often peripheral to design decision-making. These sessions were not tokenized consultations, but immersive, unstructured, and emotionally open dialogues. They uncovered how design often reinforces systemic bias, alienation, or erasure when it fails to reflect the plurality of real-world perspectives.
Miro Laflaga, co-founder of Six Cinquième, explains: “We’re not positioning ourselves as experts. True expertise lies in listening deeply, not in claiming to have the answers. Our responsibility as designers is to create space for those answers to emerge.” This relinquishment of ego is a foundational value within In Perspectives. It shifts the power dynamics of traditional design processes and reorients them toward reciprocity, dialogue, and mutual respect.
Crucially, this initiative doesn’t seek closure or fixed definitions. It understands that identity is fluid, context-specific, and deeply complex. Flattening that complexity into digestible models for the sake of convenience only leads to misrepresentation. In Perspectives actively resists the industry’s tendency to seek neat categorization, choosing instead to center emotional resonance, cultural sensitivity, and the richness of divergent perspectives.
In rejecting the idea that design should be sanitized for broader consumption, this approach amplifies the emotional intelligence of design practice. It makes space for the kind of stories that resist simple framing—stories marked by contradiction, resilience, joy, and generational insight. Through this, it offers a more holistic and inclusive pathway forward.
Questioning the Myth of Universal Design
Among the most urgent interventions that In Perspectives makes is its critique of the pervasive notion of universal design. Often heralded as the gold standard of accessibility and efficiency, universal design as traditionally understood can, paradoxically, exclude the very people it purports to serve. Its emphasis on mass applicability often results in the prioritization of dominant cultural norms, sidelining experiences that don't conform to a default idea of the "average user."
Harry Julmice, co-founder of Never Was Average, puts it succinctly: “When universal design feels alien to you, it becomes clear that it was never meant for you. It’s not neutral—it’s specific, and that specificity often aligns with privilege.”
This insight dismantles the myth of neutrality in design. It reveals how often “neutral” is simply shorthand for “dominant culture.” By unmasking the limitations of universality, In Perspectives calls for a design paradigm that values specificity over generalization, and fluidity over rigidity.
The project doesn't oppose accessibility—it expands it. It reimagines accessibility as a layered, evolving, and context-driven process. Simplification, often marketed as a virtue in design, can result in the erasure of culture, emotion, and agency. True inclusive design must grapple with this tension, choosing to engage complexity rather than erase it.
In practical terms, this means interrogating each step of the design process. From research and user testing to visual aesthetics and platform usability, In Perspectives urges creators to question assumptions and decenter their own biases. The framework doesn’t suggest that universal access is unattainable, but it does argue that achieving it requires design processes that are far more iterative, dialogic, and self-reflective than what is commonly practiced.
Cultivating a Transformative Design Mindset
At the core of In Perspectives lies a call for deep internal transformation—one that transcends the superficial and reaches into the very psyche of the designer. This isn’t a conventional toolkit designed for passive consumption. Instead, it is an invitation to personal accountability and collective reimagination.
The project compels designers to ask fundamental questions: Who is my work for? What impact does it have on those outside my immediate cultural and social understanding? Whose needs are centered, and whose are ignored? These inquiries are not posed as rhetorical flourishes—they are entry points into a process of uncomfortable but essential reflection.
Ash Phillips, co-founder of Six Cinquième, notes: “Real insight doesn’t come from comfort. It comes from tension. We wanted this framework to initiate a kind of unlearning—a departure from the idea that a beautiful interface is inherently ethical.”
This introspective shift changes how design is approached, not just what is produced. It transforms design from a transactional craft into a relational practice. In this view, the designer is no longer a detached creator but a collaborator, facilitator, and witness to lived experience. This repositioning is central to creating work that is truly inclusive and sustainable.
Designers are encouraged to embrace uncertainty as a productive force rather than a weakness. In a world obsessed with perfection and polish, In Perspectives promotes a process-based model rooted in authenticity and curiosity. Mistakes are not only inevitable—they are vital to growth. The framework encourages designers to sit with their blind spots and evolve their practices through ongoing dialogue, revision, and listening.
By merging introspection with action, the project turns inclusion into more than a philosophy. It becomes a daily practice—an ever-expanding journey that acknowledges human complexity rather than attempting to reduce it.
Designing with, Not for: The Ethics of Co-Creation
One of the most vital shifts that In Perspectives encourages is the move from designing for communities to designing with them. This distinction, though subtle in language, is monumental in impact. Traditional models of community engagement in design often rely on extractive practices where marginalized voices are used as research inputs rather than treated as co-authors of the work.
The creators of In Perspectives were intentional about disrupting this hierarchy. Their workshops weren’t organized as structured interrogations or demographic sampling—they were community-driven environments of mutual learning and discovery. The process was unfiltered, emotional, and intentionally messy, prioritizing honesty over convenience.
Joanna Chevalier of Never Was Average explains: “We wanted to cultivate spaces that weren’t just about listening, but about honoring what was shared. We weren’t trying to clean things up for institutions—we were trying to show what’s really there.”
By refusing to filter or sanitize community feedback to meet corporate or institutional expectations, In Perspectives builds an honest foundation for systemic change. It practices what it preaches—placing people, not products, at the center of its process.
Moreover, this co-creative model includes built-in accountability. Communities are not just consulted; they are empowered to shape outcomes and hold creators to their commitments. This approach mitigates the common pitfalls of performative inclusion by making equity a shared responsibility rather than a top-down directive.
A Living Resource for a Changing World
Perhaps one of the most forward-thinking elements of In Perspectives is its refusal to position itself as a static solution. Instead, it is conceived as a living resource—a continually evolving framework that grows in response to new insights, feedback, and societal shifts. The creators understand that inclusivity is not a destination but a practice. And like any practice, it requires adaptability, resilience, and patience.
The digital toolkit, created entirely in-house, reflects this ethos. It is visually engaging yet deeply intentional, accessible yet rich with layered content. It avoids both industry jargon and empty buzzwords, grounding itself in language that speaks to real people doing real work.
Its modular structure allows users to navigate through practical tools, reflective prompts, and contextual case studies based on their needs and capacity. Whether you're a solo designer, part of a grassroots collective, or a creative director in a large agency, the framework offers entry points for change—small or systemic.
In Perspectives understands that change is nonlinear. It resists urgency culture and invites designers into a slower, more considered relationship with their work and their communities.
True Collaboration, Not Token Participation
A defining quality of In Perspectives is its unwavering commitment to authentic, community-led collaboration. Unlike conventional frameworks that involve marginalized communities as an afterthought—often after key decisions have already been cemented—this initiative centers these communities from the very beginning. It flips the script on conventional engagement models by making participation active, not symbolic, and by recognizing that power and creativity are not the sole domain of designers, but shared among all collaborators.
The workshops at the heart of In Perspectives weren’t perfunctory or performative. They were spaces for truth-telling, critical reflection, and emotional candor. These weren’t quiet, structured discussions fitted into institutional agendas—they were fertile forums of open expression, where the emotional weight of exclusion, invisibility, and erasure could surface and be acknowledged without filtration. That rawness became a vital part of the process.
Joanna Chevalier, co-founder of Never Was Average, encapsulates this ethos when she says, “We didn’t gather voices to validate an existing vision. We created space for those voices to shape the vision itself.” This approach dismantles extractive practices, where stories are mined for insight without reciprocal benefit. Instead, In Perspectives functions as a living dialogue—one where stories lead and strategy follows.
This commitment to decentralizing authority redefines what creative collaboration can be. It welcomes ambiguity and emergent insight, sidestepping hierarchical models that tend to isolate the designer from the community. Rather than narrowing outcomes through institutional rigidity, this model allows the design to breathe, to shift, and to respond to lived realities as they unfold.
It’s not just about who gets invited into the room, but what kind of room is being built—and who gets to rearrange the furniture.
A Toolkit Built with Cultural Fluency
One of the most remarkable achievements of In Perspectives lies in how it was developed and designed. The entirety of the toolkit—from research and narrative structure to visual identity and digital interface—was crafted in-house by Six Cinquième and Never Was Average. This decision wasn’t just a matter of logistics; it was a strategic choice grounded in the importance of cultural continuity, creative autonomy, and storytelling integrity.
By maintaining full control over design and development, the team ensured that the end result carried a consistent voice and visual language that aligns with the communities it intends to reach. The outcome is a resource that feels warm, human, and intuitively crafted. It avoids the impersonal tone that often characterizes institutional design documents and instead speaks directly to designers, creators, and community members with lived-in familiarity.
The toolkit avoids unnecessary abstraction and theoretical jargon. Instead, it delivers clear, tangible examples rooted in real-world scenarios—examples that demonstrate how inclusive design can show up in everyday practice. From inclusive facilitation techniques and communication strategies to methods for equitable co-creation, the framework is as pragmatic as it is philosophical.
It bridges the wide gap between good intentions and effective implementation. Its language is purposeful but approachable, and its content invites designers not just to learn, but to evolve. It doesn’t just provide instruction—it nurtures a journey of critical reflection and ongoing refinement.
By embedding cultural fluency throughout the toolkit’s architecture, In Perspectives honors the lived knowledge that fueled its creation. It’s not merely a repository of strategies; it is a cultural artifact, built to endure and adapt as communities continue to grow, challenge, and redefine the boundaries of inclusion.
Reimagining Who Design Is For
Perhaps one of the most urgent provocations of In Perspectives is its insistence that designers reevaluate the fundamental question: who is this for? In an era increasingly shaped by algorithmic logic, commercial pressure, and the pursuit of digital efficiency, the design industry is at risk of sidelining its most essential responsibility—serving real human beings.
This initiative challenges the default assumption that users are a fixed demographic defined by data points or user personas. It proposes that true inclusive design requires a deeper commitment to recognizing the human intricacies behind those profiles—complex identities informed by race, gender, class, ability, and countless other lived factors.
Miro Laflaga underscores this point with clarity: “Design is not neutral. Every choice we make has implications for how people experience themselves and the world. That’s a power we can’t afford to ignore.”
This awareness elevates the ethical dimension of design. It’s not just about aesthetics or usability—it’s about impact. Design can shape narratives, reinforce norms, and either sustain or disrupt inequity. As such, In Perspectives urges creators to move beyond surface-level inclusion toward practices rooted in equity, care, and long-term consideration.
The framework is purposefully expansive in scope. Whether you're a freelancer navigating personal design projects, a member of a creative collective, or leading large-scale agency campaigns, In Perspectives holds relevance. Its modular structure allows designers to adapt the framework to their scale, audience, and context without diluting its core values.
It doesn't call for uniformity; it encourages intentionality. It recognizes that every creative act carries weight—and that the most meaningful design emerges from deep reflection, not rapid iteration.
In placing human experience at the center, In Perspectives reminds us that design is not just about solving problems; it’s about cultivating relationships. It’s about asking better questions, embracing complexity, and holding space for others to be fully seen.
From Reactive Efforts to Proactive Design Practice
A critical dimension of In Perspectives lies in its forward-thinking orientation. Rather than positioning inclusion as a remedial effort—something to be added after a design is finalized—it situates inclusion at the inception of the creative process. This is not reactive design. It is anticipatory, mindful, and deliberate.
The toolkit reframes design as a vehicle for social imagination. It calls on designers to move beyond compliance and token gestures, urging them to become stewards of possibility. Instead of merely avoiding harm, the goal is to cultivate design practices that actively promote dignity, representation, and mutual flourishing.
This shift requires designers to think holistically. Accessibility isn’t limited to physical or digital features—it’s also about emotional, cognitive, and cultural accessibility. Inclusivity is not a checkbox—it’s a mindset, a lens through which every decision is made, from typography to team composition.
By retooling how design problems are framed in the first place, In Perspectives equips creatives to generate more nuanced, equitable, and sustainable outcomes. It gives permission to ask: What stories are missing here? Who was left out of this narrative? What assumptions are shaping this decision?
And in doing so, it transforms design into an act of care—an intentional practice of cultivating environments where people feel recognized, respected, and empowered.
A Creative Legacy Built on Inclusion
In Perspectives is more than a project—it is a philosophical reorientation. It asks creatives to define legacy not by accolades or portfolios, but by their long-term contribution to justice, empathy, and equity within the communities they serve. It demands a shift from ambition to alignment—from what we can achieve to what we can sustain.
This initiative challenges us to imagine a future where inclusion is not exceptional, but foundational. Where creative teams are built not just for aesthetic excellence, but for cultural competency. Where design processes don’t extract value from communities, but create value with them.
It dares designers to slow down in a fast-moving industry and to listen more deeply in a field that often prioritizes voice over hearing. And in that slowing down, it cultivates space for transformation—not only of process, but of purpose.
In the end, In Perspectives is an invitation. An invitation to approach design not as a service, but as a responsibility. To use creativity not only to innovate, but to liberate. To build not just beautiful things, but systems and stories that hold beauty, truth, and justice in equal measure.
Montreal as a Mirror and Catalyst
Although In Perspectives originates from Montreal, a city rich in cultural plurality and artistic legacy, its relevance extends far beyond its geographic starting point. Montreal’s multifaceted social fabric—built on a foundation of linguistic duality, migration, and a vibrant blend of cultural influences—served both as a mirror for introspection and a springboard for innovation. The initiative used the city’s diversity not as a backdrop, but as an active lens through which to dissect and address global design inequities.
The multicultural ecosystem of Montreal fostered an environment where the project team could explore the nuances of inclusion, access, and identity through a local prism that illuminated broader truths. It wasn’t about presenting the city as a model of perfection, but as a place willing to examine itself honestly. Its imperfections and intersections offered fertile ground for testing the viability of a new, more inclusive design framework.
Ash Phillips of Six Cinquième states: “Montreal gave us the self-awareness to ask difficult questions. It reminded us that inclusion isn’t a fixed goal—it’s a continuous, evolving conversation. What we built here was intended to be carried beyond the city, because the need for inclusive design practices exists everywhere.”
This acknowledgment speaks to the deliberate adaptability of In Perspectives. The toolkit is not tethered to Montreal's cultural specifics but informed by them. By embedding flexibility into its structure, the initiative becomes globally accessible. Designers from Johannesburg to Jakarta, from Vancouver to Vienna, can apply the lessons it contains without needing to replicate Montreal's particular conditions. The framework is built to honor difference, not dilute it.
In this sense, Montreal becomes a prototype—an exploratory case study where community-led creativity, honest critique, and cross-cultural collaboration merge to generate scalable change. The city's contradictions, from colonial legacies to immigrant resurgence, from heritage preservation to modern reinvention, enriched the toolkit with a depth that only real complexity can yield.
Long-Term Impact Over Instant Gratification
In a fast-paced industry where metrics, deliverables, and aesthetics often take precedence over purpose, In Perspectives delivers a refreshing counterpoint. The project’s philosophical core is not built on trends or optics, but on endurance, adaptability, and accountability. Rather than offering short-term solutions for checking the “inclusion” box, it challenges creatives to embrace slow, meaningful transformation.
At its heart, In Perspectives resists the culture of urgency and commodified inclusion. It invites practitioners to engage with design as a long-haul commitment—one that involves revisiting assumptions, reconfiguring processes, and reinvesting in human relationships. It recognizes that equity is not achieved through rapid rollout, but through sustained attention, humility, and revision.
Harry Julmice, co-founder of Never Was Average, articulates this with clarity: “You can’t move forward if you’re designing with yesterday’s assumptions. If we want our work to resonate in the future, it has to be shaped by the real, shifting needs of today’s people—not the imaginary average user of the past.”
This long-view approach introduces a critical shift in how design success is defined. Instead of focusing on immediate visibility, applause, or scalability, it centers integrity, responsibility, and long-term relevance. Designers are encouraged to shift their orientation from performance to presence, from perfectionism to progress.
The toolkit, as a living resource, reflects this ideology. Its contents are intended to evolve, just as the communities and contexts around them do. Built with modular flexibility and an open-ended structure, it allows for iterative use. Users are encouraged to revisit it repeatedly, allowing their understanding of inclusive design to deepen over time.
Moreover, this evolution is not passive. It is activated by continuous feedback, dialogue, and responsiveness. The project team deliberately structured the toolkit to grow through real-world engagement, ensuring that it remains anchored in community realities rather than drifting into theoretical abstraction.
Designing a Legacy of Meaning
One of the most powerful undercurrents of In Perspectives is its insistence on legacy. It calls upon creatives to ask themselves: What is the footprint of our design practice? What do we want to leave behind—not just in terms of visuals, portfolios, or campaigns, but in the way people feel seen, heard, and valued through our work?
The initiative doesn’t shy away from the uncomfortable fact that much of contemporary design is complicit in systems of exclusion, whether through omission, aesthetic bias, or a fixation on commercial value. It proposes that reclaiming a human-centered ethos in design is not just ethical—it’s imperative.
Joanna Chevalier, co-founder of Never Was Average, offers a poignant reflection: “Legacy doesn’t happen by accident. It’s shaped by every choice we make—who we amplify, how we listen, and how willing we are to disrupt our comfort zones in service of justice.”
This approach to legacy is both visionary and grounded. It acknowledges that while systemic change takes time, the seeds of that transformation are sown through everyday decisions—through the way meetings are facilitated, how teams are composed, whose feedback is prioritized, and whose stories are honored. It turns the abstract concept of legacy into a series of tangible, repeatable actions.
The initiative also challenges the design community to broaden its metrics of success. Awards, aesthetics, and innovation have long dominated the value hierarchy in creative industries. In Perspectives suggests another measure: impact. Not just the impact on end-users or target audiences, but on collaborators, communities, and the cultural ecosystems within which design lives.
In this framework, legacy becomes synonymous with alignment. When designers operate from a place of clarity about their values, their processes reflect that clarity. Their work becomes less about impressing and more about serving—a recalibration that can fundamentally shift the cultural architecture of design.
A Framework for the Future of Design
While In Perspectives emerged from a moment of cultural reckoning, it is not a reactionary project. It is a future-facing model that repositions design as an instrument of social coherence rather than separation. It imagines design not as a neutral act, but as a dynamic, participatory, and deeply human undertaking that must contend with context, history, and possibility.
The initiative recognizes the necessity of embedding justice in design not as a special project, but as a standard. It understands that inclusive design cannot be separated from equity, and that meaningful access requires ongoing recalibration. The future of design, according to this framework, is not just diverse—it is intersectional, accountable, and rooted in relational ethics.
It is also a vision that embraces the creative messiness of co-creation. Rather than aspire to tidiness, In Perspectives champions the fertile uncertainty of designing in collaboration with, not over, communities. It’s about process, not polish—about staying present with complexity rather than avoiding it.
This evolving future welcomes discomfort as a signal of growth. It welcomes contradiction as evidence of multiple truths. And it welcomes slowness—not as resistance to progress, but as a commitment to depth, care, and intentionality.
Building Forward: A Call to the Global Design Community
In Perspectives represents more than a toolkit—it’s a call to action. It encourages the design industry to embrace a new ethos where inclusion isn’t decorative but foundational. Where the process isn’t fixed but adaptive. Where success isn’t measured solely by accolades or metrics, but by the depth of real-world impact.
In a climate where reactionary forces are rolling back equity efforts across multiple sectors, initiatives like In Perspectives serve as both resistance and renewal. They prove that another way is not only possible—but already underway.
This is a new chapter in design thinking—one authored not by institutions alone but by the very people design seeks to serve. By starting with those voices, In Perspectives paves the way for a future where design is not just beautiful but just.
Final Thoughts:
In Perspectives stands as a profound reminder that inclusion in design cannot be relegated to a phase, a campaign, or a checklist—it must be embedded in the everyday fabric of creative practice. At its core, this initiative is not just about improving representation or updating toolkits; it’s about reshaping the mindset behind the work we do. It’s a radical departure from the superficial approaches to diversity and inclusion that often dominate corporate discourse and instead offers a genuinely transformative pathway rooted in humility, co-creation, and accountability.
By foregrounding lived experiences and prioritizing emotional, cultural, and social nuance, In Perspectives dismantles the illusion that good design can be neutral. Every design decision communicates values—who is seen, who is prioritized, and who is left behind. This initiative urges creatives to stop designing for people and start designing with them. It reframes inclusion not as an obligation, but as a natural extension of ethical, empathetic design.
What makes this project particularly compelling is its refusal to settle for comfort. It leans into discomfort—not as a flaw, but as fertile ground for growth. It recognizes that designing equitably often means challenging long-held practices, questioning standard processes, and unlearning bias. The message is clear: meaningful change isn’t tidy, but it is necessary.
Crucially, In Perspectives does not gatekeep its insights. It’s not reserved for large agencies or government-backed organizations. It’s accessible, actionable, and designed to be adapted by creatives at every level—from solo designers and grassroots collectives to established studios. It speaks to a shared responsibility across the industry to engage with inclusion as a continual process, not a final destination.
As the cultural landscape evolves, the relevance of In Perspectives only grows. It offers not just a reflection of where the industry is, but a vision of where it could go—if we’re willing to stay curious, remain accountable, and design with care. For those who believe design can be a force for justice, dignity, and deeper connection, this isn’t just a toolkit—it’s an invitation to lead with intention and build something that lasts.
