Juan Saavedra's experience reflects a range of industries which include fashion & apparel, art, music & entertainment and community & sexual health. His interests included volunteerism, social innovation, design-activism and entrepreneurship. He is a recipient of the Mayor’s Community Safety Award (2017) from the City of Toronto for promoting collaboration and developing innovative arts-based programming. Other accomplishments include, spearheading a Vital Ideas grant to research emerging issues among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing LGBTQ youth and presenting on topics such as: Co-Design, Death and Dying, World Sustainability, HIV, LGBTQ and Social Health. He holds a master’s degree in Design from Carleton University's School of Industrial Design.
Professional talk on design practices and in relation to today's activism
How might design be used to confront social inequalities?
Exploring the Cultural Impacts of HIV Advertising and Misinformation
A Study of LGBTQ community Activism in the Context of Disability
A study presenting years of grassroots projects by Young Canandian Designers in the context of HIV.
A research-focused program probing deeply into the theoretical and research issues related to design research, interdisciplinary design development and strategic design planning.
Final Thesis Keywords: Design Activism, Social Innovation, Critical Disability, LGBTQ, Queer Theory, Accessbility
360-degree education in the key aspects of advertising: art direction, copywriting, account management and strategy.
Final Thesis Keywords: HIV Advertising, Society, Co-Design, Youth